Who dat?

February 14, 2025 1:52 PM

While signing executive orders, there is a man who hands them to the President and then takes them back after they are signed. Who is that person and what is their job title?

Is he a government lawyer? Is he just "the guy who hands executive orders to the President"? What is his title? Does he have any other roles in the White House? Is it the President's 'body man" who is always there to assist him? How does he keep a straight face at all times?

posted by JohnnyGunn to Law & Government (8 answers total)

Page ?
posted by hortense at 2:14 PM on February 14

Best answer: Agree with Lawn Beaver, but I swear I saw an article about that man the other day. Lemme go look.

Edited to add:
His name is Will Scharf.
AP News article headline is: "Who’s the guy handing Trump those binders of executive orders? Meet Will Scharf"

(Unless, of course, there is more than one person doing it.)
posted by stormyteal at 2:15 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]

I believe that is Stephen Miller, a right-wing political operative type who was a senior advisor and speechwriter for Trump in the previous administration, and now is deputy chief of staff for policy in the current White House.

He is kind of a big (odious) policy wonk type person, which is one reason he would be helping to orchestrate something like the signing of a bunch of policy directives. He's the type of guy who is going to be right in the weeds on all of those executive orders, know exactly what each one is for, why they want to do it, and so on.
posted by flug at 2:17 PM on February 14

According to the caption under this photo it's White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf.
posted by forthright at 2:17 PM on February 14

It's definitely Will Scharf. And White House Staff Secretary is the job title of the person who manages paper flow to the president in any administration, though they're not usually publicly seen or heard from anywhere near as often as Scharf has been.
posted by fancypants at 2:41 PM on February 14 [2 favorites]

Mod note: 1 comment removed. Please note AskMe's stricter comment policy and that derailing/jokey comments that do not answer the question will be removed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 3:28 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]

Agree it’s Will Scharf and he resembles Steven Miller, however, when they are both in a camera lens, Miller has much less hair than his 2016 Wikipedia pic. They resemble each other enough that there has been younger clone humor over the past week.
posted by childofTethys at 4:55 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks all. The article that stormyteal linked was quite informative. Fun fact that I learned from the article : Brett Kavanaugh once held that role. They included U.S. Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh — who himself served as White House staff secretary for President George W. Bush
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:47 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]