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Stephen Miller (advisor)
American government official (born 1985) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Stephen Miller (born August 23, 1985) is an American political advisor serving since January 20, 2025 as the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and as the 12th United States homeland security advisor. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a senior advisor for policy and White House director of speechwriting during President Donald Trump's first term. His politics have been described as far-right and anti-immigration.
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A graduate of Duke University, Miller was involved in conservative causes during his youth, serving as the president of the Duke chapter of David Horowitz's Students for Academic Freedom and writing conservative columns for the school newspaper. He pursued a career in politics after his graduation, first working as a press secretary for U.S. representatives Michele Bachmann and John Shadegg. He became the communications director for Senator Jeff Sessions in 2009, who later became the United States attorney general under President Trump. In 2016, he joined Donald Trump's presidential campaign, later joining the first Trump administration as a senior advisor to the president and the White House director of speechwriting.
As a speechwriter for Trump, Miller helped write Trump's 2017 inaugural address. He was a key adviser from the early days of Trump's presidency. An immigration hardliner, Miller was a primary author of Trump's travel ban, the administration's reduction of refugees accepted to the United States, and Trump's policy of separating migrant children from their parents. He prevented the publication of internal administration studies that showed that refugees had a net positive effect on government revenues. Miller reportedly played a central role in the resignation in April 2019 of Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, whom he believed was insufficiently hawkish on immigration.
As a White House spokesman, Miller on multiple occasions made false and unsubstantiated claims regarding widespread electoral fraud. Emails leaked in November 2019 showed that Miller had promoted articles from white nationalist publications VDARE and American Renaissance, and had espoused conspiracy theories. Miller is on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of extremists. After leaving the first Trump administration, he founded the America First Legal Foundation. Miller is the youngest person and the first millennial to serve as homeland security advisor. In Trump's second term, Miller emerged as one of the most powerful Trump administration officials and a key author of numerous policies.
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Early life
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Miller was born on August 23, 1985, in Santa Monica, California, where he was raised, the second of three children in the Jewish family of Michael D. Miller, a real estate investor, and Miriam (née Glosser).[1] His mother's ancestors Louis W. Glosser (originally named Wolf-Lieb Glosser or Glatzer/Glotzer) and his wife Bessie emigrated to the United States from the Russian Empire's Antopol, in what is currently Belarus,[2] escaping the 1903–06 anti-Jewish pogroms in Belarus and other parts of the Russian Empire.[3][4][5] When his great-grandmother arrived in the U.S. in 1906, she spoke only Yiddish, the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe.[6] Miller's uncle recalls that, when Wolf-Lieb Glosser reached Ellis Island on January 7, 1903, with $8 to his name, "though fluent in Polish, Russian and Yiddish, he understood no English."[7]
Miller attributed his conservativism to Guns, Crime, and Freedom, a book by Wayne LaPierre opposing gun control.[8][9] Miller cited Rush Limbaugh's book The Way Things Ought To Be as his favorite.[10] In his yearbook, Miller quoted Theodore Roosevelt: "There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism."[11] According to Larry Elder, one of his mentors, Miller was already reading Ayn Rand and the Federalist Papers in high school.[8] David Horowitz was an influential figure in Miller's life; Horowitz's contacts helped Miller kickstart his career.[10] Miller invited Horowitz to speak, first at the high school and later at Duke University. "Miller told people Horowitz had been banned from speaking at Duke. The ban appalled conservatives, many of whom complained to university administrators—even though Horowitz had not been banned: Horowitz did speak and the event was carried live on C-SPAN."[8]
