On Tuesday, Donald Trump made a vague promise to only personally abuse the powers of the presidency on “day one” of the second administration he hopes to have. For his long-term agenda, Trump is planning to staff major government offices with a crop of the most extreme, vitriolic, and sycophantic Republicans in his orbit — Including known white nationalist and Taylor Swift truther Stephen Miller.
According to a report from Axios, Trump has been mulling which loyalists he will elevate into government if he reclaims the White House. Names floated for various positions include Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, J.D. Vance, Ric Grenell, and Kash Patel, among others. The report also notes that Tucker Carlson is former First Lady Melania Trump’s pick for vice president. Nothing is set in stone but the criteria is clear: potential Trump administration officials must be loyal, vengeful, and unrestrained.
Miller, a racist anti-immigration hawk who served as a policy adviser and speechwriter in Trump’s first administration has reportedly been floated as a pick for high-level positions, including attorney general. Such an elevation would place the mastermind behind the Trump administration’s most draconian immigration policies, including family separation and the Muslim ban, in control of the Justice Department.
Miller is also prone to pushing far-right conspiracy theories, including the Great Replacement and, of course, the lie that Trump won the 2020 election. On Wednesday, he tweeted in response to Time selecting Taylor Swift as its Person of the Year that “what is happening” with the anti-Trump pop star is “not organic.”
Miller has been vocal about the sweeping crackdowns on immigration he expects from a second Trump term, telling The New York Times in November: “Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown.”
Miller also described to the Times his plans to build what can essentially be described as concentration camps in Texas to hold the vast amounts of migrants to deport, and floated the dubious legal theory that Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act in order to have the military assist in rounding up undocumented migrants.
Since Trump was ousted from office, Miller has spearheaded efforts by Republicans to enforce their culture war agendas via frivolous lawsuits. Miller’s nonprofit, America First Legal, has sued Target, and Mars Inc., the maker of M&M’s, in response to right-wing hysteria regarding the companies’ support of diversity initiatives. The hyper-conservative, weaponized legal network Miller is building serves an insidious purpose that would only be amplified should Miller be appointed to government.
Source link: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-stephen-miller-attorney-general-1234919032/