Stephen Miller: ICE’s ideologue-in-chief

Still waiting in line? Again? That's time you'll never get back. Save time and money with Stamps.com. Over 4 million businesses have skipped the line with Stamps.com. Join them to save up to 90% off carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, registered mail, and packages in seconds. Then schedule a pickup right from your home or office. For a limited time, go to Stamps.com and use code podcast for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply. This is a CBC podcast. Hi, everybody. I'm Jamie Poisson. Alex Brady. We're furious that our neighbors are getting kidnapped and murdered in the streets. We're out here peacefully protesting. We got 80-year-old grandma's out here protesting. And we got the feds tear gassing us, spraying people in the eyes with pepper spray, throwing flashbang! Massive anti-ice protests in Minneapolis intensified over the weekend in the wake of the second fatal shooting of an American citizen involving federal law enforcement agents in the city this month. On Saturday, Border Patrol agent shot and killed Alex Jeffrey Pretty, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse. The response was rapid. Mayor Jacob Frey accused the White House of terrorizing his city. Democrats threatened a government shutdown over their opposition to a Homeland Security funding bill and called for an independent investigation, while federal officials were quick to label Preti a domestic terrorist, alleging that he had a semi-automatic handgun and approached with the intent to massacre them. The police chief in Minneapolis has confirmed that Preddy had a valid firearms permit, which allowed him to open carry in Minnesota. Video of the shooting appears to show Preddy holding only a phone in his hand when agents take him to the ground. Two witnesses also testified that Preddy was not holding a weapon and was trying to help a woman that federal agents had shoved to the ground. Further, video analysis from the Washington Post found an agent removed the gun from Preddy's waistband before he was shot. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended the officers and accused Preddy of brandishing his weapon and attacking the officers. But it was one post on X, from Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, that arguably has summed up the federal response to the killing.

Miller said, quote, a would-be assassin tried to murder federal law enforcement. Miller went on to say that the Democrats have sided with the terrorists. Today. We will be talking about Stephen Miller and how the deadly ice surge in Minnesota is only the latest example of domestic policy that he has championed. In Trump's second administration, Miller is emerging as the main architect and enforcer of Trump's signature policies, from hardline immigration policies and mass deportations to retaliation against the administration's perceived enemies to increasingly aggressive foreign policy. To talk about all of this and more, I'm joined today by Michael Scherer. He's a staff writer at the Atlantic who covers American politics and in particular the people behind it. He's the co-writer of a recent profile called The Wrath of Stephen Miller. And he's with me today to take us through Miller's rise to power and to paint a more detailed picture of the man behind the man at the White House. And just a note to say that I spoke to Michael before this latest shooting in his aftermath in Minneapolis. Okay, here's that conversation.

Michael, hey, it's really great to have you on the show. Thanks so much for having me. So I'm going to guess a good chunk of our listeners have heard of Stephen Miller, but it might not necessarily be clear what he does or just how much power he actually has. So let's start there. Can you give me some examples of the things that Miller has been involved with since Trump started his second term? And maybe let's just leave immigration out for now because I'd like to work our way there. Yeah, I mean, his official title is Deputy Chief of Staff. There are other Deputy Chief of Staff. But President Trump himself is described as... At the top of the totem pole, I mean, I think he should give you a sense of the power he has. When Mike Walls, the first national security advisor, who was in charge of the entire national security operation coming out of the White House, was pushed out last year. A reporter actually asked the president whether Stephen Miller would be in the running for that job. And Trump's... very candid response was, well, that would kind of be a demotion for him if he got that job. I mean, I think he sort of indirectly already has that job. You understand? Because he has a lot to say about a lot of things. He's a very valued person in the administration, Stephen. There is basically no domestic policy or foreign policy topic. Maybe there are some exceptions. Like there may be some, like more obscure. conflicts in Africa or something like that that he's not paying attention to, but there's no topic that is off limits for him. And on almost every front that is policy related, he is involved. And so that includes everything from, you know, he was sort of the thinker behind going after universities in the United States early on. He was standing next to the president when he announced that Nicholas Maduro, the former president of Venezuela, had been captured and removed and has been involved in conversations about how to basically run, in the president's words, Venezuela, remotely since then. He's been involved in a lot of the early executive orders around, you know, everything from transgender policy to... what the White House calls anti-woke policies, the racial sensitivity stuff that Biden had put in place. He is involved in basically overseeing from the White House, what is happening at the Justice Department, the various lawfare efforts that are happening there against the President's enemies. He did a lot of the thinking about how aggressive to be early on. in going after civil servants. So he's basically that, you know, when it comes to policy, you know, a top advisor to the president. He's also mounted this really aggressive position to counter what he calls domestic terrorism or left-wing terrorism. What we have seen, if you look at whether it be going back to the riots,

