As an aide on Capitol Hill, he was a behind-the-scenes architect of the successful effort to kill comprehensive immigration reform in 2014. He's deeply connected to some of the most powerful insurgent threads in the Washington GOP, most notably Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions and the Breitbart media machine. But among this roster of political outsiders, Miller stands out, especially for people who understand the new forces afoot in Republican politics. He’s often overshadowed by the campaign’s more flamboyant figures, even as he’s begun appearing on CNN and Fox to defend Trump and explain his policies in strikingly complete and adamant sentences. Miller is 30 years old, and in some ways a quintessential member of the Trump 2016 menagerie: an obscure character suddenly elevated to a national role by dint of hard work, loyalty and the boss’s favor. We’re going to build it out of love for every family who wants to raise their kids in safety and peace … We’re building it out of love for America and Americans of all backgrounds.” “We’re going to build that wall, and we’re going to build it out of love. “We’re going to build that wall high and we’re going to build it tall,” he said. As the crowd began to chant “Build the wall!” a grinning Miller explained. Trump had been coming under fire for his response to the Orlando shooting, and that night in Dallas Miller pivoted from whipping up fear and loathing to whipping up fear and loathing and then calling it love. “Everything that is wrong with this country today, the people who are opposed to Donald Trump are responsible for!” They’re the people who are responsible for our open borders, for our shrinking middle class, for our terrible trade deals.” His voice stiffly added decibels. “Everybody who stands against Donald Trump are the people who have been running the country into the ground, who have been controlling the levers of power. “That’s what this all comes down to,” Miller said, picking up steam and poking the air with his index finger. The point, as Miller would lay it out in Dallas and has laid out countless times before, is that there is a vast conspiracy that blurs together all wings of the American political spectrum in its quest to keep the American masses down. And the one thing, the one thing that aaalllll these groups have in common is that they run the show now, and they want to make sure they run the show forever.” “And you’ve seen all the usual special interests, all the special interests step up their attacks on Donald Trump, too. “In recent days, I’m sure you’ve seen Hillary Clinton step up her attacks on Donald Trump,” he intoned, and then closed his eyes and nodded, savoring the crowd’s boos. This time, he began with Hillary Clinton.
STEPHEN MILLER WEEKEND FULL
“How’s everybody in Texas doing today?” Miller said, grinning and flashing a peace sign as men in the crowd bellowed “Steeeeeve!” Miller has been warming up the crowd at pretty much every Trump rally since March, with fiery speeches full of conspiratorial populism delivered with a nearly immobile face. Please give a big Texas welcome, announced a voice in the darkness, to senior policy adviser to Donald Trump, Steve Miller! Then came the last salvo before the Trump tank rolled onstage: a svelte young man dressed in a thin-lapelled suit with a pocket square, and a hairline receding to reveal a strong, luminous forehead. A local talk-radio host growled that if any of the other 16 Republican contenders would have been fine soldiers in the fight to advance the evangelical agenda, “then Donald Trump is an M1 Abrams tank in that fight.” The crowd whooped and cheered. Julia Ioffe is contributing writer at Politico Magazine.īefore Donald Trump took the stage in Dallas on a June evening, a string of warm-up acts-mostly local politicians and conservative personalities-took their turns addressing the crowd.
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