Background and career
Stephen N. Miller (born August 23, 1985) is an American political advisor serving as White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor since 2025. He previously served as senior advisor to the president and director of speechwriting from 2017 to 2021 during the first Trump administration. Considered one of the most influential figures of the Trump administrations and Trumpism movement, his politics have been described as far-right, anti-immigration, and white nationalist. Miller grew up in Santa Monica, California, and attended Duke University, where he was a columnist for The Chronicle and president of the Duke chapter of Students for Academic Freedom. After graduating in 2007, he worked as press secretary for US representatives Michele Bachmann and John Shadegg. In 2009, he joined the staff of Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, where he worked on immigration policy and helped defeat the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013. As an aide to Sessions, Miller influenced the direction of Breitbart News. He advised both of Trump's presidential campaigns. After Trump's loss in the 2020 election, Miller founded America First Legal, a conservative legal advocacy organization, in 2021. Miller has been a central figure in the Trump administration's immigration policy, including the family separation policy and Executive Order 13769, which restricted travel from several Muslim-majority countries. As director of speechwriting, he supervised the writing of Trump's inaugural and State of the Union addresses. Miller is on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of extremists. His influence and views are the subject of both traditional and independent media, as well as of both domestic and international.
Stephen N. Miller was born on August 23, 1985, in the affluent North of Montana neighborhood in Santa Monica, California, the second of three children of Miriam (née Glosser) and Michael Miller. Miller is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. His family's lineage escaped Russian pogroms and the Holocaust. Miller's mother, Miriam, was a Columbia University graduate and became a social worker. She grew up in a family of New Deal Democrats, but according to biographers, like the majority of the era's Californians, had conservative views. Miller's father, Michael, was a lawyer and worked in the Miller family real estate business. In 1998, when Miller was thirteen, his parents sold their home and bought a smaller home in a less affluent area. Miller went to Hebrew school at Beth Shir Shalom, where classmates thought of him as a contrarian. In 1999, he began attending Santa Monica High School. Miller opposed his high school's chapter of the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán and was described by the chapter founder as having taunted immigrants; he reportedly insisted to other students and teachers that they speak English. Miller called into talk-radio's The Larry Elder Show (1993–2008; 2010–2014) and successfully brought the host to his high school. He later appeared on Elder's show after the September 11 attacks to describe an incident in which a Canadian teacher placed the flag of the United States on the floor and discussed its importance. Although other students remembered otherwise, Miller alleged that the teacher had dragged the flag across the floor and trampled over it. By his count, Miller appeared on the Elder show sixty-nine times and their relationship continued for years. He was confirmed at the Santa Monica Synagogue, a Reform temple. At Santa Monica, Miller garnered attention and was lampooned in an April Fools' Day issue of the school newspaper, The Samohi. In 2002, he ran for student announcer, giving a speech in which he questioned being told to pick up trash when the school hired custodians. The student body disapproved of Miller's comments and he lost the election. Miller was involved in the school's band program, tennis, religious studies, and political and youth groups. Jean Guerrero writes that his favorite musician was Elvis Presley and favorite film was Martin Scorsese's Casino (1995). Guerrero writes that at times he copied the look of Robert De Niro portraying a mobster, and that he dressed up like the movies for trips to Las Vegas, where he was a skilled craps player. During high school and continuing into university, Miller often wore a suit. He told Elder that he liked to make a good first impression. As an adult, he continued to wear expensive, American-made, bespoke suits. Conservative writer David Horowitz heard Miller on The Larry Elder Show. Horowitz became another long-term relationship for Miller who invited him to speak at his high school. Horowitz reciprocated, inviting Miller to his home. Miller made several demands in an article on Horowitz's website, FrontPage Magazine. He asked for the school's culture to embrace "inclusive patriotism", in contrast to multiculturalism and that his school institute the Pledge of Allegiance five days a week. The school instituted the pledge, which Miller reported as a "huge victory". He wrote that Santa Monica's principal and its district superintendent blamed Miller for having caused a tax increase initiative to fail. According to Miller's article, the principal distributed a memorandum to teachers, ordering them to discuss the Iraq War in a neutral and balanced manner. In Guerrero's estimation, by his graduation in 2003, Miller had received more publicity than "probably any other student in class".
