Watch now   NEWS: ‘Winter is Coming’ — Trump Doubles Down as Staff Resign, Blue Tsunami Grows, and Musk Faces Texas Reckoning Aaron Parnas Nov 6 Good afternoon, Three days after voters handed Donald Trump one of the biggest rebukes in modern American history, he has made his choice, and it isn’t to change course. Susie Wiles is out as White House chief of staff, and Stephen Miller, the architect of the mass deportation agenda voters just rejected, takes over on Monday. The Justice Department has now lost three senior officials in two days. Elon Musk spent $445 million on federal races and got almost nothing for it, and Texas’ governor-elect is already going after his deals. Republicans are openly worried that Ohio, Texas and Iowa could be in play in 2028. While the White House doubles down, Democrats are getting ready to take power in January with subpoenas in hand, and the people who carried out Trump’s agenda are deciding whether to stay and testify under oath or get out first. Putting Stephen Miller in charge of the West Wing is terrifying for journalists like me. Miller has spent years attacking the press and anyone who challenges this administration, and he is the official most willing to do whatever Trump asks, no matter who gets hurt. This is the same administration whose Justice Department raided a Washington Post reporter’s home in a leak investigation. Trump had a choice after Tuesday. He could listen to voters, or he could hand the government to his most hardline loyalist, and he chose Miller. That tells me the attacks on the press, on critics and on anyone who holds this White House accountable aren’t slowing down. They’re about to get worse. That’s why this week meant so much to me, and I want to thank you for it. This was the biggest week we’ve ever had. We started with a 5.5-hour Election Night livestream, then did interviews from morning to night, sent newsletter after newsletter, and slept very little. You were with us the whole time, watching, reading, sharing and keeping us going. Independent media just had its biggest moment yet. Reporting like this only survives if it doesn’t depend on corporate owners, billionaires or anyone in power, and the only way to guarantee that is reader support. If you want journalism that won’t back down when the White House comes after it, become a subscriber today. And remember, we are just getting started. The election was the first chapter. Accountability is next, and we’ll be here for every hearing, every subpoena and every resignation. Trump Answers a Historic Rebuke by Handing the White House to Stephen Miller Susie Wiles is out as White House chief of staff, and Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s mass deportation agenda, takes over Monday. Trump announced the shake-up on Truth Social Friday, calling Miller “one of my most trusted advisors” and saying Wiles “has done an outstanding job” and will move to his political operation. Wiles submitted her resignation Thursday night, and CNN reports Trump had blamed her and his political team for the midterm losses, venting about their strategy at a tense election night reception in the East Room. As it became clear Trump was unhappy with her, a person close to Wiles said, “It wasn’t worth her staying in a job Trump was making clear he didn’t want her in.” It’s a stunning reversal from Oct. 16, when Trump insisted, “Susie is here and she’s gonna be here for a long time.” Leaving the White House Friday, Trump explained the move simply: “Sometimes in life, you gotta make moves.” Elevating Miller is a clear signal that Trump has no intention of changing course after voters rejected his agenda. NBC’s exit poll found 57 percent of midterm voters said Trump’s immigration enforcement has gone too far, compared with just 21 percent who said it hasn’t gone far enough. Miller is the official who reportedly berated ICE leaders and demanded they arrest 3,000 people a day, and who falsely called Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, a “domestic terrorist” while the facts were still being gathered. The Washington Post reports Miller lost some clout inside the White House after those killings, but never lost standing with Trump. One Trump ally told NBC that Miller will be combative with Congress, adding, “When the president says, ‘Do this,’ Stephen will do it, and he’ll leave bodies behind doing it.” Steve Bannon cheered the move, and Pete Hegseth, who faces an impeachment vote next week, praised Miller on X for never backing down. Democrats are furious, and Miller is walking straight into the crosshairs of the coming investigations. Incoming Oversight Chair Robert Garcia, who has made DHS and ICE abuses a top investigative priority, put it more simply: “Stephen Miller should lawyer up.” The pick comes just a day after The Wall Street Journal reported Trump told aides Miller’s deportation push had gone “too far” after Melania complained that people she knew were being deported. Miller’s critics have also resurfaced a 2003 high school