Stephen Miller Chief of Staff Promotion Called a 'Bad Mistake' by a Republican Congressman on the Eve of His First Day
Rep. Marlin Stutzman of Indiana told CNN on Sunday that Stephen Miller should have been fired after the midterm defeat, not promoted - one day before Miller takes over as White House chief of staff. The White House answered on X, and another Indiana Republican called Miller an 'excellent pick.'
Stephen Miller has not yet spent a day as White House chief of staff, and his promotion is already drawing public fire from inside the president's own party. U.S. Rep. Marlin Stutzman, an Indiana Republican, said on CNN's Inside Politics Sunday that President Trump made a mistake elevating Miller, the architect of the administration's mass immigration crackdown, arguing Miller should have been fired after the Republican Party's crushing midterm defeat instead, the Indianapolis Star reports.
'I come from the business world just like President Trump does,' Stutzman said. 'And you know what? If your team takes a beating just as badly as we took this last week, you have to fire people. You don't promote those who were in charge of what was supposed to be delivered.' Stutzman, who represents northeast Indiana's 3rd District, said he favors a fresh face in the job and that Midwest voters were turned off by Miller's tone and messaging on immigration enforcement. He made the same point with a comparison: Trump, he said, has not deported as many people as President Obama did, yet Miller's messaging left voters believing deportations were, in his words, through the roof. A Migration Policy Institute analysis of publicly available data, cited by the Star, puts deportations at an estimated 980,000 in the first 18 months of this administration - up from the Biden years and the first Trump term, below early-2000s levels.
The White House did not leave the criticism unanswered. Communications Director Steven Cheung posted on X that Miller is 'a Trump OG' who 'has been with the President since the very beginning,' adding, 'There is no bigger advocate for the Trump agenda than Stephen.' And Stutzman is not the whole of his party, or even of his state: Indiana's other Republican voices included Sen. Jim Banks, who called Miller an 'excellent pick' for the job. Stutzman also spread the blame for Tuesday beyond Miller - gas-pump prices reminded Americans things were not going as well as they should, he said - and he drew a line at one escalation, saying he would not vote to impeach Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
The backdrop is Friday's announcement, covered by this station: Trump is replacing Susie Wiles with Miller, who moves up from deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security and takes over on Monday, November 9 - the first major staffing shake-up after Democrats regained control of Congress. A promotion sold by the White House as doubling down, criticized by a Republican congressman as rewarding failure, and defended by the president's communications team as loyalty rewarded: all three versions are now on the record before Miller's first morning in the job.
