How powerful is Stephen Miller?
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Who is Stephen Miller and what power does he hold?
Stephen Miller isn't an elected official, but there are few people with more power in America today.
I want to thank Stephen Miller, who's right back in the audience right there.
Here's President Trump speaking to reporters at the White House last October. As the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and one of President Trump's longest-serving aides, Miller's been the driving force behind many of Trump's core policies — He's known for having extreme views, even by the president's own standards.
I'd love to have him come up and explain his true feelings, but maybe not his truest feelings. That might be going a little bit too far.
Miller is the architect of Trump's anti-immigrant crackdown. He's pushed for a narrowing of legal immigration pathways and led the push in ICE recruitment and deployment. And he's been in the spotlight recently as a driving force behind the plan to capture Venezuela's leader, Nicolas Maduro.
The United States is using its military to secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere.
In a much-circulated interview this week with CNN, Miller said we live in a world, quote, governed by strength and force, and also asserted that Greenland should be part of the United States.
We're a superpower, and under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower.
Consider this.
What are Stephen Miller's key policies and initiatives?
Stephen Miller is largely credited with channeling President Trump's desires and making his vision of America real. What motivates Stephen Miller? From NPR, I'm Sarah McCammon. It's Consider This from NPR. Stephen Miller is a polarizing character, and we know that President Trump trusts him. So how far-reaching is his role in our government?
Everyone around the president knows that when a directive comes from Stephen Miller, they view it as coming from the president directly.
That's Ashley Parker, a staff writer for The Atlantic. Her new article is called The Wrath of Stephen Miller. I spoke to her earlier, and I started by asking her just how powerful Stephen Miller is in the administration.
He's incredibly powerful. Steve Bannon and other people jokingly call him the prime minister. And I think the public in general, especially from the first term, associates Stephen Miller with Trump's hardline immigration policies. And that's certainly true. He has a big, big hand in immigration. But one thing we were trying to capture with this profile is that immigration is not the only thing that Stephen Miller has his hands in, and not just hands, but has a major, major role on everything from immigration to homeland security to law enforcement in our nation's streets to foreign policy. to trade, and even to education. And a lot of the controversial policies coming out of the administration are either being dreamed up by Stephen Miller or executed by Stephen Miller.
LESLIE KENDRICK You spoke with several folks within the administration about Miller's style, and you describe him as, quote, the pulsing human id of a president who is already almost pure id. LESLIE KENDRICK What does that mean, Ashley, and how does that style shape the way that the administration is functioning?
So Stephen Miller, one thing he's very clear about is that he views his job as taking what President Trump wants to do and executing it ruthlessly and urgently. And what's interesting is there are areas where Stephen, and Trump has joked about this in public, is far more extreme than even President Trump. And so Stephen behind the scenes will very vigorously argue his case against make his points, make his pitch. But once Trump has decided something, he's not like some of the people, especially in the first term, right, who would tell Trump all the reasons he can't do it or why it's the wrong thing or try to quietly undermine him. Once Donald Trump has decided what he wants to do, Stephen is going to go out there and do it.
But you talk about Miller as somebody who has a very strong point of view. He casts political disagreements as this existential struggle between good and evil, for example.
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