that started with Black Lives Matter and all the way through to the Antifa riots, the attacks on ICE officers, the doxing campaigns, and now the political assassinations. These are not lone isolated events. This is part of an organized campaign of radical left terrorism. It is structured, it is sophisticated, it is well funded, it is well planned. There is really no parallel like this to anything else in the country right now. And he's defended the need for the Presidential Act countering domestic terrorism and organized political violence, or NSPM 7, which he drafted, right, and Trump signed. Because of President Trump's strength, because of his vision, because of his leadership. We are now going to use the entire force of the federal government to uproot these organizations, root and branch. And again, that's only possible because of President Trump. You know, in addition to everything you just laid out, I wonder if you could just tell me a little bit more about that strategy that he's behind. Well, so you didn't want to talk about immigration right at the start, but that is an extension of the immigration crackdown. And there's no area that he has been more. like involved in shaping both in the first Trump term and the second Trump term more than immigration, the deportation policy. He was deeply involved in the child separation policy during the first term where kids were put in cages. That was sort of the critique. He designed that as an effort to dissuade people from crossing the borders. I mean, he was willing to separate kids from their parents as a way to keep people from coming. So early, right when Trump gets in, there is an enormous effort. to lobby Congress to do massive tens of billions of dollars in funding for new federal security service, mostly through ICE, some through Customs and Border Patrol, that would run a deportation program the president had talked about. It was expected that there would be pushback to that. Furthermore, Miller had been there in the first term when you'd had protests, in some cases, riots over the George Floyd killing. And so Miller was part of this effort to basically reimagine what the federal government's police force would be doing. in the United States. Until this presidency, federal authorities were very selective in how they interfered in streets and cities all around the country. And that has changed. And so as a result of that, there's been pushback. And Miller's design of this, and this is really what he does very well, is trying to find ways to expand federal power to serve the president's interest. His design for this is to designate anyone who's opposing that increase in federal policing, protesters against him, against the administration, people who are falling around ICE officers, as they do deportations, as domestic terrorists. And he has truly pushed in a way that I think the courts haven't fully tested what the definition of domestic terrorism is. The real innovation here.

