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

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, we have a deeply reported profile on Stephen Miller, one of the few “untouchable” officials in President Donald Trump’s White House. Plus, Speaker Mike Johnson is still scrambling to corral enough GOP votes for the party’s “big, beautiful bill.” 

— Adam Wollner

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— Adam Wollner

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

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

Outside of President Donald Trump, no White House official has accumulated more influence in this administration than Stephen Miller, the 39-year-old anti-immigration crusader whose brain and bare-knuckled tactics have been deployed to drive the agenda for the commander in chief.

Not Vice President JD Vance. Not chief of staff Susie Wiles. Not anyone else.

It is Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, who loaded up scores of executive orders for Trump to sign in his first months back in office — on topics ranging from the declaration of a national emergency at the southern border to dismantling diversity programs in the federal government and withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization.

“Stephen is the president’s id,” said one former Trump adviser who knows Miller well. “He has been for a while. It’s just now he has the leverage and power to fully effectuate it.”

What’s in a title: Miller’s deputy title doesn’t do justice to the amount of influence he has in the White House.

In a Signal exchange reported on by The Atlantic in March, Miller silenced Vice President JD Vance’s questioning of a pending battery of military strikes in Yemen by asserting that Trump already had given the “green light.” He has gained so much authority over such a broad spectrum of policies that Trump told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker in an interview that it would be a “downgrade” if he appointed Miller as national security adviser, usually a high-profile and highly coveted role in any West Wing.

“Stephen is much higher on the totem pole than that,” Trump said. 

Trump “meant it” when he said that about Miller, the senior Trump adviser affirmed. “I don’t know that there is any policy area where his guidance is not sought. The president might not always go with exactly what he wants, but his input is always listened to.”

‘Untouchable’: Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, is a longtime Elon Musk confidante who worked on his DOGE team, and the couple has formed a close working relationship with the wealthiest man in the world.  

One Miller ally said Katie Miller has become a powerful force inside the administration, and that the Millers, along with Sergio Gor, the White House personnel chief, are the only “untouchable” members of Trump’s White House team.

‘Uh oh’: Even some of those who praised Miller in interviews were reluctant to be identified because they weren’t sure what might anger him — or how the hard-liner might seek payback. As a staffer on Capitol Hill, he threatened to turn activists on fellow Republican aides when their bosses did not line up behind his positions, one senior GOP aide recalled. 

When notified that we were working on a story about Miller, one senior White House official texted: “Uh oh.”

This profile was drawn from interviews and text exchanges with more than a dozen White House officials, lawmakers and Trump-world figures familiar with Miller and his work. Read the full story here →

Johnson tries to strike balance 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 ways to placate two rival factions that have emerged as the biggest roadblocks in the narrow House majority to a massive bill for President Donald Trump’s agenda. 

There’s the Republicans who represent districts in high-tax blue states who want a higher cap on the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT. The current version of the legislation raises the cap to $30,000, from $10,000, for individual filers. But that doesn’t go high enough for the pro-SALT Republicans.

Then there are the conservative hard-liners who have pushed for steeper cuts to Medicaid. They want the work requirements for the health care program to kick in much earlier than the 2029 date the bill calls for.  

After meeting with SALT Caucus Republicans and hard-right Freedom Caucus members, Johnson suggested there could be some wiggle room on those fronts.

“I am convinced that we’ll be able to adjust the dial, so to speak, so that we can come to an agreement that will meet the criteria that everybody has and that we can move this thing forward,” Johnson said.

“If you do more on SALT, you have to find more savings. So these are the dials, the metaphorical dials, that I’m talking about,” he said. “We are trying to do this in a deficit neutral way — that was the commitment that we made all along.” 

Asked if Republicans will speed up the Medicaid work requirements to extract larger savings in a revised plan, Johnson replied: “Everything is on the table.”

“That is the compromise that could work,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., one of the conservative hard-liners. 

Trouble brewing? But Johnson could have a problem getting through the next step in the process: the House Budget Committee, which is scheduled to cobble together the bills that various committees have passed into one package on Friday. At least three conservatives on the panel, Reps. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., have cited issues with the legislation as it stands. And Republicans can only afford one defection there. 

Johnson has still expressed optimism he can drag the multitrillion-dollar package across the finish line by his self-imposed Memorial Day Weekend deadline. 

Read more →

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