Jean Guerrero, who wrote a book on Miller,[12] noted that this conversion coincided with family upheaval; with his father Michael facing financial difficulties, Miller moved out of a wealthy neighborhood and attended Santa Monica High School, a diverse public school; he later said his time in high school were the hardest years in his life.[10] Miller riled his classmates multiple times with statements and stunts,[13] many of them targeting students of minority populations.[14] He told Latino students to speak only English,[15][16] and reportedly broke up with a middle school friend, citing his Latino heritage, an incident Miller denied happening. In one speech Miller said he was "sick and tired of being told to pick up our trash when we have plenty of janitors who are paid to do it for us".[17]
Early on, Miller began to appear on conservative talk radio;[8][4] Elder reportedly invited Miller on his radio show as a guest for a total of 69 times.[18] Miller wrote in 2002 a letter to the Santa Monica Outlook to complain about the school multiculturalism and its response to the September 11 attacks.[19] He graduated from high school in 2003, when he enrolled in Duke University to study political science.[17] In 2007, Miller earned his bachelor's degree.[8][20] He served as president of the Duke chapter of Horowitz's Students for Academic Freedom and wrote conservative columns for the school newspaper. Miller gained national attention for his defense of the students who were wrongly accused of rape in the Duke lacrosse rape hoax.[8][21] While attending Duke, Miller organized the "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week"[22] and accused poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou of "racial paranoia" and described student organization Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán (MEChA) as a "radical national Hispanic group that believes in racial superiority."[23]
Miller and the Duke Conservative Union helped co-member Richard Spencer, a Duke graduate student at the time, with fundraising and promotion for an immigration policy debate in March 2007 between Peter Laufer, an open-borders activist and University of Oregon professor, and journalist Peter Brimelow, founder of the anti-immigration website VDARE. Spencer later became an important figure in the white supremacist movement and president of the National Policy Institute; he coined the term "alt-right". In a 2016 interview, Spencer said he had mentored Miller at Duke. Describing their close relationship, Spencer said that he was "kind of glad no one's talked about this", for fear of harming Trump.[24] In a later blog post, he said the relationship had been exaggerated. Miller has said he has "absolutely no relationship with Mr. Spencer" and that he "completely repudiate[s] his views, and his claims are 100 percent false".[25][26][27]
Duke University's former senior vice president, John Burness, told the Raleigh News & Observer in February 2017 that, while at Duke, Miller "seemed to assume that if you were in disagreement with him, there was something malevolent or stupid about your thinking—incredibly intolerant." According to Jane Stancill of The News & Observer, during the Duke lacrosse rape hoax, Miller's was the "lonely voice insisting that the players were innocent." History professor KC Johnson described Duke's atmosphere during the case as not "conducive to speaking up" and praised Miller's role in it: "I think it did take a lot of courage, and he has to get credit for that."[26] Miller devoted more of his school paper column, "Miller Time," to the lacrosse scandal than any other topic.[28]
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Early career
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After graduating from college, Miller began to work as a press secretary for Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a Tea Party Republican, after David Horowitz connected them.[10] Though most of Miller's work for Bachmann was unrelated to immigration, he helped influence her rhetoric about undocumented immigrants.[11] After an undocumented immigrant near Bachmann's district crashed her car into a school bus, killing four children, Miller pushed Bachmann to talk about the incident on television; Bachmann called the incident an example of "anarchy versus the rule of law."[22] Horowitz later helped Miller to get a position with Arizona Congressman John Shadegg in early 2009.[10][29]
Communications director for Jeff Sessions
In 2009, Miller began working for Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, who was later appointed United States attorney general.[29] Miller rose to the position of Sessions' communications director.[8] Sessions introduced Miller to anti-immigration think tanks such as Federation for American Immigration Reform, NumbersUSA and Center for Immigration Studies, as well as the Heritage Foundation.[22][30] In the 113th Congress, Miller played a role in defeating the bipartisan Gang of Eight's proposed immigration reform bill.[8][29] As communications director, Miller was responsible for writing many of the speeches Sessions gave about the bill.[31] Miller worked closely with conservative media such as Breitbart News in promoting an anti-immigration agenda.[11] During this time, he got acquainted with Breitbart News co-founder Steve Bannon.[22]
