Stephen Miller: Trump's extremist 'brain'

What is Miller's role?

The 39-year-old has two titles: deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser. But they don't convey the power Miller wields or the extent to which he's said to be shaping Trump's second-term agenda. Long known for his combative style, frenzied work ethic, and fevered devotion to Trump, the anti-immigration crusader is now also seen as a shrewd operator with a talent for pulling the levers of government. Insiders say Miller has built a strong relationship with his often-fickle boss because of his ability to channel Trump's impulses—to articulate them in speeches and translate them into policy. "I call Stephen' Trump's brain,'" said former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, citing Trump's "complete trust" in Miller. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) has a blunter take. As the architect of Trump's "ugliest" policies, he said, "Miller is responsible for all the bad things happening in the United States."

Which policies bear his stamp?

Miller helped prepare the dozens of executive orders that Trump signed on returning to the Oval Office in January. They included orders to revoke birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants and of many visa holders—that order was quickly blocked by the courts—and the declaration of a national emergency at the southern border. Miller reportedly pushed Trump to impose tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and, having developed a distrust of federal workers who he believes stymied Trump's first-term agenda, worked closely with Department of Government Efficiency leader Elon Musk to slash government agencies. (Miller's wife, Katie Miller, was a DOGE adviser until last week.) A zealous opponent of what he calls "anti-white" bigotry and "cancerous, communist, woke culture," he has driven efforts to eradicate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and to roll back transgender rights. His obsession, though, is immigration. He has masterminded Trump's efforts to effect mass deportations of undocumented migrants, close legal pathways to citizenship, and use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members. Miller, who vowed Trump's second term would deliver "pure bliss" for immigration foes, has been preoccupied with the issue since his youth.

What sparked that obsession?

He grew up in a well-off, Democratic-supporting Jewish family in liberal Santa Monica, Calif., but said he swung to the right as a teenager after reading Guns, Crime, and Freedom, a 1994 book by Wayne LaPierre, then the CEO of the National Rifle Association. At his public high school, Miller became notorious as a conservative firebrand who relished confrontation. A friend from middle school, Jason Islas, said Miller told him at the start of ninth grade that the pair could no longer associate in part because of Islas' "Latino heritage." In the high school paper, Miller complained that Latino students "lacked basic English skills," noted the dearth of Latinos in his honors classes, and blasted the school's policy of making bilingual announcements. He became a regular guest on a local conservative talk-radio show, appearing dozens of times. Miller kept up the fight at Duke University, where he wrote a biweekly column for the college paper in which he blamed the 9/11 attacks on "politically correct domestic security," accused black students of suffering racial "paranoia," and attacked professors for being registered Democrats. His writings attracted national attention, and after graduation, Miller headed to Washington, D.C.

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What did he do there?

Miller went to work for former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), an archconservative whose many controversies included blaming immigrants for "bringing in diseases" and violence. Then in 2009, he became a staffer for hard-right Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions and became known for bombarding fellow GOP aides with mass emails on immigration, sharing links from what one called "fringe websites." In 2014, Miller was credited with helping Sessions kill a bipartisan effort at immigration reform. The next year, when Trump announced his candidacy, Miller was riveted by the outsider and his anti-immigrant rhetoric. It expressed "everything that I felt at the deepest level of my heart," he said. He joined the Trump campaign, and after Trump's November 2016 victory, helped write the president's blood-and-soil inauguration speech, which vowed to end "American carnage" and put "America first."

Did he play a major role in the administration?

Many of Trump's most controversial first-term policies were co-authored by Miller. They included the short-lived ban on travelers from several Muslim-majority nations, the "remain in Mexico" policy that prohibited migrants seeking asylum from entering the U.S., and the use of the public health law Title 42 to suspend U.S. entry during the Covid pandemic. Most notoriously, he promoted the family-separation policy that took more than 3,000 migrant children from their parents. When images of anguished families appeared on news networks, sparking a public backlash, a White House adviser told Vanity Fair that Miller "actually enjoys seeing those pictures," adding, "He's Waffen-SS." Having spent years laying the groundwork for a second Trump term, he is now determined to make an even more transformative impact.

What are his plans?

His broad goals for the next four years are to deport all 14 million undocumented migrants in the U.S., "turbo-charge" efforts to strip naturalized Americans of their citizenship, and expand Trump's executive powers. Miller believes "he is saving the U.S. from an apocalypse," said Jean Guerrero, who wrote a 2020 Miller biography, Hate-monger. Trump is likely to keep Miller close despite the controversy he generates. The president said last month that he had considered making Miller his national security adviser—a high-profile West Wing role. But that job would be a "downgrade" from his current position overseeing a swath of policy areas, said Trump. "Stephen is much higher on the totem pole than that."

An 'immigration hypocrite'

Immigrants flocking to the U.S. to escape poverty and persecution are a bane to Stephen Miller. But his forebears made a similar journey. His mother's great-grandfather, Wolf-Lieb Glosser, lived in a dirt-floored house in what is now Belarus before he fled anti-Jewish pogroms. Landing at Ellis Island in 1903, Glosser sold bananas on the street and changed his first name to Louis. He and a son settled in Johnstown, Pa., where they bought a haberdashery and built it into a department store, then a chain of such stores. "They survived because they emigrated," said Miller's grandmother Ruth Glosser. The disconnect between that heritage and Miller's anti-immigrant zeal has been noted by many—including his own family. In 2018, his uncle David S. Glosser, a retired neuropsychologist, attacked his nephew in Politico as an "immigration hypocrite," devising policies "that repudiate the very foundation of our family's life in this country." What would have befallen the Glossers if such policies had been in place in 1903? "I shudder at the thought," Glosser said.