Why Trump's new chief of staff poses a threat to Ukraine and where he came from

This time, it was no ordinary official leaving the White House, but Susie Wiles – one of the most influential figures in the administration and Donald Trump’s trusted advisor throughout his second term.

The announced decision to replace the White House Chief of Staff with her deputy, Stephen Miller, sends a clear signal to both Democrats and the American public: Trump not only believes his political course is correct, but is also prepared to intensify it despite the expected opposition in Congress.

Miller’s appointment is also bad news for Kyiv.

Read more about who the new White House Chief of Staff is and what this might change mean against the backdrop of the upcoming midterm elections in the article by European Pravda journalist Olha Kovalchuk: Donald Trump’s Yermak: how Stephen Miller took charge of the US President’s office and what he thinks about Ukraine. 

Until recently, 69-year-old Susie Wiles was considered the second most powerful person in the White House, after Trump himself. Thanks to the president’s trust, her position was virtually untouchable.

To some extent, she could be described as the equivalent of Andriy Yermak, who headed Ukraine’s Presidential Office.

As White House Chief of Staff, Wiles established herself as a safeguard against the chaotic tendencies of the 47th US president, helping to keep them in check.

Her sudden dismissal, just days after the Republicans suffered a crushing defeat in the midterm congressional elections, suggests that Trump has blamed her for the disappointing results.

The new White House Chief of Staff is Stephen Miller, Wiles’s former deputy and the president’s adviser on homeland security. He is widely regarded as the architect behind key administration decisions in some of its most influential policy areas: immigration enforcement, domestic security and foreign policy.

To return to the Yermak analogy, Miller is very much his equivalent – minus Wiles’s sense of restraint.

Have Miller’s recommendations to President Trump been successful? That is highly debatable.

The Republicans’ poor performance in the congressional elections should have cost Miller his job. After all, the areas under his responsibility at the White House almost entirely overlap with those in which the administration’s actions have caused Trump’s approval ratings to plummet and driven voters away from Republican candidates.

Miller is a hardliner when it comes to Iran. This is despite the fact that the war itself is believed to have cost Trump control of the Senate following the midterm elections.

He also supports Trump’s trade wars and the tariffs imposed on countries around the world.

During the Greenland crisis earlier this year, Miller publicly declared that the Arctic island should belong to the United States.

Miller was also one of the driving forces behind strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean as part of an operation targeting drug trafficking from Latin America.

Stephen Miller has also made statements about Ukraine and they have not been encouraging.

For example, in 2023, he criticised the Biden administration on social media for allocating substantial funds to support Ukraine. He also described Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a "US proxy war against Russia", supposedly driven by the issue of NATO expansion.

It remains unclear how much influence Miller will have over foreign policy, given that he will be competing in this area with Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio. However, his track record suggests that his influence is likely to be considerable.

Meanwhile, Miller is laying the groundwork for the Trump administration to push ahead with its agenda despite opposition from Congress, which is expected to reject Trump’s initiatives.

This means that a legal and constitutional battle with the US Congress lies ahead.

Democrats have expressed concern over Miller’s appointment, but they are also preparing to fight back. Members of the House of Representatives have advised Miller to find a lawyer, as they are preparing to investigate his activities.