Trump can't escape the backlash as heads keep rolling at the White House

President Donald Trump flushed his first major midterm scapegoat with the replacement of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles with Stephen Miller this week. However, this desperate move to rebound from the Republican Party's devastating midterm defeat raises fresh questions about who could be next to leave his administration — and about how much difference it could make.

In addition to Wiles, Newsweek reports FBI Director Kash Patel, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy are also among administration people worth watching as Trump barrels into a decimated Republican Congress that can no longer act as a White House rubber stamp.

“The personnel questions extend well beyond the chief of staff's office,” reports Newsweek. “Secretary of State Marco Rubio is facing renewed speculation about his political future and a possible 2028 presidential campaign. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has come under pressure amid questions about the administration's Iran policy, and is facing articles of impeachment when lawmakers return to Congress next week. Even Vice President JD Vance has begun publicly distinguishing himself from the president over the war.”

The answers are difficult to foresee, said Newsweek, because of the history of deceptive answers and marketing by the Trump White House. Both Trump and staff mislead propaganda allies like Fox News in addition to legitimate news services.

In a Tuesday night interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier, Trump was asked directly whether he planned to make changes to his Cabinet following the Republican slaughter, and Trump answered, “No, I don't think so. Had nothing to do with my Cabinet.”

And when Newsweek asked the White House on Thursday whether Trump had complete confidence in Wiles or intended to review other positions, White House spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez told Newsweek, “The self-serving individuals peddling stories to undermine the President and his team are only exposing their own personal ambitions.”

John T. Woolley, professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and co-director of the American Presidency Project, identified Hegseth, Patel, former White House adviser Peter Navarro, Lutnick, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as people who could potentially come under scrutiny. But Woolley warned their replacements would now need confirmation by a less puppet-like Congress, and that “would have to signal some policy changes."

In any case, Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a scholar who studies presidential staffing and turnover, said high turnover after second-term midterm defeats are relatively rare, primarily because they’re useless for changing public opinions. Reagan dumped Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger after the Iran-Contra affair, and George W. Bush asked Donald Rumsfeld to leave amid the fallout of the disastrous Iraq War, but tossing controversial aides usually does not translate with the public.

"There's research, political science research, that shows that staff purges and firing people, it doesn't change presidents' approval ratings," said Tenpas, adding that changes may have symbolic value, particularly when presidents “want to demonstrate to members of Congress that they are responding to concerns.”

However, in Trump's case, the president has little hope of “winning back the public” and may be more trying to toss perceived bad eggs and reduce “controversy ahead of congressional investigations.”