Senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller has been working overtime to ensure people know exactly who is in charge of the administration’s immigration policy.
Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Adviser to President Donald Trump, has been viewed as the mastermind behind some of the administration’s harshest immigration policies, and excerpts from an upcoming book suggest he relishes his newfound influence.
The book, Regime Change by New York Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, includes a host of behind-the-scenes details of the inner workings of the White House.
Miller spearheaded the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort and pushed for troops to be deployed in cities across the country.
Haberman and Swan report that in the process, Miller would routinely berate staff members. According to a senior administration official interviewed for the book, during a meeting in which he was demanding that deportations be sped up, Miller threatened to fire the entirety of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The New York Times report on the revelations contained in the book also notes that Miller “often presented his views as representing requests from the president, even as he remained cautious about expressing his opinions in Mr. Trump’s presence.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
Under Miller’s influence, the Department of Homeland Security has implemented a series of increasingly unpopular policies during the president’s second term, including the highly contentious decision to deploy federal agents in U.S. cities, which culminated in the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
The department has also undergone major personnel changes, with former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem being ousted in March and replaced with former Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who became the face of the president’s brutal immigration crackdown, was also fired after the Minneapolis killings.
Miller’s own oversight of the homeland security policy has been in question in recent months, with The Atlantic reporting that Mullin had opted to consult with border czar Tom Homan and CBP commissioner Rodney Scott rather than Miller after taking up his new role.
Miller was also reportedly frozen out of major DHS calls after branding Pretti, the 37-year-old VA ICU nurse killed in Minneapolis, a “domestic terrorist.” White House advisers who spoke to The Atlantic said the president himself has discussed Miller’s tendency to “sometimes go too far.”
Further leaks from the White House reveal that the administration’s own lawyers privately warned against Miller’s push to strip migrants of their right to challenge their detention. Haberman and Swan reported in The New York Times that White House staff secretary Will Scharf, a Harvard-trained lawyer, wrote to Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles about Miller last April, expressing concern about Miller’s attempt to suspend habeas corpus and arguing that it would likely not stand up to legal scrutiny.
Other revelations contained in the book, which is set to be released on June 23, include the fact that the president has been DIYing some of the changes around the Oval Office and affixing gold adornments with super glue.
The book also details his late-night snacking habits, which include leaving trash on the floor and throwing out White House sterling silver utensils, as well as the president’s preference for carpeted bathrooms.
“The portion nearest the shower would often be soaked through; the staff was never quite sure why, but they worried about mold growing underneath,” Haberman and Swan wrote. “The solution was to lay a small piece of the same carpet—never an actual bath mat—over the larger one.”
“Several of these pieces were kept in rotation, swapped out and dried,” they added.
