Stephen Miller

American political advisor

• Born: August 23, 1985
• Place of Birth: Santa Monica, California

Place of birth: Santa Monica, California

Education: Duke University

Significance: A staunch supporter of conservative political views starting in high school, Stephen Miller joined the White House in 2017 as a senior political adviser to President Donald Trump, and worked with the Trump administration until the end of Trump's presidency.

Background

Stephen Miller was born on August 23, 1985, to Miriam and Michael Miller. He grew up the middle child in a liberal Democratic family in wealthy Santa Monica, California. He developed an interest in conservative political ideas in middle school after reading anti–gun control writings by Wayne LaPierre, the CEO of the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Prior to entering high school, Miller told a childhood friend, Jason Islas, that they could no longer be friends because Islas was Latino, among other reasons. At Santa Monica High School, Miller expressed his conservative ideas even when they put him at odds with the school and larger communities. He opposed multiculturalism and so-called political correctness and supported patriotism and White nationalism. He rallied against the school’s use of Spanish-language announcements. When he was sixteen, he wrote an op-ed in a local newspaper criticizing his classmates for embracing political correctness. He faulted the school for failing to abide by the California Education Code’s requirement to conduct daily patriotic exercises and brought his concerns to both a school administrator and to Larry Elder, a conservative radio host. The latter invited him for what became the first of Miller’s dozens of appearances on the show.

Miller was a junior in high school at the time of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He responded by writing a column titled “A Time to Kill” in which he espoused anti-Islamic views and advocated the killing of terrorists. During his junior and senior years, he invited the controversial author David Horowitz to speak at the high school. The first appearance was canceled, but the second request was granted despite strong student and community opposition. Miller continued to appear on talk shows and frequently wrote articles for local newspapers in which he denounced left-wing biases and expressed conservative ideas.

After his 2003 high school graduation, Miller studied political science at Duke University in North Carolina. He joined the Duke Conservative Union, became the president of the local chapter of the Students for Academic Freedom, and was the national coordinator for the Terrorism Awareness Project, which sought to raise awareness of what Miller described as "Islamofascism" on college campuses. From 2006 to 2007, he wrote a biweekly column for the Chronicle, the university’s independent newspaper.

Miller gained national attention in March 2006 for defending White Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting a Black woman. Interviewed by national cable networks, he claimed the only prejudice involved in the case was the near-universal condemnation of the players, an unpopular view at the time. The state attorney general later dismissed the charges as unfounded.

Political Career

Following his 2007 graduation from Duke, Miller worked as a press secretary for Michele Bachmann, then a Republican member of the House of Representatives for Minnesota and a Tea Party leader. He then worked as the communications director for John Shadegg, then a US representative for Arizona, before working as a policy adviser for Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, who later became the US attorney general. Miller soon was promoted to Sessions’s communications director. He, like Sessions, strongly opposed immigration and was instrumental in helping Sessions kill a 2013 bipartisan immigration reform bill.

Miller joined Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in January 2016 as a senior policy adviser. He wrote many of Trump’s speeches, including his Republican National Convention speech, and served as a warm-up act prior to Trump’s appearances. He and Steve Bannon, then political advisor to Trump, crafted Trump’s platform and message, particularly influencing its opposition to multiculturalism, globalism, and foreign workers.

In December 2016, president-elect Trump chose Miller to be his senior adviser on policy. Miller wrote Trump’s inaugural address, which was notable for its nationalistic and foreboding tone. In the White House, Miller and Bannon, who had become Trump’s chief strategist, worked closely together. One of their earliest achievements was the creation and execution of Trump’s first travel ban in February 2017, which denied entry to residents of seven Muslim-majority countries. After a federal judge struck down the ban, Miller appeared on several news shows to defend it. In an interview with CBS’s John Dickerson, he declared Trump’s authority, stating, “The powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.” While he had no role in crafting the second travel ban, for legal reasons, he continued to make the rounds of network shows to predict its success and gained national attention for his anti-immigration ideology.

Miller remained a central figure in the Trump administration for the remainder of Trump's presidency. Much of his work with the administration centered on immigration policy; for example, Miller was credited with being one of the architects of the Trump administration's 2018 policy of separating children from parents in families seeking asylum at the US border. While Miller faced calls to resign in 2019 after leaked emails showed him promoting White nationalist conspiracy theories, he remained part of the Trump White House. In 2020, Miller helped coordinate the Trump administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which reached the US early that year, and also assisted with crafting Trump's messaging for his reelection campaign in the 2020 US presidential election.

After Trump lost the election to Joe Biden in November 2020, Miller became involved in Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the election and, alongside other members of the Trump administration, actively promoted conspiracy theories that alleged Trump had actually won the election. Among other actions, Miller helped prepare remarks Trump made to a crowd of supporters gathered in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, to protest the scheduled certification of the election results at the US Capitol Building. Shortly after Trump's speech, a mob of people stormed the Capitol in a violent but unsuccessful attempt to stop the certification of Biden's victory.

