‘The president’s id:’ How Stephen Miller is driving Trump’s agenda: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the web model of From the Politics Desk, a night e-newsletter that brings you the NBC Information Politics group’s newest reporting and evaluation from the White Home, Capitol Hill and the marketing campaign path.

In at present’s version, we now have a deeply reported profile on Stephen Miller, one of many few “untouchable” officers in President Donald Trump’s White Home. Plus, Speaker Mike Johnson remains to be scrambling to corral sufficient GOP votes for the get together’s “huge, stunning invoice.” 

— Adam Wollner

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— Adam Wollner

‘The president’s id’: How Stephen Miller and his bare-knuckled ways are driving Trump’s agenda

By Jonathan Allen, Matt Dixon, Katherine Doyle and Sahil Kapur

Exterior of President Donald Trump, no White Home official has accrued extra affect on this administration than Stephen Miller, the 39-year-old anti-immigration crusader whose mind and bare-knuckled ways have been deployed to drive the agenda for the commander in chief.

Not Vice President JD Vance. Not chief of workers Susie Wiles. Not anybody else.

It’s Miller, the White Home deputy chief of workers for coverage, who loaded up scores of govt orders for Trump to sign up his first months again in workplace — on subjects starting from the declaration of a nationwide emergency on the southern border to dismantling range applications within the federal authorities and withdrawing the U.S. from the World Well being Group.

“Stephen is the president’s id,” mentioned one former Trump adviser who is aware of Miller properly. “He has been for some time. It’s simply now he has the leverage and energy to completely effectuate it.”

What’s in a title: Miller’s deputy title doesn’t do justice to the quantity of affect he has within the White Home.

In a Sign alternate reported on by The Atlantic in March, Miller silenced Vice President JD Vance’s questioning of a pending battery of army strikes in Yemen by asserting that Trump already had given the “inexperienced mild.” He has gained a lot authority over such a broad spectrum of insurance policies that Trump informed NBC Information’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker in an interview that it could be a “downgrade” if he appointed Miller as nationwide safety adviser, normally a high-profile and extremely coveted position in any West Wing.

“Stephen is way larger on the totem pole than that,” Trump mentioned. 

Trump “meant it” when he mentioned that about Miller, the senior Trump adviser affirmed. “I don’t know that there’s any coverage space the place his steering is just not sought. The president won’t all the time go along with precisely what he desires, however his enter is all the time listened to.”

‘Untouchable’: Miller’s spouse, Katie Miller, is a longtime Elon Musk confidante who labored on his DOGE group, and the couple has fashioned an in depth working relationship with the wealthiest man on the planet.  

One Miller ally mentioned Katie Miller has change into a robust power contained in the administration, and that the Millers, together with Sergio Gor, the White Home personnel chief, are the one “untouchable” members of Trump’s White Home group.

‘Uh oh’: Even a few of those that praised Miller in interviews have been reluctant to be recognized as a result of they weren’t positive what would possibly anger him — or how the hard-liner would possibly search payback. As a staffer on Capitol Hill, he threatened to show activists on fellow Republican aides when their bosses didn’t line up behind his positions, one senior GOP aide recalled. 

When notified that we have been engaged on a narrative about Miller, one senior White Home official texted: “Uh oh.”

This profile was drawn from interviews and textual content exchanges with greater than a dozen White Home officers, lawmakers and Trump-world figures aware of Miller and his work. Read the full story here →

Johnson tries to strike stability between blue-state Republicans and conservative hard-liners

By Scott Wong, Melanie Zanona, Sahil Kapur and Syedah Asghar

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is exploring methods to placate two rival factions which have emerged as the largest roadblocks within the slim Home majority to an enormous invoice for President Donald Trump’s agenda. 

There’s the Republicans who characterize districts in high-tax blue states who need a larger cap on the state and native tax deduction, often called SALT. The present model of the laws raises the cap to $30,000, from $10,000, for particular person filers. However that doesn’t go excessive sufficient for the pro-SALT Republicans.

Then there are the conservative hard-liners who’ve pushed for steeper cuts to Medicaid. They need the work necessities for the well being care program to kick in a lot sooner than the 2029 date the invoice requires.  

After assembly with SALT Caucus Republicans and hard-right Freedom Caucus members, Johnson urged there might be some wiggle room on these fronts.

“I’m satisfied that we’ll be capable to alter the dial, so to talk, in order that we are able to come to an settlement that may meet the factors that everyone has and that we are able to transfer this factor ahead,” Johnson mentioned.

“For those who do extra on SALT, you must discover extra financial savings. So these are the dials, the metaphorical dials, that I’m speaking about,” he mentioned. “We are attempting to do that in a deficit impartial manner — that was the dedication that we made all alongside.” 

Requested if Republicans will pace up the Medicaid work necessities to extract bigger financial savings in a revised plan, Johnson replied: “All the things is on the desk.”

“That’s the compromise that might work,” mentioned Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., one of many conservative hard-liners. 

Bother brewing? However Johnson may have an issue getting by way of the subsequent step within the course of: the Home Price range Committee, which is scheduled to cobble collectively the payments that varied committees have handed into one bundle on Friday. At the very least three conservatives on the panel, Reps. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., have cited points with the laws because it stands. And Republicans can solely afford one defection there. 

Johnson has nonetheless expressed optimism he can drag the multitrillion-dollar bundle throughout the end line by his self-imposed Memorial Day Weekend deadline. 

Read more →

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