Dear Everybody:
Well, as somebody said the other day, the midterms were the Battle of Helm’s Deep, but they definitely weren’t the end of the war, and now we were going to have to go on and destroy the One Ring and Sauron, and that was certainly proved today when Trump emerged from his post-election stupor and sent us a clear message of what the rest of the war was going to look like:
–This afternoon Trump fired White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and hired full-on Nazi Stephen Miller to be his new chief of staff.
–Trump: “I am pleased to announce that Mr. Stephen Miller, the current Deputy Chief of Staff of the Trump Administration, and one of my most trusted advisers, will become the Chief of Staff starting Monday, November 9, 2026. Susie Wiles, who has done an outstanding job, will be moving over to the Trump Political Operation.” (Translation: I can’t cut her loose because she knows where all the bodies are buried, so I will give her a job-in-name-only and a lot of money to keep her quiet.)
–When asked why he had promoted Miller: “Stephen’s been with me from the beginning. He gets it.” (Translation: He never crosses me.)
–Susie Wiles was the last partially sane person left in the White House, and now she’s gone, and in her place is possibly the craziest–and certainly the meanest–person left in his administration.
–In 2019, over 100 Democrats wrote a letter demanding Stephen Miller’s immediate firing, saying, “A documented white nationalist has no place in any presidential administration, and especially not in such an influential position…” Since then he has proven just how true those words were as he headed up the mass deportation of innocent people and directed the DHS and ICE to be even more ruthless and cruel and to deport ever more people, even if they were innocent, even if they were US citizens.
–Jess Craven: “Donald Trump has fired Susie Wiles and replaced her with Stephen Miller as his chief of staff. While on one hand, this does feel scary, we should remember that it’s actually a sign of weakness. They’re flailing like crazy. Also, we’re the powerhouses in this equation–not them. Stephen Miller didn’t just take down an entire political party. We did. Let’s have fun making his life hell.”
–Lucian K. Truscott IV: “Headlines this afternoon say Trump has been ‘furious’ at the Thursday election results, stalking through the West Wing, growling at underlings, practicing his golf swing, looking for someone, anyone to blame…last night he accepted the resignation of his loyal chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and this morning he appointed his Reichminister of Hate, Stephen Miller, to replace her. The bunker’s final population is complete…all that’s missing is the five-foot thick reinforced concrete walls.” (And those will come as soon as Trump finishes his ballroom.)
–Dem Rep. Jim McGovern: “Clearly they’ve learned nothing.” (He added a puking emoji.)
–Ron Filipkowski: “In response to the election wipeout, Trump doubles down on awfulness and elevates the most repulsive Republican in America to Chief of Staff…If the remaining Republicans left in elective office thought over the last couple days that Trump was going to course correct to improve their plight before their next reckoning in 2028, the appointment of Stephen Miller as Chief of Staff just dashed those hopes.”
–Dem Senator Chris Van Hollen: “This is a sign of Trump’s contempt for the voters in the aftermath of an election that was a repudiation of Trump’s corruption, wars, cruelty, and indifference to the economic pain of Americans. It’s another kick in the teeth to the American people.”
–House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries: “Stephen Miller is a dangerous xenophobe and reckless extremist who has American blood on his hands. His presence in government should be eradicated like a malignant tumor. Fire him today.”
–NAACP President Derrick Johnson: “Stephen Miller belongs nowhere near the Oval Office. he belongs before a judge. He’s a thug who will be remembered as the architect of Trump’s vile and authoritarian regime.”
–FWAU Monsonsk: “Might as well get it all out by having Stephen Miller do crazy stuff in his new, exalted role, which will likely go to his head in a major way. It will sharpen everybody to have him in that role.”
–Catherine Switzer: “Remember when Bannon got explicit power? How long did he last after he got all the credit?”
–Marc Williams: “This is a spectacularly bad move for Trump. Miller will be the cause of Trump’s third impeachment and first conviction in US history. That’s how bad this choice will be.”
–HiloKaren: “Miller is pure evil, just as Trump and so many of his cabinet.”
–Steve Schmidt: “Trump’s power has peaked. The danger hasn’t.”
–Some people think this promotion to an official position for Miller is an attempt to keep him from having to testify before Congress. Before, he was just an adviser, now Trump will be able (maybe) to claim executive privilege for Miller.
–My take: Trump is doubling down, which is the WORST possible thing he could do after the American people explicitly rejected what he’s already done, and which will make the lines perfectly clear about what’s at stake. This is going to unify the Dems, both new and old, like nothing else could. Also, I haven’t seen anybody mention the fact that everybody HATES Stephen Miller, and I don’t just mean Democrats, I mean everyone who’s ever come in contact with him. He’s power-hungry and arrogant and mean, and everybody in the White House and even ICE hates having to work with him–and hates him personally, too. They all call him a full-on Nazi and worse. (I know, it’s hard to think of anything worse.) And, unlike some of the slimes in the Trump administration, he’s incapable of putting on a friendly, non-threatening face for the public. What I always fear most is that another Republican will emerge who has the ability to make us think they’re not really as bad as we think, but I’m not worried about that at all with Miller. He comes across exactly the way he is–vengeful and vicious and cruel–and he’s now going to be the public face of Trump’s administration, a face with the mask fully off. This is not going to end how Trump thinks it is. So don’t let it throw you–we knew Trump was never going to go peacefully. But we’ve got him on the run.
–This story just broke this afternoon. I’ll have a lot more tomorrow.
With Trump’s announcement it became very clear Democrats need to hit the ground running, and everybody has a different idea for what Democrats should do first:
–The problem is there are just SO many things that need to be done and/or reversed: stopping the war in Iran, getting rid of the tariffs, getting rid of ICE, passing health care, requiring vaccines, prosecuting corruption, helping Ukraine, stopping global warming, undoing the DOGE cuts, stopping data centers, regulating AI, restoring SNAP benefits, , releasing the Epstein files, prosecuting the Epstein perpetrators, stopping the arch, Trump’s private golf club, and his destruction of the Kennedy Center.