Miller began attending Duke University in 2003 to study political science. In 2004, outraged at Duke's decision to schedule a Palestine Solidarity Movement conference, Miller founded the university's chapter of Horowitz's Students for Academic Freedom and rallied students to oppose the conference. The following year, he was the author of a column in The Duke Chronicle, Duke's student newspaper, titled "Miller Time." Miller continued to critique multiculturalism. His combative debate strategy, particularly in his column, earned Miller a reputation for pugnacity. Miller invited Horowitz to speak at Duke, who in turn named Miller to lead the Terrorism Awareness Project, an initiative that conflated Muslims and Arabs with terrorists. Miller appeared on Fox & Friends (1998–present) to promote the effort. In the aftermath of the Duke lacrosse rape hoax, Miller defended the three members of the Duke Blue Devils men's lacrosse team who were accused of rape, arguing that they had been presumed guilty for being white males. He appeared on Nancy Grace (2005–2016) to further advocate for the lacrosse players. After reports emerged that the accuser, Crystal Mangum, had concealed the results of a negative DNA test, Miller continued to discuss the issue, condemning an advertisement that noted the persistent fear of students "who know themselves to be objects of racism and sexism" in an interview with Bill O'Reilly on The O'Reilly Factor (1996–2017). Miller later told McKay Coppins of The Atlantic that his support of the players was his greatest college achievement. By junior year, Miller had joined the Duke Conservative Union. He had become the organization's executive director by the beginning of his senior year, a position that allowed him to fundraise. Through the union, Miller met Richard B. Spencer, who later became known as a white supremacist. The two organized an immigration debate in March 2007. Although he told Nancy Grace he wanted to be a prosecutor and that Horowitz knew that he would like to be a senator, Miller skipped his scheduled LSAT that was required for law school admission applications. Later, Miller said he was focused on establishing a memorial for the September 11 attacks.
After graduating from Duke University, Miller traveled across Eurasia, including embarking on a Birthright Israel trip. Through David Horowitz, Miller began working for Minnesota representative Michele Bachmann by December 2007 as her press secretary. He moved to Washington, D.C., where his family had assisted him in purchasing a US$450,000 condominium. By 2009, Miller—and Horowitz—had become disillusioned with Bachmann. Horowitz referred Miller to Arizona representative John Shadegg. Miller participated in Tea Party protests against Barack Obama with Shadegg. Horowitz recommended him again and in June 2009, Miller began working for Alabama senator Jeff Sessions as his press secretary. Miller sought to legitimize his criticisms of immigration and garner a larger audience; he formed relationships with anti-immigration organizations, including the Center for Immigration Studies, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and NumbersUSA. Miller became Sessions's communications manager by August 2014. He met Steve Bannon and Andrew Breitbart—both men recognized Miller from his rebukes of his high school—and Bannon became an enduring ally. That year, his parents helped him purchase a US$1 million condominium in CityCenterDC. As a communications aide to Sessions, Miller worked to influence the editorial coverage of Breitbart News. He sent editors links to the far-right website VDARE and the white-supremacist online-only magazine American Renaissance; Miller's efforts legitimized Breitbart's language in Congress and influenced The Daily Caller's immigration coverage. Miller, joined by Sessions, mounted a successful campaign to disparage the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, an immigration reform bill proposed by four Democratic senators and four Republican senators known as the Gang of Eight. The bill passed in the Democratic-controlled Senate, but was not considered in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives after Miller brought House staffers a binder with talking points and research he had conducted. Miller assisted Dave Brat in mounting a primary challenge to defeat Virginia representative Eric Cantor, who was serving as House majority leader at the time. In January 2015, Miller and Sessions authored Immigration Handbook for the New Republican Majority, a rebuttal to the Republican Party's post-mortem after Mitt Romney's loss in the 2012 presidential election. In November 2019, Katie McHugh, formerly editor at Breitbart, published a summary of approximately nine hundred