Stephen Miller is more ruthless and ambitious than before
Jason Zengerle, The Ruthless Ambition of Stephen Miller, NYTimes, July 7, 2025.
The crisis, from the immigration raids that sparked the protests to the militarized response that tried to put the protests down, was almost entirely of Mr. Miller’s making. And it served as a testament to the remarkable position he now occupies in Mr. Trump’s Washington. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who reportedly accompanied Mr. Miller on his visit to ICE headquarters, seems to defer to him. “It’s really Stephen running D.H.S.,” a Trump adviser said. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, is so focused on preparing for and appearing on Fox News that she has essentially ceded control of the Department of Justice to Mr. Miller, making him, according to the conservative legal scholar Edward Whelan, “the de facto attorney general.” And in a White House where the chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is not well versed or terribly interested in policy — “She’s producing a reality TV show every day,” another Trump adviser said, “and it’s pretty amazing, right?” — Mr. Miller is typically the final word.
There is much truth to the conventional wisdom that the biggest difference between the first and second Trump presidencies is that, in the second iteration, Mr. Trump is unrestrained. The same is true of Mr. Miller. He has emerged as Mr. Trump’s most powerful, and empowered, adviser. With the passage of the big policy bill, ICE will have an even bigger budget to execute Mr. Miller’s vision and, in effect, serve as his own private army. Moreover, his influence extends beyond immigration to the battles the Trump administration is fighting on higher education, transgender rights, discrimination law and foreign policy.
Mr. Miller, 39, is both a committed ideologue and a ruthless bureaucratic operator — and he has cast himself as the only person capable of fully carrying out Mr. Trump’s radical policy vision.
Much later:
At the same time, Mr. Miller is a world-class brown noser. In an administration that puts a premium on sycophancy, he stands out for just how much he sucks up to his boss.
Musk wants to create a new political party
Theodore Schleifer, Elon Musk Says He Will Start a New Political Party, NYTimes, July 7, 2025.
Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person and the country’s biggest political donor, said on Saturday that he would create a new political party, an enormous and challenging undertaking that would test the billionaire’s newfound influence on American politics.
“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy,” Mr. Musk wrote on X, his social media website, on Saturday. “Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”
Mr. Musk, once a close ally of President Trump’s who in recent weeks has repeatedly bickered with him, had not filed paperwork as of Saturday evening for the new party, though he added in a separate post that the America Party would be active in elections “next year.” No immediate signs suggested that Mr. Musk was working to establish his party quickly. Any new entity would be required to be disclosed to the Federal Election Commission.
Trump responds to Musk
Tyler Pager, Trump Says Musk Is ‘Off the Rails’ With His Third-Party Effort, NYTimes, July 7, 2025.
President Trump assailed Elon Musk on Sunday night, describing him as “off the rails” after Mr. Musk said he was creating a new political party amid an ongoing rift with the president.
“I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday evening. “He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States.”
Mr. Musk’s effort to create a new political party, called the America Party, is the latest rupture in his relationship with Mr. Trump. Mr. Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, spent hundreds of millions of dollars to support Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, and then Mr. Trump rewarded him with a wide-ranging position overseeing drastic cuts to government staffing and contracts. [...]
“Backing a candidate for president is not out of the question, but the focus for the next 12 months is on the House and the Senate,” Mr. Musk wrote on X on Sunday.
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