White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the architect of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, is playing an active role in discussions about recruiting new federal workers, according to a new report.
Trump’s government has started ramping up hiring again after the Department of Government Efficiency slashed hundreds of thousands of federal jobs last year, The Washington Post reports.
“We probably have some skills that we now need to hire back, quite frankly,” Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, told the outlet. “There’s no question anytime you do restructurings … sometimes you over-restructure, sometimes you under-restructure.”
Amid this effort, Miller has been playing an active role in hiring discussions, two sources familiar with the issue told the Post. They said Miller has emphasized hiring young applicants and wants new workers to have views aligned with Trump’s goals.
It appears some postings are already reflecting these priorities. One job listing for a “Homeland Defender” reportedly calls on applicants to “protect your homeland and defend your culture,” and asks them to describe how they’d advance Trump’s policies.
Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, told the Post Trump was given a “mandate to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse from the federal government.” He added that the president has made “significant progress in making the federal government more efficient to better serve the American taxpayer.”
Kupor also told the outlet there could be more “opportunities to reshape” federal agencies over the next year, but declined to specify which ones could be impacted.
The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.
DOGE, once led by billionaire Elon Musk, worked to shrink federal agencies, slash budgets and reduce the federal workforce last year. The agency was set up shortly after Trump took office in January 2025.
But in November, less than a year after DOGE’s work began, Kupor told Reuters the office “doesn't exist," and is no longer a "centralized entity.” Kupor later clarified his comments on X, writing that DOGE “may not have centralized leadership,” but its principles “remain alive and well.”
Still, the impacts of DOGE’s efforts have been clear. According to official data published last week, the U.S. government saw a reduction of more than 386,000 workers between September 2024 and January 2026.
Even with this latest hiring push, some officials expect the government workforce to remain smaller than it was before DOGE’s sweeping cuts, the Post reports.
