President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name Stephen Miller as the White House deputy chief of staff for policy.

The role puts Miller back at the White House where he is expected to take on a leading role writing and implementing Trump’s immigration agenda, which includes plans for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

“This is another fantastic pick by the president,” Vice President-elect JD Vance posted on x.com, an apparent confirmation of Miller’s rumored appointment, first reported by CNN.

Miller is one of Trump’s longest-serving and most trusted advisers. He worked with Trump on his 2016 presidential campaign before joining him at the White House as a senior adviser.

He’s known best for his role as a lead author of some of the Trump administration’s strongest immigration plans in his first administration, including the highly controversial zero tolerance policies that led to children being separated from their parents.

Once Trump left office, Miller went on to start America First Legal, a non profit that was supposed to be the conservative version of the ACLU. It worked with conservative lawyers who filed hundreds of lawsuits and legal demands, on behalf of conservative causes and against Democrats.

Miller is likely to be one of the most controversial picks in a new Trump administration. But because the deputy job is not a cabinet position, he will not need to seek confirmation by the Senate.

In the final stretch of Trump’s 2024 campaign, Miller reprised his warm-up role at some rallies.

“You can have your country back, you can have your future back, you can have your state back,” Miller said during one of Trump’s final rallies in Salem, Va.

“You can look your children in the eye and say, ‘We did it, we saved America, we saved this republic. We didn’t let it get stolen from us.'”

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to come to the White House with a laundry list of policies he wants to change or reverse. The Biden administration has moved to ease longtime restrictions on cannabis — so, what might Trump’s arrival mean for the push to legalize marijuana?

There are signs that cannabis could be a rare issue on which Trump carries a Biden policy forward.

President Biden’s administration has proposed removing marijuana from the list of Schedule I controlled substance and making it a Schedule III drug, a category that acknowledges medical benefits. Along with its implications for potential markets and consumers, the move would boost medical research into cannabis.

David Culver, the senior vice president of public affairs of the U.S. Cannabis Council lobbying group, tells NPR that he’s optimistic the new administration will take a similar approach to cannabis.
 
“We didn’t see a lot of activity from President Trump, if any at all, on cannabis reform” in his first term, Culver says. “But I think this time is going to be different.”

What has Trump said about marijuana?

Two months before the election, Trump issued a statement largely aligning himself with the Biden administration and his election opponent, Vice President Harris. In it, he affirmed that he supports legalizing the recreational use of marijuana.

“I believe it is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use,” he said in a Truth Social post. “We must also implement smart regulations, while providing access for adults, to safe, tested product.”

Trump said he would vote “yes” on Florida’s recreational cannabis ballot question (the proposed amendment fell short of its 60% threshold). And he suggested Biden’s cannabis policy might remain intact.

“As President, we will continue to focus on research to unlock the medical uses of marijuana to a Schedule 3 drug, and work with Congress to pass common sense laws, including safe banking for state authorized companies,” Trump said.

What about Project 2025?

Cannabis and marijuana aren’t directly mentioned in Project 2025, an expansive text that is seen as laying out a conservative agenda for the next Republican administration.

“The next President’s top drug policy priority must be to address the current fentanyl crisis and reduce the number of overdoses and fatalities,” the document states, citing the staggering toll of opioids.

The document emphasizes the need to take on drug trafficking organizations and disrupt the flow of illegal drugs into the U.S.

A Republican administration “must reaffirm a commitment to preventing drug use before it starts, providing treatment that leads to long-term recovery, and reducing the availability of illicit drugs in the United States,” it says.

How will Trump’s second term differ from his first?

“When Trump was president first time around, we had an attorney general that was absolutely — I would consider him a prohibitionist,” Culver says, referring to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

In early 2018, Sessions rescinded an Obama policy that had directed federal prosecutors not to prioritize enforcing cannabis laws — a move that triggered concerns that the central government might crack down in states where cannabis laws diverged from U.S. law.