In January 2015, Miller and Sessions issued the Immigration Handbook for the New Republican Majority, which was a rebuttal of the more moderate stance on immigration of the Growth & Opportunity Project published by the Republican National Committee (RNC) following incumbent Democratic president Barack Obama's victory over Republican candidate Mitt Romney in the 2012 United States presidential election.[22] Miller and Sessions developed what Miller describes as "nation-state populism", a response to globalization and immigration that influenced Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. Miller also worked on Dave Brat's successful 2014 House campaign, which unseated Republican majority leader Eric Cantor.[8]
2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign
In January 2016, Miller joined Trump's 2016 presidential campaign as a senior policy adviser.[29] He had previously reached out to the campaign repeatedly.[10] Though he initially had doubts about Trump's electability, Bannon convinced Miller that Trump could win. Bannon persuaded campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to promote Miller to become the speechwriter.[22] Beginning in March 2016, he regularly spoke on the campaign's behalf, serving as a "warm-up act" for Trump.[8] Miller wrote the speech Trump gave at the 2016 Republican National Convention.[20] In August 2016, Miller was named the head of Trump's economic policy team.[32] Miller was the primary advocate for economist Peter Navarro to join the campaign full time.[33]
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First Trump administration (2017–2021)
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In November 2016, Miller was named national policy director of Trump's transition team.[34] On December 13, 2016, the transition team announced that Miller would serve as senior advisor to the president for policy.[35] As a speechwriter for Trump, Miller helped write Trump's 2017 inaugural address.[36][37][38] He was initially given responsibility for setting all domestic policy, but quickly assumed responsibility for immigration policy only.[39][22] Of Trump's three senior advisors, Miller was regarded as the one who shaped his immigration policies the most.[40] According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump declined a suggestion by aides to appoint Miller to secretary of homeland security, not believing him to be leadership material.[41]
In the early days of Trump's presidency, Miller worked with Sessions, now Trump's nominee for attorney general, and Bannon, now Trump's chief strategist, to enact policies through executive orders to restrict immigration and crack down on sanctuary cities.[42] Miller and Bannon preferred executive orders to legislation.[39] They were involved in the formation of Executive Order 13769, which sought to restrict U.S. travel and immigration by citizens of seven Muslim countries, and suspend the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for 120 days, while indefinitely suspending entry of Syrians to the United States.[43][44][45] Miller has been credited as the person behind the Trump administration's decision to reduce the number of refugees accepted into the United States.[46][47]
Miller was seen as sharing an "ideological kinship" with Bannon, and had a "long collaboration" with him.[37][48] However, Miller distanced himself from Bannon in 2017 as Bannon fell out of favor with others in the White House.[37][49] Miller played an influential role in Trump's decision to fire FBI director James Comey in May 2017.[50] Miller and Trump drafted a letter to Comey that was not sent after an internal review and opposition from White House counsel Don McGahn, but Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was given a copy, after which he prepared his own letter to Comey, which was cited as the reason for firing Comey.[51] In November 2017, Miller was interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller in relation to his role in Comey's dismissal.[52]
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In September 2017, The New York Times reported that Miller stopped the Trump administration from showing the public an internal study by the Department of Health and Human Services that found that refugees had a net positive effect on government revenues.[53][54][55] Miller insisted that only the costs of refugees be publicized, not the revenues refugees bring in.[53][54]
