It was Civics Class 101 at the White House during Thursday’s press briefing as White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller swiftly shut down one of the left’s favorite arguments against the Trump administration.
Miller responded to a question from the press comparing media concerns about Elon Musk serving as an “unelected bureaucrat” while ignoring former President Joe Biden’s declining mental state.
“You’re tempting me to say very harsh things about some of our media friends,” he began. “It is true that many of the people in this room for four years failed to cover the fact that Joe Biden was mentally incompetent and was not running the country.”
“It is also true that many people in this room who have used this talking point that Elon is not elected fail to understand how government works. So I’m glad for the opportunity for a brief civics lesson,” he continued.
“A president is elected by the whole American people. He’s the only official in the entire government that is elected by the entire nation, right? Judges are appointed. Members of Congress are elected at the district or state level. The Constitution, Article II has a clause known as the Vesting Clause. And it says the executive power shall be vested in a president, singular. The whole will of democracy is imbued into the elected president. That president then appoints staff to then impose that democratic will onto the government.”
Miller then went on to lecture about the true threat: “The threat to democracy, indeed the existential threat to democracy, is the unelected bureaucracy of lifetime-tenured civil servants who believe they answer to no one, who believes [sic] they can do whatever they want without consequence, who believes they can set their own agenda no matter what Americans vote for,” he said.
“What President Trump is doing is he is removing federal bureaucrats who are defying democracy by failing to implement his lawful orders, which are the will of the whole American people,” he concluded.