“I don’t think we’re going to have that this time around,” Culver says. “I think that the president is going to appoint someone that takes a more neutral position and/or pro position on cannabis reform. And we’re going to have people inside this administration like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who are going to have a prominent role that are pro-legalization champions.”

Despite Sessions’ strong opposition to cannabis, Trump said in 2018 that he “probably will end up supporting” bipartisan legislation to let states craft their own laws on marijuana.

Culver says that Trump’s perspective seems to center on public safety and creating a regulated market — while keeping cannabis away from kids.

An email to the Trump campaign seeking details about the incoming president’s plans for cannabis in his second term did not get a reply before this story published.

A Trulieve employee wears a T-shirt in support of Amendment 3 in Florida, a ballot initiative which would have legalized the recreational use of pot in the state for adults 21 years old and older.

Rebecca Blackwell/AP/AP

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Rebecca Blackwell/AP/AP

Is the states’ momentum slowing on cannabis?

Coming into Election Day, 24 states plus the District of Columbia had legal recreational pot laws on the books. That number remains the same: ballot bids failed in Florida and also in South Dakota and North Dakota — two states where voters have repeatedly rejected legal weed.

Opponents warn of potential health risks from marijuana use. They also accuse cannabis companies of profiteering, and they say they want to wait for a shift in national policy.

Florida’s Amendment 3, legalizing cannabis, was backed by a campaign that spent more than $150 million, with most of that money coming from large medical marijuana company Trulieve, according to member station WUSF. Trump backed the measure — but Gov. Ron DeSantis mounted a determined campaign against both it and an abortion amendment.

“[DeSantis’] chief of staff, James Uthmeier, chaired two committees that raised more than $30 million to fight the two proposals,” WUSF reports. 

“I don’t think there’s ever been one company that’s put in this much money for one ballot measure in all of American history,” DeSantis said of Amendment 3. He accused Trulieve of seeking a lucrative monopoly, noting that the measure wouldn’t allow people to grow their own cannabis plants.

What about the timing?

Nebraska voters approved medical marijuana last week, leaving Idaho and Kansas as the only states without a legal cannabis program for medical and/or recreational use, according to the CDC.

Legalizing cannabis has been a lucrative policy shift for U.S. states: In 2023, their cannabis tax revenue topped $4 billion — a record — according to the Marijuana Policy Project.

With more Americans reporting regular marijuana use in recent years, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine said in September that federal and state governments need to fill in the gaps in regulation and standardization, warning that the lack of clear and reliable information poses a risk to the U.S. public.

“I don’t think that the Biden administration will be able to finish the work that they started in October of 2022 on scheduling reform,” Culver says. “And I think it’ll be up to President Trump and his administration to pick it up and finish it at some point in 2025. And I expect him to do so.”

Culver says he doesn’t think cannabis will be a top priority for Trump as he takes office. As for what a Trump-era cannabis policy might look like, he suggests the federal government might form a regulatory structure that leaves “the bulk of the regulations to the states, just like we do with beverage alcohol.”

President-elect Trump announced Sunday night that Tom Homan, his former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), will join his second administration to oversee border control.

In his role as “border czar” — which does not require Senate confirmation — Homan will be in charge of the southern and northern U.S. borders, as well as “all Maritime and Aviation Security,” Trump said in his post on Truth Social.

“Likewise, Tom Homan will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin,” Trump wrote, adding that “there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders.”

It is unclear what role Homan will take, since managing immigration requires coordination between several agencies under the Department of Homeland Security.

Homan, a former police officer and Border Patrol agent, has worked under six presidents during his three decades in law enforcement. He was executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement under President Obama. During that administration, ICE carried out a record number of deportations.

Honan repeatedly praised Trump for being the one who did the most to secure the border.

Sunday’s announcement was largely expected, as Trump had said over the summer that he would tap Homan to help oversee immigration policies in his potential second term. Speaking at the National Conservatism Conference in July, Homan told undocumented immigrants to “wait till 2025,” adding, “If you’re here illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.”

“Trump comes back in January,” Homen said. “I’ll be on his heels coming back. And I will run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”

Homan was behind Trump’s controversial family separation policy

Homan was the face of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration during his tenure as acting director of ICE from January 2017 to June 2018.

