Goldtent TA Paradise

JEFF CHILDERS ON STEVEN MILLER

1. Fullgoldcrown says:

   November 7, 2026 - 12:44 pm at 12:44 pm

   Yesterday’s biggest news, which many of you have already heard, was headlined atop the New York Times’ website like this: “In Elevating Stephen Miller, Trump Doubles Down on Hard-Line Agenda.” It only took four days to whipsaw from euphoric triumphalism back to complaining about President Trump.

   image 4.png

   Trump’s promotion of MAGA favorite Stephen Miller to chief of staff produced the predictable corporate media diagnosis: he isn’t surrendering enough. Miller replaced Susie Wiles, who stepped down after Tuesday’s shellacking and a breast cancer diagnosis earlier this year. President Trump called Miller an “MVP every year.”

   Cue instantaneous Democrat disgruntlement. “Donald Trump learned nothing from his historic defeat,” Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) fumed. “Our Democratic majorities will fight him every step of the way.” The Times wrote, “instead of ceding to the clear evidence of voter displeasure, Mr. Trump pivoted to a familiar move: more MAGA.”

   The Times seemed to think the right response to losing Congress was hiring a grief counselor instead of a popular fighter.

   “Mr. Miller has been the driver of the president’s most muscular actions,” the Times explained, “including the use of increasingly hostile tactics to capture immigrants across the country and the bombing of small boats in the Caribbean Sea.”

   The Times warned its readers that Miller “knows how the levers of government function.” His “top priority,” the Times said, “is rebuilding the fractured MAGA coalition and pursuing policies that will energize the voters who elected Mr. Trump in 2024.” Let’s hope the Times is right for a change. Its angst is our encouragement.

   image 8.png

   ? But the most encouraging reaction to the news came neither from Chuck Schumer nor the greasy pages of the New York Times. It came from HHS Secretary Bobby Kennedy, who in a few short words managed to both signal who’s actually been stymying him and simultaneously invoke the ghost of 2020’s stolen election.

   Kennedy tweeted, “Next to me, Stephen Miller is the strongest MAHA supporter in the administration. It’s time to unleash the Kraken.”

   image 5.png

   That was a somewhat different personnel assessment than the Times provided. There is only one way to read this. Kennedy indirectly blamed former Chief of Staff Susie Wiles for holding back the MAHA agenda, as many folks have long suspected.

   For medical-freedom readers, this is not a minor footnote. Miller’s America First Legal joined the MAHA coalition that took Biden’s private-employer vaccine mandate to the Supreme Court and separately challenged the federal-worker mandate. Back in January 2022, Miller said, “America First Legal is proud to stand in the breach fighting unconstitutional medical mandates that violate the fundamental rights of our people.” So.

   In other words, Miller’s and Kennedy’s bonds predate the fashionable discovery that a majority of Americans dislike being medically bossed around. They share goals and objectives. (The ones we like the most.)

   Thus, Kennedy’s strongest White House ally, by Kennedy’s own account, is moving into the office that runs the whole machinery. It doesn’t guarantee any particular reform. But there is a massive difference when we have a sympathetic Cabinet secretary and a sympathetic chief of staff deciding which problems reach the President’s desk.

   The other clue is that the staffing change wasn’t a hasty improvisation after Tuesday’s electoral root canal. Reuters reported before the election that Miller, Russ Vought, and White House lawyers had spent months identifying actions Trump can take without any help from a Democrat-controlled Congress.

   Here’s my read: Miller’s hiring means Trump is preparing to negotiate with Democrats— with leverage.

   That makes Miller’s promotion less contradictory to Trump’s offers of cooperation than Chuck Schumer assumed. On Friday, discussing working with Democrats on immigration, taxes, and economic development, Trump said, “I’m very much open to it.” Before the election, he put the expected sequence more plainly: “I guess I’ll become Mr. Veto. And then at some point, we’ll probably make deals.”

   The invitation is open. There is no surrender option. (Sorry, Times.) Trump intends to negotiate from strength with a muscular MAHA lawyer.

   Democrats must now choose their next adventure: cooperate on legislation and share the credit, or turn the next two years into a streaming subpoena subscription service. Miller’s appointment signaled that the White House intends to keep moving under either scenario, subject of course to the statutes and the courts, an orchestra that lawyer Miller has so far played masterfully.

   And for the medical-freedom coalition, Kennedy just supplied the buried lede. He’s ready to move, Kraken-style. Unleash it already.

   Log in to Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.