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 from The Washington Post.
Trump’s government has started ramping up hiring again after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) slashed hundreds of thousands of federal jobs last year. Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, told the outlet: “We probably have some skills that we now need to hire back, quite frankly. There’s no question anytime you do restructurings … sometimes you over-restructure, sometimes you under-restructure.”
Two sources familiar with the issue told the Post that Miller has emphasised hiring young applicants and wants new workers to have views aligned with Trump’s goals. 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 would advance Trump’s policies.
Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, told the Post that Trump was given a “mandate to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse from the federal government” and has made “significant progress in making the federal government more efficient to better serve the American taxpayer.”
DOGE, once led by billionaire Elon Musk, worked to shrink federal agencies, slash budgets and reduce the federal workforce after Trump took office in January 2025. However, in November, Kupor told Reuters the office “doesn't exist” and is no longer a “centralized entity.” He later clarified on X that DOGE “may not have centralized leadership,” but its principles “remain alive and well.”
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.