video in which a 17-year-old Miller declares that “torture is a celebration of life and human dignity,” though the White House previously dismissed it as a teenage comedy sketch. Either way, the man most associated with the policy voters just punished will now be running the West Wing as Democrats begin issuing subpoenas. Inside the administration, the shake-up has left officials rattled about what comes next. Multiple White House officials told CNN the move shocked them and left them worried about the rest of Trump’s term, with one saying, “Susie keeps the trains running on time. I don’t know what this looks like moving forward.” Another Trump ally called it a “catastrophic loss” for the president, while a DHS official cheered, “Trump got his MAGA mojo back.” Wiles, the first woman ever to serve as White House chief of staff, lasted longer than any of Trump’s four first-term chiefs, and she worked through treatment for breast cancer this year. CNN notes she is the latest high-ranking woman in the administration to be replaced by a man, following departures at the Justice, Labor and Homeland Security departments. With a DOJ exodus underway, Rubio reportedly weighing his exit and Hegseth on the chopping block, Trump’s response to the voters’ verdict is to surround himself with his most hardline loyalist. Pete Hegseth issued this response: Winter Has Arrived for Elon Musk and Corporate America Texas’ governor-elect has already started reining in Elon Musk, two months before she even takes office. Gina Hinojosa asked the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission to postpone any action on selling about 1,300 acres of Boca Chica State Park to SpaceX, which wants the land to expand its Starbase rocket facility next door. The commission was set to discuss the sale Thursday, but the item was pulled at her request. “Abbott gave control of our Boca Chica Beach to the highest bidder,” Hinojosa said during the campaign. “That beach is our inheritance.” She told CNN she can work with Musk’s companies, “but it has to be on our terms,” adding, “It cannot be just running over the people of Texas, and that’s what changes now that I will be governor.” Starting in January, she’ll control state appointments, the veto and the office that hands out business incentives, all of which Musk’s Texas empire depends on. Musk’s biggest projects in Texas now face serious scrutiny, and Hinojosa has already been digging into his deals with Abbott. Fortune reports Musk’s planned Terafab chip plant represents a $16.8 billion first-phase investment and has received a $1.66 billion tax break, along with a $30 million state grant. Hinojosa sued Abbott’s office in October for unredacted communications with Musk and his companies, pointing to more than $54 million in state grants to SpaceX and Abbott’s push to award Starlink $110 million upfront from federal broadband funds, a move that triggered an audit. Abbott’s own office described some of those records as “intimate and embarrassing,” and a judge ordered them released before an appeals court put the order on hold. Hinojosa has also vowed “a moratorium, a ban, on all data center approvals” until the legislature passes new protections. With Democrats now controlling the Texas House, Musk’s tax breaks and permits could face legislative review for the first time. Musk’s record midterm spending bought him almost nothing. Reuters reports Musk spent $445 million on federal races alone, plus tens of millions more through dark money groups and state races. Just three of the 37 House Republicans he backed won, while 33 lost, and six of his seven Senate picks lost, with Alaska still undecided. In Texas, he spent nearly $230 million on the Senate race, including $153.5 million in attack ads against James Talarico, helping make it the most expensive non-presidential race in U.S. history at $573.2 million. Talarico won anyway, declaring, “Tonight we beat Goliath.” Now incoming Oversight Chair Robert Garcia plans to introduce legislation closing the “Musk loophole,” which lets executives spend unlimited personal money on campaigns even though their companies can’t. Corporate America courted Trump for two years, and now Democrats are coming for the companies that cashed in. The Washington Post reports Democrats are zeroing in on Apple, Meta and Musk’s companies as early targets, including Trump’s reported use of Musk’s AI chatbot Grok to help plan the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, Apple’s hosting of ICE tracking apps and Meta’s demands that local governments sign secrecy agreements on data centers. Law firms are holding emergency meetings to prep executives, and multiple firms are pitching to become Musk’s personal lawyer, knowing he’s likely to face a barrage of subpoenas. Venture capitalists are even telling startups to close funding rounds before year’s end in case executives get hauled before Congress. Sen. Ed Markey warned that tech executives “are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we’ll be