In September 2017, Miller and other White House officials successfully pressured Trump to cancel Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).[22] In October 2017, Trump provided a list of immigration reform demands to Congress, asking for the construction of more wall along the Mexico–United States border, hiring 10,000 additional U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, tightened asylum policies, and the discontinuance of federal funds to sanctuary cities in exchange for any action on undocumented immigrants who arrived as minors. Those immigrants had been protected from deportation under the DACA policy until that policy's rescission. The New York Times reported that Miller and Sessions were among the Trump Administration officials who developed the demands.[56] On January 11, 2018, during an Oval Office meeting about immigration reform attended by Democratic Senator Dick Durbin and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, Miller invited anti-immigration Senators including Tom Cotton and David Perdue.[22]
According to Chaos Under Heaven, a book by Josh Rogin, Miller was part of a group of officials that wanted Trump to "speed the downfall" of the Chinese Communist Party and that "believed in economic nationalism, the return of manufacturing from abroad, and the protection of domestic industries, even at the expense of free trade."[57] In early 2018, Miller proposed stop providing student visas to Chinese nationals, making it impossible for Chinese citizens to study in the United States. Miller argued that a ban was necessary to reduce Chinese espionage, but that another benefit was that it would hurt elite universities with staff and students critical of Trump. Within the Trump administration, Miller's idea gained support from trade advisor Peter Navarro, but also faced opposition, in particular from Terry Branstad, the ambassador to China, who argued that such a ban would harm US trade to China and hurt small American universities more than the elite ones.[58]
According to former Department of Homeland Security Miles Taylor, in April 2018, Miller argued with Paul F. Zukunft and advocated for a drone attack on a migrant ship heading for the US, saying people on board were not protected under the US constitution as they were in international waters; a spokesperson for Miller denied the report.[59] In May 2018, it was reported Miller had attended a controversial meeting which included George Nader on behalf of two Arab princes, Wikistrat CEO Joel Zamel, Erik Prince, and Donald Trump Jr., on August 3, 2016.[60] The New York Times had also reported in November 2017 that Miller was in regular contact with George Papadopoulos during the campaign about his discussions with Russian government officials.[61]
Miller and Sessions were described as the chief champions of the Trump administration's decision to start to separate migrant children from their parents when they crossed the U.S. border.[62][30] Miller argued that such a policy would deter migrants from coming to the United States.[62] Miller held a meeting at the White House to pressure Department of Justice officials to prosecute border crossers as criminals, which was used as the basis for separating families. In April 2018, Miller and Gene Hamilton wrote a presidential memorandum directing agencies to end catch and release. They also wrote a letter by Attorney General Sessions, articulating a "zero tolerance" policy, which aimed to prosecute all adults who were arrested by DHS for illegal entry.[22] Miller told the Times that voters would support the White House "90–10."[22] After Miller gave an on-the-record interview to the Times, the White House requested that the Times not publish portions of it on its podcast, The Daily; the Times acceded to the request.[63]
In July 2018, senior White House official Jennifer Arangio was fired after she reportedly advocated that the United States remain in the Global Compact for Migration (a United Nations plan intended to "cover all dimensions of international migration in a holistic and comprehensive manner"[64]), defended the State Department's refugee bureau when Miller sought to defund it, and corrected misleading information about refugees that Miller was presenting to Trump.[65][66]
In the lead-up to the 2018 midterm elections, Miller played an influential role in Trump's messaging, which focused on sowing fears about immigration.[67][68] Trump's party lost forty seats in the House in those elections, in part because, according to Vox writer Dara Lind, Trump and Miller's "closing argument" focusing on immigrants appealed solely to "white identity politics," which did not have majority support in the United States.[69] In January 2019, Miller reportedly reduced the number of immigrants who would receive protections as part of a proposed offer by Trump to grant protections for some immigrants in exchange for congressional support for funds to construct a border wall.[70]
