THE DAILY BS: HOW MUCH CAN YOU HANDLE?

SPARE ME THE BS (I’ve got things to do)

• New White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has circulated an internal memo giving Trump’s Cabinet secretaries greater control over their departments’ messaging, reversing a centralized system reportedly enforced by predecessor Susie Wiles.
• A former Trump administration official accused Wiles of demanding “absolute control” and using threats of damaging media coverage to keep senior officials in line.
• Miller is also restructuring the White House chain of command, renaming the Cabinet Secretary position and establishing clearer lines of authority over policy and scheduling.

LAY IT ON ME (I’ve got time)

Stephen Miller has barely settled into the White House chief of staff’s office, and apparently one of his first orders of business is taking a wrecking ball to the management system Susie Wiles left behind. And judging by what some administration insiders are telling Fox News, there may have been more than a few people waiting for someone to hand him the demolition equipment.

According to an exclusive Fox News report Wednesday, Miller’s office circulated an internal memo announcing significant changes to how the Trump administration operates. The biggest shift gives Cabinet secretaries greater freedom to communicate on behalf of their departments without having nearly everything filtered through the White House.

That might sound like a routine bureaucratic adjustment. In Washington, however, allowing a Cabinet secretary to speak without first obtaining permission can apparently qualify as a revolutionary act.

One source familiar with the memo said the changes would make the Cabinet more effective because it had previously been too constrained. Another described the arrangement as “unleashing the Cabinet to be the captains of their own ship.”

Which raises an interesting question: Who had been keeping all those captains tied to the dock? According to several people who spoke with Fox News, the answer was Susie Wiles.

Wiles, Trump’s former chief of staff and the first woman to hold the position, earned a reputation for imposing discipline on an administration not exactly famous for staying inside the lines. But some insiders now paint a considerably less flattering picture of what that discipline looked like behind closed doors.

One former administration official accused Wiles of demanding complete authority and enforcing it through intimidation. “The control doesn’t come from, ‘hey, you have to do this.’ The control comes from threat of duress,” the former official told Fox News, alleging that officials feared being publicly undermined if they stepped out of line.

The source also claimed Wiles had warned Cabinet secretaries that departures from approved messaging could leave them personally blamed for Republican election losses. Imagine being a Cabinet secretary in Donald Trump’s administration and discovering that your biggest concern isn’t the president’s next Truth Social post. It’s whether the chief of staff thinks you said too much on television.

The former official summarized Wiles’ approach with a particularly revealing characterization: She couldn’t control Trump, but she believed she could control everything else. That is quite an ambition in an administration where the boss has been known to change the national conversation before breakfast.

Miller’s changes appear designed to move in the opposite direction. Under the new memo, the White House Cabinet Secretary position becomes Director of Cabinet Relations, emphasizing support for department heads rather than policing every word they say.

The administration is also establishing a more defined policy structure. Caleb Orr, previously an assistant secretary of state, is becoming chief of staff for policy; presidential scheduling operations will report to Chamberlain Harris, deputy director of outer oval operations. The memo calls for clearly assigned responsibilities and no overlapping policy portfolios.

Translated from Washingtonese, that means fewer competing power centers and, theoretically, fewer people fighting over who gets to tell everybody else what to do. There’s an irony here that is almost too good to pass up.

Miller, one of Trump’s most combative and ideologically uncompromising advisers, is now being portrayed as the guy loosening the White House’s internal grip. The man Democrats regularly accuse of wanting too much executive power has apparently decided that Cabinet secretaries could use a little more freedom.

Wiles, meanwhile, was widely credited with helping maintain order during Trump’s return to the White House. Trump publicly praised her when announcing Miller’s promotion on November 6, and she has moved to his political operation.

The blistering accusations from unnamed former and current officials are their accounts, not established findings. Wiles did not respond to Fox News’ request for comment before publication.

Still, the timing is remarkable. Republicans are reeling from their midterm defeats, Democrats are preparing to take control of Congress, and Trump has installed one of his fiercest loyalists to run the White House.

Instead of simply tightening the screws, Miller’s first organizational moves suggest he believes the administration needs less centralized message control and more room for its department heads to operate. For a town obsessed with controlling the message, Washington may be about to discover something truly terrifying: Cabinet secretaries speaking for themselves.

DBS WIRE SOURCES

• Fox News — Miller memo and Wiles-era allegations
• White House — President Trump appoints Stephen Miller
• Earlier DBS — Susie Wiles out, Stephen Miller in
• Earlier DBS — Former adviser alleges White House influence problems