printing.” As one Covington & Burling lawyer put it, “We’ve been telling clients all year that winter is coming. Now winter has arrived.” Republicans Are Panicking About 2028 as the Blue Wave Redraws the Map The midterms have blown open the 2028 presidential map, and Republicans are alarmed. More than a dozen strategists from both parties told Politico that Ohio, Texas and Iowa, all states Trump carried comfortably, should now be competitive in the next presidential race. “Last night undoubtedly made the mechanics of winning in 2028 harder for Republicans,” said Bill Stepien, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager. He lamented that Republicans lost both Midwestern states like Ohio that Trump had pulled toward the GOP and Sun Belt states like Georgia and Arizona that have been moving left. Texas is the biggest shock, since it has long served as the Republican Party’s firewall in national elections. If Democrats can compete there, the entire Electoral College math Republicans have relied on for decades is suddenly in jeopardy. The reason Republicans lost Texas is Latino voters, and Trump just promoted the architect of the policy that drove them away. Trump won Latino voters in Texas in 2024, but this year they backed Democrat Gina Hinojosa over Gov. Greg Abbott 65 percent, according to CNN’s voter polls. Sixty-eight percent of Latino voters said the administration’s immigration actions had gone too far, and those voters split 87 percent to 10 percent for Democrats. Yet on Friday, Trump named Stephen Miller, the mastermind of that crackdown, as his new chief of staff. As CNN’s Zachary Wolf put it, it’s hard not to wonder what lesson Trump is taking from “one of the largest electoral waves in US history.” Rep. Robert Garcia’s response was blunt: “Stephen Miller should lawyer up.” Democrats are building power in the states that will decide 2028, starting with Arizona. Democrats won both chambers of the Arizona legislature and Gov. Katie Hobbs won reelection over Andy Biggs, giving the party its first full control of state government there since 1966. Republicans had held the Arizona House for 60 years and the Senate since the early 1990s. The AP reports Democrats also won new trifectas in Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, every one of them a presidential battleground. Democrats also flipped the Texas House for the first time since 2003 and will hold at least 28 governorships, with Alaska and Kansas still being counted. In the U.S. House, Democrats are on the verge of topping the 257 seats they held at the start of Barack Obama’s presidency and the 258 at the start of Bill Clinton’s. In Mississippi, lawyers from both parties are descending on all 82 counties as Scott Colom clings to a lead of nearly 2,000 votes. Colom told CNN that Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith “doesn’t have” a path to victory, while the state GOP chair says as many as 20,000 outstanding ballots could be in Republican-leaning areas. The National Republican Senatorial Committee demanded that counties separate and preserve all affidavit ballots, cast largely by voters without photo IDs, who have until Nov. 10 to show ID at their clerk’s office. Colom’s lawyers fired back that the demand has “no basis in Mississippi law” and warned it could violate the secret ballot, while his campaign manager called it a “desperate stunt.” The NAACP sent its own letter warning officials to follow the law and said it is “watching closely” to ensure ballots are counted “free from intimidation and threats.” Because Mississippi has no automatic recount, any challenge would have to be fought county by county in court. Inside the White House, the fallout keeps spreading. Journalist Chris Whipple, who profiled Trump’s inner circle for Vanity Fair, said Susie Wiles “completely underestimated the blue wave” and will be blamed “for failing to tell Trump hard truths.” Miller will be Trump’s sixth chief of staff in less than six years, and Wiles joins a long list of women ousted from the administration and replaced by men, including Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem and Lori Chavez-DeRemer. A former top adviser to RFK Jr. also accused Wiles of sidelining the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda to protect corporate interests. Meanwhile, lawmakers return Monday with fewer than 25 days in session before the new Congress, facing a Dec. 11 funding deadline and a House vote on impeaching Pete Hegseth. One GOP aide predicted the lame duck session will be “either long and miserable” or “boring and run its course.” Three Top Officials Out in Two Days: The DOJ Exodus Accelerates After the Midterm Wipeout The Justice Department has now lost three senior officials in just two days, and more could be on the way. On Friday, John Eisenberg, head of the National Security Division, and Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, both resigned. Their exits follow Thursday’s resignation of Harmeet Dhillon, who ran the Civil Rights