–It reminds me of the time some friends of ours were moving to a new state and the moving van caught fire and they arrived to find everything in it a smoking rubble. The insurance company gave them a big check to get started replacing the stuff that burned, and I remember our friend saying she went to Sears and opened the door and then stood there in tears because she had no idea where to start. I mean, they needed everything: furniture, appliances, sheets, towels, bedspreads, blankets, lamps, dishes, pots and pans, silverware, clothes, shoes, coats, underwear, scissors, scotch tape, spatula, you name it. And she needed it all right then.
–I feel that’s how the Democrats have to be feeling right now–so much needs to be fixed and it all needs to be done NOW!
–And everybody has a different idea about what our newly elected senators and representatives need to do first.
In voting news:
–The original 13 colonies, who haven’t agreed on anything since they all signed the Declaration of Independence, all went blue.
–In Colorado, Democrat Jessica Killin flipped yet another Republican House seat and defeated Jeff Crank, which makes 6 Democratic Congresspersons out of 7. Lauren Boebert’s race is still too close to call, though she failed to pick up the votes she thought she would in Weld County, and the two other counties left to count are bluer. The race between Democrat Dwayne Romero and GOPer Jeff Hurd (on the very red Western slope) ended for a narrow win for Hurd.
In schadenfreude news:
–The candidates for the Senate did nearly five points better in counties where Trump had held a rally.
–The Democrats won counties where there was a Cheesecake Factory by an average of 29 points.
–This election was a bigger wave election than the one right after Nixon resigned over Watergate.
–Joe Biden nominated Scott Colom to be a federal judge a few years back, and Cindy Hyde-Smith blocked him with a blue seat. Now he’s on track to take her seat away from her.
–Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth released a new video promoting himself which everyone says is a sign he knows he’s going to be fired/impeached. He had been hoping to be named to Marsha Blackburn’s Senate seat after she becomes governor (she gets to name her replacement), but they announced this morning that he was NOT under consideration for that job.
In Rats Fleeing a Sinking Ship news:
–US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and lead prosecutor on Trump’s “grand conspiracy” case, Jason Reding Quinones, has quit. (The Grand Conspiracy case is one that has been going after Jack Smith and everyone who worked on the Mar-a-lago classified documents case and trying to find something to prosecute them on. The head of it, Joe DiGenova, had quit a couple of months ago, saying the DOJ was demanding they file charges when there wasn’t any evidence.)
–John Eisenberg, the DOJ’s top national security official, is leaving, too.
–Influencer Laura Loomer announced that her podcast is “going on hiatus” after the losses of the midterms. Loomer: “I’ve been going non stop supporting President Trump ever since he came down the golden escalator.” She said she had been “running on empty for too long,” and intended to concentrate on other things.
–Jared Holt: “Laura Loomer announced she’s going on hiatus from her podcast. I think we’re going to find that the midterms end up being a mass extinction event for MAGA influencers.”
In historical news:
–On April 21, 1933, Rudolf Hess was appointed Deputy Fuhrer. As such he supervised the Party Central Committee, managed key administrative departments, organized rallies, and drafted major legislation including the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935, which led directly to the Holocaust.
–It didn’t end well. He grew increasingly unhinged and eventually flew to Scotland in what he claimed was an attempt to broker a peace deal on his own between Germany and England. Instead, he was arrested and spent the rest of the war as a political prisoner. As a major war criminal, he was sentenced to 40 years in Berlin’s Spandau prison and then committed suicide.
In other news:
–The President of Paraguay, Santiago Pena, has been impeached by a vote of 78-0 and charged with “the plundering of public and private funds and pensioners’ money” after the collapse of a major digital bank. He has resigned, but his resignation may not be accepted since it would mean he could serve in the legislature–they want him tried. He’s a major ally of Trump’s.
–Trump has now lost most of his dictator friends–Orban, Bolsonaro, Vucic, Netanyahu, and now Pena. Only Putin is left in what Trump thought was going to be his turning the whole world authoritarian.
–When CBS asked Alina Habba whether she planned to give her recent earnings to get a pardon for the person who hired her to Trump’s presidential library, she tweeted, “Haha,” then tried to immediately delete it.
In good news:
–The DOJ finally gave up on prosecuting Ksenia Petrova, the Harvard researcher who was charged with smuggling in frog embryos (for her research, you morons.) The DOJ claims the case is still good, but not worth the time complying for the selective prosecution discovery. (Translation: They got caught dead to rights vindictively prosecuting her and this is their only way out.)
–Senator Chris Murphy has been released from the hospital following his stroke last weekend. He is now in a rehab center and is expected to fully recover.
–LIV Golf, which Trump started with the Saudis in his attempt to have his own golf tournaments, officially filed for liquidation. Everything Trump touches dies.
Best message to Trump, from Ted Lieu: “Dear White House: Trump’s name will never be on the Kennedy Center or the Reflecting Pool. The Trump Arch will not be built. And in two years, Congress and the next Administration will erase Trump’s name and stench from everything he has touched. Ozymandias.’
Best comment of the day, from Steve Vladeck: “The point is not that Stephen Miller will have any more power or influence as formal Chief of Staff; it’s that his elevation sends an unambiguous message to Democrats that conciliation ain’t happening–sparing them from what otherwise could have devolved into a messy split over how to approach (the next two years.)”
And don’t forget WE DID IT! We turned the country blue–and it might get even bluer this weekend as results continue to come in.
Keep calm and carry on,
And have a great weekend,
Connie Willis