You know, he isn't a lawyer, this guy, right? But he has become so adept at using these kind of novel interpretations of legal precedents to further his goals. You know, another example in the first term, he successfully convinced the administration to invoke like a 1944 emergency public health lot to shut down the border. I just wonder if you could like tell me more about, you know, how he came to use. these tactics and, you know, why they have been so successful. Or, you know, maybe they're not all successful, but, you know, like how he's using them? Yeah, so there's been a revolution in sort of Republican conservative thought over the last 20 years. And Miller came up as a staffer to various people in Congress. He was very interested in immigration primarily. But what he... burrowed into what he got very good at early in his career was understanding the law, understanding how policy worked, understanding how power worked, and then figuring out places where he could sort of twist the knob up on, you know, lots of statues that were very old. You mentioned that COVID-era effort, which was very successful at stopping, you know, And that's what he's done. I mean, during the period between the first and the second Trump term, he started a group called America First Legal, who was basically filing lawsuits, but also doing a lot of deep research and rethinking of... how the law should be interpreted. And then he's been also very aggressive against anyone who argues that his interpretation of the law is wrong. You know, whenever a judge rules against policy he's been working on that Trump is initiated, calling it unconstitutional for whatever reason, he will immediately tweet out this is judicial tyranny. Tyranny. Judicial tyranny. This is a judicial coup by communist Marxist judges against the laws, constitution, and democracy of the United States. Suggesting that the judges are somehow, you know, operating outside the Constitution, which is not true. I mean, the job of the judges are to check, you know, the decisions of the executive branch. But, yes, there are lots of examples of this. You know, another example is clearly the president has wanted for quite a while. to get rid of Maduro to, in his words, have the U.S. get back the oil from Venezuela. You know, Stephen Miller had a lot to do with coming up with a strategy to get there. And that was by basically designating a loose-knit criminal organization, Trendaagua, that comes from Venezuela as a foreign terrorist organization. Venezuela is run by a narco-terrorist ring that traffics drugs, weapons.

human traffics as well, into the United States. Obviously, they sent train near Rago to the United States. The Cartel of El Souls is the cartel that runs Venezuela. And as we've seen with all of these drug trafficking vessels, these narco-terrorism vessels that are leaving Venezuela and Venezuelan waters, they are shipping massive amounts of deadly narcotics into the United States. And then using that designation to permit. a whole bunch of military actions against the country without a declaration of war. That's something that has not happened before. And it was, you know, Miller deciding there was a sort of loophole to what was previously thought was the established rule. And I want to dig into immigration a little bit more with you now because it does seem to be the issue that animates him more than anything, right? And, like, how would you characterize his views on immigration and kind of where they come from? Miller ascribes to this idea of a clash of civilizations, basically this idea that there's a sort of Western European American tradition that goes back to the Greeks that... has at its core a number of sort of moral precepts and, you know, beautiful architecture and things like that. And then there's other. There's the rest of the world. And so his view of immigration is that basically there are barbarians at the Bill Gates, that the United States... is descended from this Western tradition and that huge numbers of immigrants from, you know, the Arab world from Latin America are coming in and threatening it because they will not, they seek to change the culture, not to become a part of the culture, and that a great crime has been committed. Our lineage and our legacy. hails back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello. Our ancestors built the cities. They produced the art and architecture. They built the industry. Erica stands on the shoulders of thousands of years, of warriors, of women, who pulled us out of the caves and the darkness into the light. The light will defeat the dark. We will prevail over the forces of wickedness and evil. You know, we report on a... you know, exchange that happened during debate prep in the 2024 cycle in which, you know, the president was watching some of his AIDS debate some point on immigration. And the president kind of joked at Miller and said, well, you know, if you had it your way, everybody in this country would look like you. And Miller's comeback was in front of other people, that's correct. And so he has this view that there is a sort of monoculture that is the American...

ideal and that it's his job to protect it. In practice, what that means is, I mean, immigration policy has broken. Everyone agrees for a couple decades or more in the United States. There has not been like bipartisan agreement. Something needs to change, but no agreement on how to change it. President Trump ran on the idea that he would forcibly expel people who are in this country without documentation. It's a very large group. You know, eight to ten million people. Many of them, you know, without criminal records who work in the communities, have been here for decades, who have children here who are U.S. citizens, et cetera. And so the execution of what Miller is trying to do is to expel those people and to do it in a very aggressive way, in a way that deters other people from deciding to try and come to this country, and in a way that ultimately will protect. the idea of the United States that he has. Who's going to stand up for our daughters? Who's going to stand up for the girls of America, the women of America, the families of America? Who's going to stand up and say, the cartels are gone? The criminal migrants are gone. The gangs are gone. America is for Americans and Americans only.