Division. Reuters reports the DOJ is now without leaders for two of its signature initiatives: relitigating past investigations of Trump and targeting higher education. Neither Eisenberg nor Quiñones has explained why they’re leaving, though Quiñones called serving Trump “the privilege of a lifetime.” Former officials told Bloomberg Law that several other senior political appointees could leave before the new year. Quiñones’ exit puts Trump’s “grand conspiracy” investigation into his political enemies in serious doubt. His Miami office was tasked with investigating the criminal probes into Trump’s handling of classified documents and his 2016 campaign’s contacts with Russia, trying to prove Trump was the victim of a long-running criminal conspiracy. Despite subpoenas to prominent former intelligence and FBI officials, the probe has produced no charges. Career prosecutor Maria Medetis Long stepped aside over concerns about its direction, and Trump loyalist Joseph diGenova, brought in to lead it, quit in September after clashing with the administration over its push for quick indictments without enough evidence. Grand jury testimony from former CIA Director John Brennan and others has now been postponed until next year. Under Quiñones, dozens of prosecutors left his office, and some who prosecuted January 6 rioters were fired. Eisenberg’s National Security Division was behind some of the DOJ’s most controversial moves, including the Epstein file redactions. The division helped oversee redactions before the DOJ released millions of Epstein-related files, redactions that Democrats and even some Republicans criticized as overly broad. It was also involved in an unusual raid on a Washington Post reporter’s home as part of a leak investigation. The division brought the first-ever case in a secretive court created in 1996 to handle alleged “alien terrorists,” seeking to deport a lawful permanent resident from Afghanistan who had never been charged with a crime. Those are exactly the kinds of decisions Democrats have promised to investigate once they take power in January. Now the man who oversaw them is gone. The officials insist their exits aren’t about the investigations, but the timing is hard to ignore. Dhillon told Fox News she wasn’t asked to resign and had actually told Susie Wiles three weeks ago that she was leaving, but Wiles asked her to wait until after the midterms. That admission itself shows the White House was managing the optics before the election, and Wiles herself is now out as chief of staff. Meanwhile, Robert Garcia has told Trump’s allies to “lawyer up,” Ron Wyden has promised “Subpoenas,” and The Wall Street Journal reports officials across the administration have already hired lawyers. Until now, these officials operated under a Republican Congress that had no appetite to examine their decisions. That protection disappears in January, and the people who carried out Trump’s agenda are deciding whether to stay and answer questions under oath or get out first. Other news: A Miami Democrat is suing to keep a Trump-aligned election official out of a razor-thin recount. Democratic congressional candidate Eliott Rodriguez filed a federal lawsuit Friday against Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina García after she refused to step aside from the recount in Florida’s 27th Congressional District. Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar led by 1,103 votes, or 0.44 points, as of Thursday evening, which triggers Florida’s automatic recount for any margin under half a point. Rodriguez’s campaign alleges that Salazar’s recount attorney, Robert Fernández, is García’s son-in-law, and it cites García telling the Miami Herald on election night that “Maria Elvira is the winner, with or without a recount.” García is a Republican who has posed for photos with both Salazar and Trump, and her deputy told NBC News, “There is no conflict. She is not recusing herself.” Salazar accused Rodriguez of “behaving like an election denier,” even though her district swung 14.26 points toward Democrats compared with 2024. Few pundits had this seat on their radar, which shows how far the blue wave reached into districts Trump won easily two years ago. Trump’s own supporters have lost $2.2 billion on Trump Media while his stake is still worth $460 million. Reuters estimates that outside investors in Trump Media & Technology Group have lost more than $2.2 billion combined as the stock sank to record lows. Trump got his 114.75 million shares without paying any cash, and they are still worth about $460 million, down from a paper value of more than $6 billion near the stock’s peak. Shares have dropped 32% since the midterms alone, revenue has stayed flat at about $4 million a year, and a streaming service that cost more than $200 million brought in just $630,000. Reuters interviewed more than a dozen shareholders, nearly all of them three-time Trump voters, including a Colorado nurse facing a loss of about $28,000 on money she had hoped would