Miller reportedly played a central role in Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen's resignation on April 7, 2019, as part of a larger department overhaul[71] aimed at steering the Trump administration towards a "tougher" approach on immigration.[72] Nielsen had opposed a plan Miller supported whereby the Trump administration would carry out mass arrests of undocumented immigrant families in 10 major U.S. cities.[73] Quartz reported that Miller had been purposely leaking information on border apprehensions and asylum seekers to the Washington Examiner so that the paper would publish alarming anti-immigration stories that criticized Nielsen.[74][75] Nielsen's resignation was followed by a purge initiated by Miller in the DHS, which led to the removals of Ronald Vitiello, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Francis Cissna, director of Citizenship and Immigration Services. This allowed Miller to move loyalists into the agency such as Matthew Albence, who became the acting ICE director.[22]
In the wake of the United States' assassination of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Miller allegedly suggested "dipping [al-Baghdadi's head] in pig's blood and parading it around to warn other terrorists," according to former defense secretary Mark Esper in his 2022 book A Sacred Oath. Esper called Miller's idea a "war crime"; Miller denied that this took place.[76] While in the Trump administration, Miller met repeatedly with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, whom Miller described himself as a "huge fan" of. During the meetings, which were held off the White House grounds, Miller and Johnson "swapped speech-writing ideas and tips."[77] Miller opposed the October 2019 resignation of acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan. In 2019, Miller started collaborating with Jared Kushner, who was given portfolio over immigration—with Miller writing the parts of Kushner's immigration plan that addressed asylum and family detention.[22]
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaked conversations showed that Miller wanted to extend temporary border restrictions imposed because of the pandemic to restrict immigration in the long term.[78] Emails showed that Miller had tried to use public health powers to implement border restrictions in 2019.[79] Miller also advised Trump not to openly embrace mask-wearing to halt the spread of the coronavirus.[80] According to The New York Times, in the spring of 2020, Miller requested that the Department of Homeland Security develop a plan to use American troops to seal the entire U.S. border with Mexico. Government officials estimated that such a plan would require the deployment of approximately 250,000 troops, or more than half of the active army, constituting the largest use of American military force within the country since the Civil War. Defense Secretary Mark Esper reportedly opposed the plan and it was eventually abandoned.[81]
During the 2020 election, Miller said that if Trump were reelected, the administration would seek to limit asylum, target sanctuary city policies, expand the "travel ban" and cut work visas.[82] He voiced support for the administration's third-country "asylum cooperative" agreements with Central American governments, among other policies, and pledged that it would pursue such policies with African and Asian countries if reelected.[83]
Attempts to overturn the 2020 election
After Trump lost the 2020 election and failed to get the result overturned in courts or state legislatures, on December 14, Miller described on television a plan to send "alternate" slates of electors to Congress.[84] That day, as the official Electoral College votes were being tallied, groups of self-appointed Republican "alternate electors" met in seven swing states and drafted fraudulent certificates of ascertainment. Since these alternate slates were not signed by the governors or secretaries of state of the states they claim to represent, they had no legal status, but could have been introduced as challenges to the true results when Congress counted the electoral votes on January 6, 2021. The watchdog group American Oversight published the documents in March 2021, but they received little attention until January 2022, when it was reported that the January 6 committee was investigating them. Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel announced in January 2022 that after a months-long investigation she had asked the U.S. Justice Department to open a criminal investigation.[85][86][87][88]
On January 6, Trump held a rally to support his false claim that the 2020 election had been stolen. Miller prepared the remarks that Trump delivered at the rally. During and after the speech, many of the attendees walked to the U.S. Capitol and stormed it.[89][90]
Breitbart emails
In November 2019, more than 900 emails Miller sent Breitbart News writer Katie McHugh between 2015 and 2016 were leaked; the Southern Poverty Law Center received more than 900,[91] at least 46 provided by McHugh herself.[92] The emails became the basis for an exposé showing that Miller tried to shape both White House policy and Breitbart's coverage of racial politics.[93][94][95][96] In the emails, Miller: pushed views from white nationalist outlets such as American Renaissance VDARE, Infowars; he promoted The Camp of the Saints, and material from the Center for Immigration Studies.
