President Donald Trump's newly appointed chief of staff, Stephen Miller, has been widely described as "paranoid" and fiercely determined to push his agenda. The chief of staff is among the most powerful unelected positions in the White House, responsible for managing the president's staff, controlling access to the Oval Office, and steering the administration's agenda through the federal bureaucracy. A new report now details how deeply he exerted control over the White House even before receiving his promotion — a portrait that The Daily Beast characterized as "creepy."

According to reporting by The Daily Beast's Julia Owned published on Wednesday, Miles Taylor — the Homeland Security official who wrote anonymously as "Anonymous" for The New York Times in September 2018, saying he was part of a "quiet resistance" under Trump's first term — described what working with Miller demanded: fielding late-night phone calls and bracing for his unannounced appearances in meetings.

Taylor described Miller as the kind of boss who offered "late-night phone calls every single weeknight to the point that your spouse starts asking you questions."

He also characterized Miller as a "ferocious micromanager" who bored down into even the smallest government offices to make his will known, "because he knows that's how you get things done in Washington."

Taylor added, "That's something that made Stephen very formidable and very effective, is that he understands the government bureaucracy and he is willing to jump down into meetings where they would never expect him."

Miller's promotion follows the 2026 midterm elections, in which Democrats won control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate — a shift that will place Democratic chairs at the head of House and Senate committees, with the authority to hold hearings and issue subpoenas. Speaking with AlterNet earlier in November, Dr. Alan D. Blotcky — a clinical and forensic psychologist who has written more than 40 articles for Salon, NY Daily News and The Independent — argued that Trump selected Miller as chief of staff as an aggressive show of defiance toward the incoming Democratic majorities.

"But instead, he is going to double down, triple down, quadruple down," Blotcky told AlterNet. "He's not gonna be conciliatory. He's not gonna be someone who works with Democrats. He wants what he wants. He doesn't want oversight. He doesn't want accountability. He doesn't want anybody issuing him subpoenas to look at his behavior. And so he is essentially arming up for a fight, for a huge fight over the next two years, because he knows that oversight and accountability are coming. He's going to resist it with all his might. And so Stephen Miller, who is the strongest sycophant around, and also the architect of the failed immigration plan, is now gonna be chief of staff."

"He's getting ready for the fight," Blotcky added. "And I think the next two years are going to be messier and more toxic than the first two years."