help fund her retirement. “The Trump family, they say they care but to me they have all this money and they keep making more money, but how about the little people?” said Austin investor Ske Jarzenske, whose holding is down 88.5%. Trump Media called Reuters’ math “dubious” and “biased,” but three finance professors who reviewed the method said it is the generally accepted way to measure investor losses. Sen. Chris Murphy has left the hospital after a stroke, and his doctor expects a full recovery. The Connecticut Democrat was discharged from Johns Hopkins Hospital after what his doctor called a “small hemorrhagic stroke” last weekend, his office announced Friday. Murphy, 53, said he called 911 last Saturday after feeling that “something was not right,” and his chief of staff said the first sign was numbness in his arm at his son’s hockey game. He will spend “several weeks at a rehabilitation center” and miss votes, but he says he is staying in touch with his team remotely while his office keeps running. Dr. Jose Suarez of Johns Hopkins said Murphy “has shown tremendous progress” and should make “a full recovery following rehabilitation.” Murphy wasn’t on the ballot Tuesday, but he campaigned hard for other Democrats and is considered a possible 2028 presidential candidate. He is the deputy secretary of the Senate Democratic Caucus, a role that could change once his party takes the majority early next year. Cornell’s faculty senate voted no confidence in the administration’s handling of sexual assault. The senate voted 75-50 on Friday that it has “no confidence in the ability of the central administration to effectively address the ongoing crisis of sexual assault at Cornell University.” The vote follows a lawsuit from a former student, known as Jane Doe, who alleges she was sexually assaulted and forced to take drugs at the Chi Phi fraternity house in October 2024. All seven men she accused deny the allegations, though the university expelled two of them after an internal civil rights proceeding. The local district attorney declined to file charges in 2024, so Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed New York Attorney General Letitia James last month to investigate, and several of the defendants are now trying to get her disqualified for alleged bias. The vote doesn’t force any change in leadership, but the board of trustees, which has the power to replace President Michael Kotlikoff, can take it into account. The trustees have also hired former acting Attorney General Sally Yates to review how the university handled the case. Meghan Markle’s estranged father was arrested in Florida on a federal child sexual abuse material charge. Thomas Markle, the 82-year-old estranged father of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, was arrested Friday and charged with one count of possessing child sexual abuse material, the Justice Department announced. The FBI seized about 78 items from two California storage units he had rented since 2008, and the complaint says at least 18 images made from film negatives appeared to be illegal material. According to the FBI, a witness identified Markle as the adult man in some of the images, which investigators believe were taken in a hotel in the Philippines. The arrest comes weeks after authorities in the Philippines said they were investigating similar allegations, which Markle called “sick lies” last month. Meghan said she was “deeply distressed” and had kept her children away from her father “for one reason: to protect them.” He was expected to make his first appearance in federal court in Tampa on Friday, and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli vowed to prosecute “to the fullest extent of federal law.” A North Carolina man is suing OpenAI, alleging ChatGPT helped his estranged wife plan to poison him. James Gates of Charlotte filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court alleging that ChatGPT “manipulated and encouraged” his estranged wife, Cheryl Harris Gates, in a plan to poison him. Gates says he became severely ill in July 2025 and later found a handwritten note referring to the plan, including a reminder to delete her ChatGPT history. The suit alleges the chatbot fed her growing mistrust of her husband and answered her questions with detailed information about poisoning someone and avoiding detection. Harris Gates was arrested in October 2025 and charged with attempted murder, but prosecutors later dropped the charges for lack of evidence, and her attorney declined to comment. OpenAI said “safety is a top priority,” that it has banned Harris Gates from the platform, and that it works with mental health experts to help ChatGPT recognize signs of distress. The suit calls the chatbot “defective,” accuses OpenAI of negligence and seeks unspecified damages. Federal prosecutors say three men used AI to impersonate CEOs and steal more than $129 million. Prosecutors in Manhattan charged three foreign nationals in an alleged scheme that used artificial intelligence