In response to the exposé, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham called the SPLC an "utterly discredited, long-debunked far-left smear organization."[97] More than 80 Democratic members of Congress called for Miller's resignation in light of his emails.[98][99][100] On November 13, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) started a petition that had reached more than 20,000 signatures by November 16.[101] According to The Daily Beast, seven "senior Trump administration officials with knowledge of Miller's standing with the president and top staffers have all individually told The Daily Beast that the story did not endanger Miller's position, or change Trump's favorable view of him. Two of them literally laughed at the mere suggestion that the Hatewatch exposé could have toppled or hobbled the top Trump adviser."[102] In July 2020, Miller was added on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of extremists.[103][104]
In April 2019, Representative Ilhan Omar called Miller a white nationalist as part of her comments on the Department of Homeland Security overhaul, which led to a strong response from several Republicans, including Representative Lee Zeldin and Donald Trump Jr., who accused her of anti-Semitism as Miller is Jewish.[105] Following the exposé by the Southern Poverty Law Center in November 2019, Omar reshared the April tweet in which she had called Miller a white nationalist, adding that "now we have the emails to prove it."[106][107]
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Between administrations (2021–2025)
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On April 7, 2021, Miller launched the America First Legal Foundation, a conservative legal organization.[108][109] The foundation was previously listed as a supporter of Project 2025 and appeared on its advisory board, though the group later asked to be removed from it. Miller himself appeared on a promotional video for Project 2025.[110] The foundation has filed dozens of lawsuits regarding topics including immigration, education, affirmative action and transgender rights.[111] On September 8, 2022, Miller and Brian Jack were subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, with special focus on the January 6 United States Capitol attack.[112]
In 2023, Miller was key to pushing Republican lawmakers to insert tougher border policies into a spending bill.[113] In 2024, Miller focused significantly on killing a bipartisan border bill proposed by Republican Senator James Lankford, regularly calling House Speaker Mike Johnson.[41] During Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, Miller pushed him to focus more on immigration.[41] On October 27, 2024, Miller gave a speech at the Donald Trump campaign rally in Madison Square Garden, where he said Trump would "stand up and say the cartels are gone, the criminal migrants are gone, the gangs are gone, America is for Americans and Americans only."[114][115]
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Second Trump administration (2025–present)
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On November 13, 2024, Trump confirmed Miller would serve as deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor.[116][117] Miller met with Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg in January 2025, pushing him to adopt policies more favorable to Trump.[113] He has been described as having developed a close relationship with Elon Musk.[113] Miller has been described as one of the most powerful officials during Trump's second term.[118] According to The Wall Street Journal in June 2025, Miller "has written or edited every executive order that Trump has signed." The Journal reported that Miller's portfolio covered "almost every issue Trump is interested in" and that "some posts at cabinet agencies have been described by administration officials as reporting directly to Miller, effectively bypassing cabinet secretaries."[41] Miller is part of a small group of officials reviewing every executive order.[119]
Miller has been a key official behind Trump administration's "flood the zone" strategy, aiming to overwhelm Trump's opponents with an onslaught of new directives and policy announcements.[120] Miller drafted or coordinated most of the executive orders signed by Trump on his first day in office, including attempts to end birthright citizenship, withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization and the designation of Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.[113][120][111] In February 2025, Miller and Peter Navarro were leading officials in the economic discussions regarding the imposition of tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico.[121]
Miller has been given significant influence over the Department of Justice, with Attorney General Pam Bondi taking a largely implementing role.[122] Miller has criticized federal judges as "Marxist judges" and claimed they were carrying out a "judicial coup" by restricting the powers of the US president.[111] In March 2025, after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to return flights of deported migrants headed to El Salvador, Miller pushed for the flights to continue.[41] Miller became a leading official in the Trump administration's actions against higher education, alleging universities did not do enough to curb antisemitism and protect Jewish students. The actions have included revoking federal funding to universities to demand policy changes, arresting foreign students and demanding changes to the makeup of student bodies.[123][124][125]
In May 2025, Miller said regarding immigration cases that "the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion," and that the Trump administration was "actively looking at" carrying out such a suspension, depending on "whether the courts do the right thing or not"; Article One of the United States Constitution forbids such a suspension "unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."[126] He later visited the headquarters of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement in May, calling for officials to increase the pace of deportations.[127] Miller and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were involved in the preparations to revoke visas of Chinese students in the United States and increase restrictions on them.[128] Later in May, Rubio announced the U.S. government would "aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields" and also announced the U.S. would increase scrutiny of all future visa applications from China and Hong Kong.[129] Miller coordinated the federal government response to the June 2025 Los Angeles protests, giving orders to agencies including the Department of Defense.[41]