Still waiting in line? Again? That's time you'll never get back. Save time and money with Stamps.com. Over four million businesses have skipped the line with Stamps.com. Join them to save up to 90% off carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, registered mail, and packages in seconds. Then schedule a pickup right from your home or office. For a limited time, go to Stamps.com and use code podcast for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply. This week on two blocks from the White House. A sudden escalation in the ongoing trade dispute between the U.S. and Canada. Donald Trump is imposing 50% tariffs on many Canadian exports. We're asking, what's up with these new tariffs and what does it mean for the Canada-U.S. relationship? Join me, Willie Lowry, and my fellow Washington correspondence, Mike Crawley and Katie Simpson as we break down U.S. politics from a Canadian perspective. Find and follow two blocks from the White House wherever you get your podcasts. You know, just on a day-to-day basis, to what agencies is Miller dictating marching orders, too? So there was something called the Homeland Security Committee that began during the years after the September 11th, 2001 attack on the U.S. So there was a foreign terrorist attack on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is created. And then a sort of working group. at the staff level of federal agencies is formed to coordinate things to deal with this new threat to homeland security. So that includes groups like the FBI, ICE, Customs Border Patrol, Health and Human Services, the Department of Defense. I mean, basically any part of the federal government you can think of that would have some role in securing the homeland. Miller chairs a daily meeting. of all those groups. And so in practice, basically anything you would think of that includes, you know, federal enforcement falls under his, you know, ultimate purview. And I thought the, you're reporting on this daily meeting was really instructive. You kind of start by painting this picture of the way he runs them and how his staff. and others in the administration perceive him. And can you tell me a bit more about that? Like, what kind of ship is this guy running? Yeah, this meeting has turned into basically an execution meeting. So it's not about debating ideas or coming up with new policies. He's gathering people every day to make sure they're meeting benchmarks. And, you know, one person I... spoke with told me, you know, there's no one who hasn't been yelled at by Stephen Miller. And he's not, this is not a friendly meeting. This is not like, oh, we're all in a together meeting. This is, you know, why don't we have the numbers we want here? What can we do to make this better? How are you going to fix this? He's very focused on the time they have. I mean, they have set very high goals for deportations that they are not meeting. They may not be able to meet. But

They are incentives for Miller to constantly drive these agencies to do better and to do more and to take greater steps. I mean, an example of this is there was reporting months ago that, you know, initially when Trump came in, he said, we're going to get the undocumented criminals out of this country. That was the focus. That was what DHS was talking about. There weren't the numbers that they wanted. of criminal deportations. It takes a while to find them. They're not that many of them. And so it was Miller in these conversations that was sort of pushing people to, okay, why don't we just go to parking lots where we know day laborers show up and start checking IDs? You know, why don't we just go to car wash places or, you know, like he was the one saying, this isn't just about finding. records where we know someone has been convicted of a crime or skipped out on a court date and then going to their house and arresting them. Miller was the one saying, let's find them in places we know undocumented immigrants gather. Yeah. All the people around him, like how influential do they think he is? How power, like what's your sense of how powerful they think he is? I think there's a lot of deference. I mean, The Trump White House is a little different than other White House in that, you know, it operates like a kingdom. There's one opinion that matters the most, the president. And he's not paying attention to everything. He doesn't want to pay attention to everything at all times. And so he delegates a lot of responsibility. But the ultimate power goes back to him. And there have been a number of times where the president has been rather critical of... you know, immigration enforcement during his term. So it's not as if Miller's power is independent of that. And I think he's very good of working with the president. But there's enormous deference to Miller to as the person who's best able to execute a lot of this stuff and who has that power. I mean, we spoke to somebody who was describing Miller during the first Trump term. you know, calling into DHS meetings and saying, we should do this, this, and this, and then everyone getting off the phone and everyone at DHS saying, yeah, we're not going to do that. That's crazy. That is not the case now. Yeah. You know, Miller is basically running what DHS does. And there's not really much documented evidence that anyone is saying, oh, no, that's actually not a good idea. We're not going to do that to him. I saw in your piece you quote, I think it was Steve Bannon, right? Former Trump advisor. Well, but current pretty powerful mega figure describing him as a as Trump's prime minister. Yeah. It's a weird metaphor in that, you know, we're not a parliamentary system. So there is no prime minister. But yes, I mean, like if prime minister means the person who executes. the governing, you know, organs. I think Miller has as much role there as anyway. I mean, it's not, he still works with other people. It's not like he's making these decisions by himself. He's advising the president, giving him ideas. I think he's a very good relationship with the president. So again, his power is still as a staffer. It's still derivative of the president.

