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Stephen Miller, a top aide and speechwriter for President Donald
Trump, is a candidate to lead the White House's communications
team after a series of personnel changes in the more than six
months that Trump has been president.
The official did not say how many people were on the short list
but the Axios news site reported on Saturday that Miller is not
the top contender.
Last week, Trump ousted White House communications chief Anthony
Scaramucci over an obscene tirade to a New Yorker magazine
writer only 10 days after he was appointed, leaving the position
vacant.
Retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, the new chief of staff
who sources said was seeking to impose order on a White House
riven with factions and backbiting, is said to have recommended
the move.
In June, Mike Dubke resigned from the communications director
post and since then, there has been a revolving door, with Sean
Spicer serving as acting director until Scaramucci was named.
Miller, who has been a top adviser to Trump since the
presidential campaign last year, is a former aide to Jeff
Sessions when he was in the Senate. Sessions is now Trump’s
attorney general.
He was one of the authors of Trump's controversial proposed ban
on visitors from a half dozen Muslim majority nations, which has
triggered protests and a slew of legal challenges.
On Thursday, Miller briefed reporters at the White House on
Trump’s support for legislation that would overhaul the current
immigration system by creating a merit based system for issuing
visas, favoring younger immigrants with advanced degrees.
He sparred with a CNN reporter who asked whether such a policy
was potentially racist and ran counter to the American values,
and accused him of having a “cosmopolitan bias.”
(Additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici, Amy Tennery and Rick
Cowan; Editing by Mary Milliken)
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