Donald Trump Reveals Who's Really Running the Show [View all]

[LiberalArkie]

May 5, 2025 8:19 PM



Donald Trump spent the weekend making news in approximately seven different ways simultaneously, about which I promise you much more tomorrow. I have long believed this to be a conscious strategy of his, but the nagging thought also occurs to me: How would we even know if Trump did start to lose it mentally? Given the standard he has already established for himself in the first months of his second term, can anyone say with certainty that they would immediately know the difference between “wacky Trump” and “crazy Trump”?

But to briefly summarize something I’ll expand upon in the Carnival of Fools, Trump just announced that he’s bringing “liberation day” to Hollywood like the Catholic Church brought the Inquisition to the Spanish Conversos. Beyond that, Trump also warned casually that Christmas may be downsized for America’s families this year due to his tariffs, but it’s no big deal because two choices of doll are every bit as good as 30. (He is correct about how little this world needs pencils, though perhaps I speak as a traumatized left-hander who sported a graphite smudge on the pinky side of his hand all through my teenage years.) To top it all off, we’re apparently going to reopen Alcatraz as a federal Supermax prison, which is a great idea because if there’s anywhere you want to house America’s most heinous criminals, it’s within the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

But one other interesting piece of news also slipped out of Trump’s mouth over the weekend, less commented upon yet more interesting than the headline-garnering plays: Trump openly acknowledged how much power his aide Stephen Miller wields within the White House. Semafor’s Shelby Talcott reports that, when asked about the possibility of Miller taking the recently cashiered Mike Waltz’s place as national security adviser, Trump answered: “Stephen Miller is at the top of the totem pole. I mean, I think he sort of indirectly already has that job, because he has a lot to say about a lot of things. He’s a very valued person in the administration.”

For those who have paid close attention to the doings of this administration since January 20, this is hardly a surprise. (It has in fact been a running theme of my coverage here for quite some time.) For those who wonder whether Marco Rubio — who has at present acquired more formal titles than a Politburo member who survived the Great Patriotic War — is actually making any of the State Department decisions he announces weekly, turn your attention to Miller instead if you wish to assign either credit or blame. For the president, it is a remarkable admission of confidence in his man.

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https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/donald-trump-reveals-whos-really-running-the-show/