New White House chief of staff Stephen Miller has reportedly issued new rules to deal with lobbyists ― and it’s all framed in a stunning suck-up to Donald Trump.
“No President in history has fought more relentlessly, selflessly or courageously for the American People than President Trump,” reads the memo from Miller’s office obtained by Politico on Thursday. “Following his example, White House staff are expected to dedicate their time unwaveringly to the working people of the nation.”
In an apparent effort to rein in lobbying scandals, the memo mandates that White House staff get prior approval from the Office of White House Counsel for meetings with lobbyists ― and that the meetings be with registered lobbyists about government policy, Politico reported.
Miller’s ideologically driven mindset and loyalty to Trump will make it harder for lobbyists to impact policy in the administration’s last two years, a dozen lobbyists told Politico.
“He doesn’t operate based on relationships,” Ballard Partners’ Hunter Morgen, who worked with Miller in the first administration, told Politico. “He operates based on policy outcomes that will advance the president’s agenda.”
Miller’s new directive would probably not surprise Miles Taylor, an ex-Homeland Security official who worked with Miller in the first term. He recently called Miller a “ferocious micromanager” with “tentacles” throughout government.
“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,” Taylor said.
Miller, the former White House deputy chief of staff who has fueled Trump’s severe anti-immigrant policies and fear-mongered about communists in the midterm election, replaced Susie Wiles following the Democrats’ takeover of the House and Senate.
A former Trump administration adviser in Health and Human Services recently accused Wiles of caving to lobbyists in the food industry because she needed the “sugar industry money” for the midterms.
“Underneath Trump’s nose, in many cases, you had a group of former lobbyists, catering to the vaping industry, catering to the ultra-processed food industry, catering to the pharmaceutical industry, catering to the pesticide industry and doing their bidding with an excuse that we need their money for the midterms and really need to actually go against what voters said,” the ex-official, Calley Means, told “Face the Nation” recently.