Miller left his position at the White House following Biden's inauguration in January 2021. He was later investigated by the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, which had been tasked with investigating the storming of the US Capitol and determining Trump's level of involvement. The House Committee eventually subpoenaed Miller, who spoke with the committee virtually in April 2022 and later testified in person in front of a federal grand jury in November 2022.

Although he was not an attorney, Miller led a conservative nonprofit group, America First Legal Foundation. After Trump left office, the group filed dozens of lawsuits, amicus briefs, and other legal challenges and allegations, claiming that groups and organizations discriminated against White people. In 2024, America First was linked to Project 2025, a 922-page plan outlining a conservative remaking of the federal government. The conservative Heritage Foundation was the author of the plan. America First was included on the advisory board list. In July 2024, as scrutiny of Project 2025 increased before the Republican National Convention, America First requested to be removed from the list. Miller, who was helping Trump during the campaign in preparing for a debate, denied any connection to the plan.

Impact

With the August 2017 departure of Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller became the primary anti-immigration hardliner in the Trump White House. He continued to advocate for greater restrictions on immigration, such as reducing the refugee quota to its lowest number since 1980, throughout the remainder of his time in the Trump administration. Media reports sometimes portrayed Miller as an extremist, and this view was often reinforced by his public statements and interactions with news reporters. For example, in August 2017 he sparred with CNN reporter Jim Acosta about the meaning of the Statute of Liberty, with Miller claiming the statute is not a symbol welcoming immigrants but a symbol of American liberty. Later that year, Miller defended Trump’s threatening rhetoric on North Korea by claiming it made the world safer. The public responded with criticism and spoofs on Twitter. His commitment to many of Trump's most controversial policies earned him a reputation as a key figure of the Trump administration, while his support for White nationalist beliefs and conspiracy theories led the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to label him an extremist.

Personal Life

On February 16, 2020, Miller married Katie Rose Waldman, who worked as a special assistant to President Trump and press secretary to Vice President Mike Pence. The couple had a daughter in 2020 and a son in 2022.

Bibliography

Alexander, Harriet. “Who Is Stephen Miller, the 31-Year-Old Senior Adviser Who Helped Craft Donald Trump’s Speech to Congress?” The Telegraph, 3 Aug. 2017, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/12/stephen-miller-31-year-old-senior-adviser-behind-donald-trumps/. Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.

Bellware, Kim. “Leaked Stephen Miller Emails Show Trump’s Point Man on Immigration Promoted White Nationalism, SPLC Reports.” The Washington Post, 13 Nov. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/12/leaked-stephen-miller-emails-suggest-trumps-point-man-immigration-promoted-white-nationalism/. Accessed 27 Feb. 2023.

Draper, Robert. "America First Legal, a Trump-Aligned Group, Is Spoiling for a Fight." The New York Times, 21 Mar. 2024, www.nytimes.com/2024/03/21/us/politics/stephen-miller-america-first-legal.html. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.

Ioffe, Julia. “The Believer.” Politico Magazine, 27 June 2016, www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/stephen-miller-donald-trump-2016-policy-adviser-jeff-sessions-213992. Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.

Keith, Tamara. “‘That’s Stephen’: White House Adviser’s Controversial Style Dates Back to His Youth.” National Public Radio, 12 Aug. 2017, www.npr.org/2017/08/12/542811416/-that-s-stephen-white-house-adviser-s-controversial-style-dates-back-to-his-yout. Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.

Mascaro, Lisa. “How a Liberal Santa Monica High School Produced a Top Trump Advisor and Speechwriter.” Los Angeles Times, 17 Jan. 2017, www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-speechwriter-santamonica-20170117-story.html. Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.

Merica, Dan. “WH Policy Director: From Campaign Hype-Man to Oval Office Influence.” CNN, 1 Feb. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/01/31/politics/stephen-miller-immigration-trump-administration/index.html. Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.

Polantz, Katelyn, and Hannah Rabinowitz. “First on CNN: Top Trump Adviser Stephen Miller Testifies to January 6 Federal Grand Jury.” CNN, 29 Nov. 2022, www.cnn.com/2022/11/29/politics/stephen-miller-testifies-january-6-federal-grand-jury-trump/index.html. Accessed 27 Feb. 2023.

Siddiqui, Sabrina. “Meet Stephen Miller, Architect of First Travel Ban, Whose Words May Haunt Him.” The Guardian, 15 Mar. 2017, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/15/stephen-miller-new-trump-travel-ban. Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.

Steakin, Will. "Pro-Trump Group Asks to Be Removed from Project 2025 Advisory Board: Sources." ABC News, 12 July 2024, abcnews.go.com/US/pro-trump-group-asks-removed-project-2025-advisory/story?id=111896330. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.