Stephen Miller: the ‘prime minister’ behind Donald Trump's plan to reshape America

Washington's most powerful unelected bureaucrat slashes immigration and threatens his political enemies.

- Guy Chazan

When Mr Stephen Miller took to the podium at the memorial for conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September, he issued a stark warning to the left-wing forces he believes were responsible for the assassination.

“You have no idea the dragon you have awakened,” he said, addressing his ideological enemies. “You have no idea how determined we will be to save this civilisation, to save the West, to save this republic.”

Other eulogies that day also blamed the Trump administration's political opponents for Mr Kirk’s death. But Mr Miller’s words carry real weight. Perhaps more than anyone else, he has the power to transform conservative rage over the killing into what he calls “a righteous thunder of action”.

The left has good reason to fear his retribution.

Mr Miller is America’s most powerful unelected bureaucrat. As Mr Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff and adviser on homeland security, he is the architect of the President’s plan to remake America.

“He’s prime minister,” said Mr Steve Bannon, Mr Trump’s chief strategist during his first term. “I don’t think there’s an aspect of domestic policy - outside of some areas of national security and treasury functions and finance and things like that - that he’s not intimately involved in.”

He is also a man long accused by critics of autocratic tendencies. In August, he labelled the Democratic Party a “domestic extremist organisation”. In May, he talked of suspending the writ of habeas corpus - the constitutional right to due process.

Former colleagues are not surprised at his influence. “I always knew that if Trump came back into power, it would be the Stephen Miller show, and that’s exactly what we have today,” said Ms Olivia Troye, a former national security official who interacted with Mr Miller while working in the first Trump White House.

“There’s nobody there to counterbalance him,” she said. “That’s why you're seeing a lot of the more extreme things happen.”