And there are still very powerful people. I mean, he's not the only very powerful person in the White House. Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, JD Vance, the Vice President, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State. I mean, there are a number of people who are in these conversations and they're all working together on this stuff. But I think it is true that, as I've described, when it comes to domestic policy, he's sort of first among equals. I want to understand a little bit more about his background. So he's only 40, though he's been involved in right-wing politics essentially since high school. And he's been involved with Trump and MAGA, as you've laid out since the first administration. And just could you tell me a bit more about his background before that and how he kind of came to be involved with Trump's 2016 campaign and beyond? So he grew up in Southern California, son of a relatively wealthy real estate family. From his teenage years, really enjoyed trolling and upsetting liberals. Am I the only one who is sick and tired of being told to pick up my trash and we have plenty of genitals? And there's lots of stories that have been written about his high school years and his provocations at the time. There's a video of him, you know, during the Iraq war in the early 90s, you know, saying that... I think the ideal solution would be to cut off their fingers. I don't think it's necessary to kill them entirely. We're not our barbaric people. We respect life. Therefore, torture is the way to go. Because torture people can live. Torture is a celebration of life and human dignity. We need to remember that as we enter these very dark and dangerous times in the next century. I only hope that many of my peers and people who will be living in this country will appreciate the value and respect that torture shows towards other cultures. And it's not clear if he's joking or not joking, but he's clearly being provocative. sort of fell in early, even before college with right-wing media, right-wing talk radio in Southern California. He went to Duke University and wrote conservative columns, again, kind of poking the bear of liberal consensus, was a major defender. of Duke lacrosse players when there was an accusation of rape against them. It turned out to have been fabricated. And he sort of drove that very hard. Two innocent people may have possibly just had their lives ruined. Your first concern is it somebody's falsely accused? Don't tell me what my first concern is. Wait, hold on a moment. What if they're innocent? What if they didn't do anything? And we are out of time. So he was always sort of a reactionary in that way. And then after his graduation, sort of turned that into working on Capitol Hill, largely around, again, this immigration, clash of civilization's idea. If you remember in the early 2000s, George W. Bush had come from Texas. He was a conservative Republican, but his idea of immigration was, yes, lots of Hispanic.

