At Donald Trump’s press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday morning, the president said over and over again that he and his administration would be “running” Venezuela. Pressed for details, the Republican suggested “people in the military” would be involved, before concluding, “It’s largely going to be, for a period of time, the people that are standing right behind me. We’re going to be running it.”
Standing behind him at the time were five men: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The fifth was White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
Around the same time, two U.S. military sources confirmed to MS NOW that Miller was key to the planning and execution of the operation in Venezuela and was heavily involved throughout the process. Similarly, The Washington Post reported that Miller “took a central role in the effort to remove” Nicolás Maduro.
It’s worth asking why.
Miller, according to the White House, is the president’s deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor. In Trump’s first term, Miller also led the White House’s speechwriting team.
He has no formal background in foreign policy or national security matters, but Miller nevertheless has been involved in U.S. policy toward Ukraine and Israel, and Venezuela is apparently now part of his portfolio too. The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie recently noted in a column: [Miller] is the primary force behind the expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection into a roving deportation force. He has pushed both agencies to step up their enforcement operations, targeting schools, restaurants, farms and other work sites and detaining anyone agents can get their hands on, regardless of citizenship or legal status. It is Miller who is behind the militarization of ICE, the use of the National Guard to occupy Democrat-led cities and assist deportation efforts, and the plan to blanket the United States with a network of detention camps for unauthorized immigrants and anyone else caught in his dragnet. Bouie added that Miller is effectively serving as the nation’s “shadow president for internal security.” In hindsight, perhaps “internal” was unnecessary. In Trump’s first term, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, had an almost cartoonishly large policy portfolio. In his second term, it’s increasingly obvious that the president has a similar model in mind for Miller.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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