During that time, he often appeared at White House press briefings to personally defend his agents’ arrests of undocumented immigrants and call for stronger enforcement, according to CNN, and applauded Trump for “taking the shackles off” ICE by allowing agents to make a broader range of arrests.

Notably, Homan was one of the architects behind its controversial family separation policy. More than 5,500 children of immigrants were separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018 under the administration’s short-lived “Zero Tolerance” policy. According to the Department of Homeland Security, as of April, there were still 1,401 children without confirmed reunification.

Trump signed an executive order stopping family separations in June 2018 after much condemnation from lawmakers and the public, and the Biden administration officially rescinded it days after he took office in 2021.

Homan retired in frustration in 2018 when the White House failed to move his nomination toward Senate confirmation, according to the Washington Post. He became a Fox News contributor, joined the conservative Heritage Foundation as a visiting fellow and contributed to Project 2025, its controversial blueprint for reshaping the federal government. 

Trump had sought to distance himself from Project 2025 during his campaign, even though it overlaps with his own agenda. Trump made immigration a major part of his campaign and has vowed to deport millions of immigrants who are in the country without authorization.

Homan has warned undocumented immigrants to ‘start packing’

Homan spoke about how such deportations would work in an interview on Fox Sunday Morning Futures hours before his appointment was announced, saying it would be a “well-targeted, planned operation, conducted … by the men of ICE.”

“When we go out there we’re gonna know who we’re looking for, we most likely know where they’re going to be and it’s gonna be done in a humane manner,” Homan said, adding that it will focus on the “public safety threats and the national security threats first.”

But those groups won’t be the only targets, Homan told CBS’ 60 Minutes last month. He said he would restart workplace enforcement after the Biden administration moved away from the controversial practice of mass worksite immigration raids in favor of pursuing “exploitative employers.” He also said in that interview that “families can be deported together,” suggesting children who are U.S. citizens but with undocumented parents would have to go with them.

Months earlier, speaking onstage at the Republican National Convention, Homan said Trump would designate Mexican cartels a “terrorist organization” for their role in getting fentanyl over the border, warning, “He’s gonna wipe you off the face of the Earth.”

However, according to data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the overwhelming majority of fentanyl traffickers are U.S. citizens.

He also addressed undocumented immigrants at large, whom he said Biden released into the country against federal law.

“You better start packing now,” he said, as attendees waving pro-deportation signs cheered. “‘Cause you’re going home.”

Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy proposals, while clearly a winning issue with voters, aren’t being met without pushback.

In the days since Trump’s election, immigrants rights groups have said they stand ready to challenge his anti-migrant policies through protests, local legislation and lawsuits. And analysts from the Brookings Institution, the American Enterprise Institute and the Niskanen Center project that lower — potentially even negative — net migration to the U.S. would hurt the country’s economy, as NPR has reported.

Homan is not the only appointee that Trump has named for his upcoming term. He announced last week that Susie Wiles will be his chief of staff.

On Monday, Trump offered Rep. Elise Stefanik, the New York Republican who chairs the House Republican Conference, to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The role requires Senate confirmation, which is all but guaranteed in the soon-to-be Republican-controlled chamber.

Sergio Martínez-Beltrán contributed to this report.

Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day.

Today’s top stories

President-elect Donald Trump has begun selecting members of his staff; however, it’s uncertain how much power his party will have in Congress. Republicans won the Senate and will choose their leader this week. There’s one seat left to be called. The party could also have a narrow majority in the House. Currently, the GOP holds 213 seats in the House, while Democrats have 203. To secure a majority, a party needs 218 seats.

• 🎧 There are still 19 House seats left to be called, but it could be days until there’s a verdict in those races, NPR’s Danielle Kurtzleben tells Up First. Half of the House districts are in California, where it takes a while to count votes, due to the certification process of same-day and mail-in ballots in such a large state. In the meantime, Trump posted on Truth Social overnight that he will appoint Tom Homan as his “border czar,” who will be in charge of mass deportations. Over the weekend, he also said he won’t be inviting Mike Pompeo or Nikki Haley to be in his cabinet.

