Let’s step back from the daily noise for a moment and ask a simple question.
Running the United States government is not a one man show. Any smart leader knows they need help. The machinery of the executive branch — the decisions, the policies, the daily operation of the most powerful government on earth — requires constant attention, competence, and coordination.
So why do we spend all our time watching the one person in the room least capable of doing any of that?
Obviously he isn’t running everything. He couldn’t. Any more than you or I could. All of his attention — what remains of it — is funneled into running the Trump Show. The rallies. The Truth Social posts. The grievances. The performance.
Which begs the question nobody is asking loudly enough.
Who is running everything else?
Now step back again and look at what Trump actually is today. An old man with failing health making undisclosed medical visits that nobody in the press is pressing hard enough on. His mental state and capacity don’t require my description — just open your eyes and ears and observe.
So who is filling the vacuum? That I don’t know and the following are only suggestions, but it does give us food for thought?
Susie Wiles — Chief of Staff and the one nobody talks about. The least visible senior figure which almost always means the most operationally powerful. She controls access. She controls the schedule. She controls what reaches his desk and what doesn’t. It was suggested that Nancy Reagan was behind the steering wheel toward the end of Reagan’s last term. That’s not an unreasonable template.
Stephen Miller — Chief Extremist. His fingerprints are all over immigration and ICE. The ideological engine that runs consistently regardless of whatever Trump said this morning. He has the ruthlessness to grab control — probably in much the same way Hoover did. The dirt. The threats. The leverage that keeps people in line.
Steve Cheung — controls the narrative. He decides what can be said and what can’t. What gets amplified and what gets buried. The communications director as gatekeeper.
The puppet masters in a road show can be seen — but you spend most of your time following the puppets. We see the strings. We hear the voices. But a good master makes you believe it’s really the puppet saying the lines.
J.D. Vance — I saved him for last but not because he’s the least concerning. He has the most to gain. He is smart in a what’s best for Vance sort of way and will say whatever lines he calculates will benefit him most. He may be the scariest one of all — because he shares too many of Trump’s narcissistic personality traits to ever be trusted, but unlike Trump he has the patience and the ideology to use them methodically.
This isn’t about the real puppet masters behind the big show. The dark money, the think tanks, the architects of Project 2025 — that’s another story and another piece.
This is about today. Right now. With a sick old man spending his remaining energy screaming at everything he doesn’t like on his own little social media platform — there is not a chance in hell he is simultaneously running the most powerful government on earth.
So who is? This is a question we should have answers to.