to copy the voices and images of company executives and attorneys at major law firms. From July 2024 to February 2026, the group allegedly convinced accounting employees they were helping with a confidential deal and then told them to wire money to accounts around the world. Prosecutors say the victims included an investment bank in New York, hospital systems in Missouri and California, a bank in Rhode Island and a pet food company in Florida. Jacob Soall and Sharon Hazan were arrested in Spain and Guy Sheetrit in the United Kingdom, and prosecutors say the stolen money was converted into cryptocurrency to hide where it came from. Hazan allegedly bragged that he had laundered more than $400 million in three years and was “number one all over the world” among professional money launderers. Each man faces seven charges, including wire fraud and money laundering, and prosecutors say each charge carries up to 20 years in prison. The world’s climate summit opens Monday without the United States, the largest historic polluter on the planet. The UN’s COP31 climate talks begin Monday in Antalya, Turkey, as scientists warn that the world is blowing past its goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The European climate agency Copernicus said Friday that October 2026 was the hottest October on record and that 2026 will almost certainly be the second year above 1.5 degrees. The U.S. skipped last year’s summit and isn’t expected to take part this year, which leaves a large gap in funding for poorer countries. The war with Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and sent fossil fuel prices soaring, adding economic pressure as negotiators debate how to move away from coal, oil and gas. “We have failed so far,” said Johan Rockström of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who warned of more floods, droughts and possible “tipping points.” Mohamed Adow of Power Shift Africa put it bluntly: “A time will come when we will have to hold the U.S. accountable for the climate harms that it’s caused.” Pope Leo XIV began a grueling South American tour less than a month after cancer surgery. The pope left Rome on Friday for a 12-day trip of about 19,000 miles through Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, which the Vatican described as a “homecoming.” The 71-year-old was treated last month for lung adenocarcinoma, but his doctors say the cancer was localized and he needs no further treatment. The schedule includes a dozen flights, two helicopter rides, nine Masses and several stops high in the Peruvian Andes. In Argentina he is expected to meet President Javier Milei, a close Trump ally, on the first papal visit to that country since 1987. The Chicago-born pope, who is also a Peruvian citizen and served as a bishop there, will meet with survivors of clergy sexual abuse and speak about environmental destruction, arms trafficking and political instability. His stop in Uruguay is the first papal visit there since 1988. The father of a 20-year-old co-pilot killed in a Florida jet crash says she fought for control until the very end. Allan Filgueiras spoke publicly on Friday for the first time since the Learjet 60 his daughter Nathalia was co-piloting crashed Sunday in Greenacres, Florida, killing all nine people on board. He said the air traffic control recording shows she fought to keep control of the plane until the last moment, as she warned that it was “descending 10,000 feet per minute.” “She showed me what it is to be a hero,” said Filgueiras, a pilot himself, who started taking her flying when she was 12. Nathalia earned her private pilot’s license at 17 through a Palm Beach County school aviation program, and the family’s attorney said she was “perfectly qualified” for the flight despite her age. The pilot, Capt. Jeff Gregory, was among those killed, along with a family of four whose children were 4 and 2. According to the family’s attorney, the NTSB sent 20 investigators, and the agency says it has recovered parts of one engine and is still digging out the crash site. Former NFL star Antonio Brown avoided prison by pleading guilty to a lesser charge in a Miami shooting. Brown pleaded guilty on Friday to aggravated assault with a firearm in exchange for three years of probation. He had been accused of grabbing a security guard’s handgun at a celebrity boxing match in Miami in May 2025 and firing at a man he had fought with earlier, with one bullet grazing the man’s neck. His lawyer said the deal removed an attempted murder charge that carried up to 30 years in prison and a 20-year mandatory minimum. Brown must undergo a psychological evaluation and attend weekly counseling if it is required. The man who was shot had said he didn’t want Brown prosecuted and wanted the case closed. “Probation was too good to turn down,” attorney Mark Eiglarsh said, while Brown said simply, “I thank God.” See you soon. — Aaron You’re currently a free subscriber to the Parnas Perspective. 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