Democrats blast pick of Stephen Miller as chief of staff: ‘Really odd’ after midterms

Democrats blast pick of Stephen Miller as chief of staff: ‘Really odd’ after midterms Democrats on Sunday spoke out against the elevation of Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff, saying it comes after Americans showed at the ballot box that they wanted a shift away from the Trump administration’s most divisive policies and ideas. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), speaking Sunday on ABC News’s “This Week,” called Miller’s promotion on Friday by President Donald Trump an “irresponsible” and “awful choice,” and said he would not work with the new appointee. Jonathan Karl of “This Week” noted that Jeffries occasionally communicated with Miller’s predecessor, Susie Wiles, something that Jeffries said won’t continue. “It’s not going to happen with this new chief of staff to the extent that [Miller] lasts, because he clearly represents, along with Pete Hegseth and a few others, a really toxic brand of political engagement of politics and of governance,” Jeffries said. “And the American people just voted for that kind of MAGA extremism to be eradicated.” Miller, 41, recently served as White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser and is the architect of several controversial policies, including the immigration crackdown, strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, the raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and Trump’s efforts to exert control over Greenland. Sen.-elect Adam Hamilton (D-Kansas) told CNN that Miller’s promotion seems “really odd” and “like a doubling down” on the first two years of the Trump administration, even after an election that appeared to be a repudiation of it. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic senator-elect from Michigan, told ABC News that Miller’s promotion represents the Trump administration’s “incoherent messaging.” “I don’t know what Stephen Miller has actually contributed to our culture, our society in any real way, except for to make us more angry, to stoke the worst kind of fear and vitriol, to weaponize ICE in our streets, to take American lives,” he said.