Recent reporting shows Miller has a large financial stake in Palantir, the company that is providing technology to ICE deportation efforts, raising concerns of conflicts of interest by ethics experts.[130]
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Media appearances
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On February 8, 2016, Miller participated in an interview with InfoWars, during which he praised the site and its owner, Alex Jones, for its coverage of immigration and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.[131]
In a February 2017 appearance on the CBS Face the Nation, Miller criticized the federal courts for blocking Trump's travel ban, accusing the judiciary of having "taken far too much power and become, in many cases, a supreme branch of government . . . Our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned."[132][133] Miller's assertion was met with criticism from legal experts, such as Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute (who said that the administration's comments could undercut public confidence in the judiciary) and Cornell Law School professor Jens David Ohlin (who said that the statement showed "an absurd lack of appreciation for the separation of powers" set forth in the Constitution).[134] In the same appearance, Miller falsely said there was significant voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election and that "thousands of illegal voters were bused in" to New Hampshire. Miller did not provide any evidence in support of the statements;[135][136] The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler found that Miller has on multiple occasions made false or unsubstantiated claims regarding electoral fraud.[37][135][136]
On January 7, 2018, Miller appeared on Jake Tapper's State of the Union on CNN. In the course of the interview, Miller called Steve Bannon's comments about the Trump Tower meeting in Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury "grotesque." Miller then went on to state, "The president is a political genius . . . who took down the Bush dynasty, who took down the Clinton dynasty, who took down the entire media complex." Tapper accused Miller of dodging questions, while Miller questioned the legitimacy of CNN as a news broadcaster, and as the interview became more contentious—with both participants talking over each other—Tapper ended the interview and continued to the next news story.[137][138][139] After the interview was over, Miller refused to leave the CNN studio and had to be escorted out by security.[140]
In February 2019, as a controversy arose from a declaration of national emergency by Trump in order to fund building a wall along the southern border with Mexico that had been denied by Congress, Miller defended the declaration during a televised interview by Chris Wallace.[141]
Debate with Jim Acosta
On August 2, 2017, Miller had a heated exchange with CNN's Jim Acosta at the White House daily briefing regarding the Trump administration's support for the RAISE Act to sharply limit legal immigration and favor immigrants with high English proficiency.[142][143] Acosta said that the proposal was at odds with American traditions concerning immigration and said that the Statue of Liberty welcomes immigrants to the U.S., invoking verses from Emma Lazarus's "The New Colossus." Miller disputed the connection between the Statue of Liberty and immigration, pointing out that "the poem that you're referring to, that was added later, is not actually a part of the original Statue of Liberty."[143] Miller added that immigration has "ebbed and flowed" throughout American history and asked how many immigrants the U.S. had to accept annually to "meet Jim Acosta's definition of the Statue of Liberty law of the land."[144]
In their coverage, multiple publications (such as The Washington Post, Washington Monthly and U.S. News & World Report) commented that the distinction Miller made between the Statue of Liberty and Lazarus's poem has been a popular talking point among the white supremacist segments of the alt-right.[143][145][146] The Post's Michelle Ye Hee Lee stated that "neither got it quite right about the Statue of Liberty . . . While the poem itself was not a part of the original statue, it actually was commissioned in 1883 to help raise funds for the pedestal" and "gave another layer of meaning to the statue beyond its abolitionist message."[144]
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Political views
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Miller's politics have been described as far-right and anti-immigration.[1][147] Miller rejects the view that immigration strengthens the United States.[127]
During the first Trump term he initially was given responsibility for setting all domestic policy, but quickly assumed responsibility for immigration policy only.[39][22] He consequently became widely viewed as the adviser who shaped Trump administration immigration policies the most.[40] This recognition continued during the beginning of the second term and was widely acknowledged by supporters as well as critics,[148] and his significant influence noted.[149]
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Personal life
Miller is Jewish.[150] He married Katie Waldman, a fellow Trump administration official, on February 16, 2020.[151] They have a daughter, born shortly after the November 2020 election, and sons born in February 2022 and September 2023.[152][153][154] In June 2025, as Elon Musk prepared to depart the White House, Katie left her position on Musk's DOGE team in order to work for him personally.
On August 13, 2018, Politico published an essay by Miller's uncle, David S. Glosser, entitled "Stephen Miller Is an Immigration Hypocrite. I Know Because I'm His Uncle", in which he detailed the Glosser family's history of coming to the United States from the village of Antopal in present-day Belarus.[155]
Public disclosures showed Miller as the vice president until 2016 of California Villages, a brand owned by Cordary Inc, a real estate company his parents owned.[156]
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References
External links
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