Israel’s ousted defense minister, Yoav Gallant, told family members of Israeli hostages in Gaza that there’s nothing more for the Israeli military to achieve in Gaza. He also says that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is responsible for holding up a cease-fire deal in July that could have ended the war and brought the remaining hostages home. Netanyahu fired Gallant last week, citing that trust between them had “eroded” and that “significant differences” had emerged between them on how to proceed in the war. Gallant discussed his views on the Israeli military in a closed-door meeting on his last day in office.

• 🎧 Gil Dickman, who attended the meeting and had a cousin who was taken hostage and killed by Hamas in Gaza, tells NPR’s Kat Lonsdorf that he felt Gallant was able to speak more freely than in similar meetings in the past. Since July, thousands of Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military, bringing the death toll up to over 43,000, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. There are 101 remaining Israeli hostages, some of which have been confirmed to be dead. Many Israelis see Gallant’s firing as an example of Netanyahu trying to get rid of anyone who disagrees with him, Lonsdorf says. Some say they feel like their democracy is at stake.

An NPR investigation revealed that a VA home loan program intended to assist veterans ended up forcing thousands into high-cost mortgages. Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act indicate that at least 1,300 veterans faced monthly payment increases of over 50%. While a rescue plan being rolled out by the Department of Veterans Affairs is now being implemented, it excludes many who require assistance.

Special Series

Jake Lang, center, and other Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC.

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Brent Stirton/Getty Images

Each day this week, Morning Edition will dive deep into one of the promises President-elect Donald Trump has made for day one of his administration.

Trump has promised to pardon the people convicted in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Is that a promise he can keep? In March, he wrote on Truth Social that one of his first acts if elected president would be to free people he calls Jan. 6 “hostages,” who he claims are wrongfully imprisoned. Kim Wehle, who wrote the book Pardon Power: How the Pardon System Works — and Why, speaks with NPR’s Leila Fadel about limitations to presidential pardons, whether pardons can be challenged, and the checks and balances to this presidential power.

From our hosts

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Santander Arena on Nov. 4, in Reading, Penn.

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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

This essay was written by Steve Inskeep, Morning Edition and Up First host

Demography isn’t destiny.

The twenty-first century has not worked out as many Democrats expected. A decade ago, some Democrats felt that an ever-more diverse population assured them of a governing majority. This would be sort of like California: a big, rich, super diverse state that Democrats have dominated for decades, with the sole exception being Arnold Schwarzenegger’s governorship.

Nationwide, the percentage of the population that identified as white was dropping; the percentage that identified as nonwhite kept climbing, mainly due to immigration. That put the Republican Party’s overwhelmingly white coalition at a disadvantage. Demography was destiny, some analysts thought.

Instead, the Democratic coalition cracked. According to exit polls (which are not reliable, but are what we have), the percentage of white voters in this election went up. Republicans broadened their coalition to include many people of color — without abandoning any of the rhetoric that seemed in the past to drive nonwhite voters away — and certainly without letting go of Donald Trump.

We can have a long discussion about just why this happened. What’s clear is that changing demographics did not determine the election, at least not in the straightforward way that some would have assumed. It remains for Democrats to absorb this reality — and for Republicans to take power this time.

3 things to know before you go

The Tuskegee University campus is pictured in 2023. A shooting on campus left one person dead and more than a dozen injured.

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2C2K Photography/Flickr Creative Commons

1. Jaquez Myrick, 25, has been arrested in connection to yesterday’s early morning shooting that left one person dead and 16 injured at Tuskegee University in Alabama, according to law enforcement.
2. In 1971, 18-year-old Betsy Cornwell found herself stranded at night when her key broke off in the ignition of her car. A car thief became her unlikely unsung hero when he went out of his way to make sure she got home safely.
3. The H5 bird flu has reportedly been detected in a human in Canada for the first time, according to health officials. The test is being sent to another lab for confirmation.

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.