Americans come to Texas. There's as American as anybody else. You know, Texas is sort of this melting pot. And he and his advisors rejected those people who embraced these ideas. And so, you know, early on, Miller was sort of fighting rearguard action. And that meant in 2010s, fighting hard and actually being pretty pivotal and killing an attempt to pass comprehensive immigration reform with bipartisan support in the Senate. It would have been a deal that basically secured the border in exchange for giving a path to citizenship for millions of people who are already here. I think arguably he and the people he was working with at the staffer level was instrumental in anyone in making that bill die. Yeah. You know, I've been watching what's been happening in Minneapolis over the last two weeks and kind of this spiral of escalation and protests and repressive state actions. And some commentators have speculated that Trump and Miller want this chaos and violence so that they can use it as a pretense to grab more power. And what is your sense of the end game for Miller? I mean, so I, in some way, I think that's clearly true. Like, there clearly is an effort to embrace the spectacle and to demonstrate. I mean, the thesis of the Trump's second term is that there is enormous federal power that has not been used. And once used, you can, you know, create enormous change. And so in a law enforcement capacity, that means sending National Guard into otherwise, you know. you know, normal cities with falling crime rates or, uh, sending massive amounts. I mean, right now there are multiples numbers of ICE agents and CBP agents in Minneapolis and there are regular local police. Uh, and those two forces are not. operating with each other. And I think the endgame is a demonstration of power so that the policy objectives that Miller has can be realized. He truly wants to expel millions of people from this country. And that's a very difficult task. It's very hard to do. And he wants to do it in a rather unapologetic way. He doesn't want to be obstructed by protests. or other types of resistance. And when he faces that resistance, his impulse is to steam roll over that. So I think yes to all of that. I don't think it's a play just for power itself. And I do think also we're kind of at a pivotal moment. We don't know if it's going to work. I mean, the president still is facing... increasingly dim midterm elections. The polling has turned in the U.S. rather dramatically against the efforts to do deportations. I mean, this was something Trump was elected on. There was support for his immigration policy was elected, but a lot of that's evaporated just because of the way this has been carried out. And I think there will be, as we get closer to the midterm elections and maybe even 2028.

efforts by others within the Republican Party to pull this back because it doesn't help. I mean, I think, you know, most Americans are not happy with the idea of kids coming back from soccer practice getting tear gassed in their car because there's some enforcement action and protest happening or, you know, a woman being shot in her car or, you know, some of the other horrible things we've all witnessed and read about. You know, I know you said that he and Trump have a good working relationship. But do you see a world in which, like, there's some blowback here against Miller as the tides kind of turn in public opinion? Just, like, especially because this is this issue, he's such a force behind it, right? Yeah, I mean, so I, the president. corrects his path all the time and shifts and swerves and zigs and zags and so i i you know that that can totally happen um right now he's not doing that he's leaning in uh you know i i i think miller is you know has a very good relationship with trump you know like i don't think it there's not a lot of indication i've heard i mean there's plenty of cabinet secretaries or senior officials who have very tense relationships with others in the White House or tenuous relationships with Trump or whom Trump has been talking recently about being really unhappy with, you know, and Miller is not in that category. So I don't think, at least right now, that's the concern or something that's going to happen, that Trump will just turn on Miller. I think it's more that these other voices would get to Trump and Trump would. changed tack and you know miller has always uh changed tack when he's been told to by trump i mean there's no evidence of him you know, pushing back. And I think he's, he would, he would change tech as well if that happened. I take your point that there's kind of one boss in the White House and that boss is Trump. But he's also, you know, an erratic and unfocused and self-interested guy. And, you know, do you have a sense of the degree to which Miller might be influencing Trump on this? Or even just kind of straight up calling some shots. Yeah, I think, so I don't think Trump is very interested in the ideological projects that have been attached to him. There is sort of this intellectual movement of the new right that's risen up, this way of reimagining the Constitution and the powers of the presidency. Trump is executing a lot of that, but his interest is not in the ideas. His interest is in... achieving the goals he wants to achieve. I mean, he shares with Miller, the deportation goal, for instance. And with using power, Trump is very focused on a day-to-day basis.

at using power and his own greatness and his own accomplishments and expanding those accomplishments and getting medals or recognition for those accomplishments. And I think so there are different motivations there in a way, right? I think Miller is more interested in the broader project. But I think right now it works pretty well because Miller is giving Trump on a weekly basis. options to expand his power and execute his power. Miller is the guy who, you know, Trump says, I want to do something. And Miller's the guy who figures out how to get it done and how to execute on that. And so while they're not coming to it for exactly the same reasons, I think they end up working well together. So, you know, does that at some point shift? Does that break apart in the future? That's not something I can really predict. I mean, it is clear that they're as close as, or just given Miller's power, closely aligned in the second term. Okay. Michael, thank you so much for this. This is really interesting. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. All right. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

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