emails from Miller that were sent to Breitbart News from March 2015 to June 2016. Correspondences between Miller and McHugh show a shared concern that Mexican survivors of Hurricane Patricia could be granted temporary protected status—an exchange in which Miller included a link to VDARE, and that e-commerce websites had removed Confederate merchandise in the aftermath of the Charleston church shooting—an article that appeared later on Breitbart. Miller urged Breitbart editors to read The Camp of the Saints (1973), a novel that depicts the destruction of Western civilization through mass immigration; Julia Hahn reviewed the book for Breitbart. Kurt Bardella, a former spokesman for Breitbart, described Miller as "almost a de facto assignment editor". The Southern Poverty Law Center later obtained additional emails in which Miller linked an article from a think tank about an apparent increase in the number of newborns named "Mohammed", a story that appeared on Breitbart the following day, and an email in which Miller praised the work of the anti-immigration commentator Jason Richwine. Miller sought to disparage Florida senator Marco Rubio.
In June 2015, businessman Donald Trump declared his candidacy in the 2016 presidential election. Trump's views on race interested Miller; in an interview with Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear for Border Wars (2019), Miller felt that Trump "doubled down, breaking that apology-retreat cycle" and giving confidence to a customarily dissatisfied populace. Miller was particularly invested in defeating Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a member of the Gang of Eight who was running for president. Breitbart News's Matthew Boyle referred Miller to Sam Nunberg, a political consultant working for the Trump campaign. Despite a recommendation from Sessions, Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager, was reluctant to hire Miller. Nonetheless, Miller contributed to the campaign without its support. He prepared Trump's immigration policies. In January 2016, Miller joined Trump's presidential campaign as a senior policy advisor. He began writing speeches for Trump at Steve Bannon's behest and with encouragement from Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Miller intensified Trump's language, often embedding the term "radical Islam" into his speeches. In February, Sessions became the first senator to endorse Trump, damaging the rival campaign of Texas senator Ted Cruz. Miller's interview with the Breitbart News Daily (2015–present) host Brandon Darby the following month influenced the National Border Patrol Council's decision to endorse Trump. By March, Miller was opening act for Trump at rallies. He wrote Trump's acceptance speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention and served as the campaign's policy liaison to the convention. Miller assisted Trump in preparing for debates with Hillary Clinton. After the convention, the campaign switched to a teleprompter and elevated Miller to Trump's principal speechwriter. By August, he had become Trump's national policy director. That month, Miller was appointed to lead an economic team. Politico described Miller as an "instrumental advisor for Trump on the issue" of immigration. Bannon later convinced Trump to not deviate from speeches written by him and Miller. After Trump won the 2016 election, Miller retained his role as national policy director for the transition. He led much of the policy work to prepare for Trump's first one hundred days. Trump chose Miller to write his inaugural address.
In December 2016, Trump named Miller as his senior advisor to the president for policy. His role was later clarified to have oversight over the Domestic Policy Council. Miller is an unelected advisor and his positions do not require Senate confirmation. Bannon and Miller co-wrote many of Trump's initial executive orders, including the order that instituted the Muslim travel ban. The Trump White House had two ideological factions: the Washington wing centered on chief of staff Reince Priebus and press secretary Sean Spicer, and the Breitbart wing around Miller and Bannon. According to Politico, allies of Priebus were "wary" of Miller, among other aides critical of moderating Trump's politics. Miller led a principals committee meeting on immigration in January 2017, according to the Los Angeles Times. Miller's dominant position in developing Trump's immigration policy garnered him criticism. In February 2017, The New York Times reported that Trump had urged Priebus to implement conventional protocols, including limiting Bannon and Miller's unfettered access, after reports that other Trump officials were not briefed about the travel ban order until it had already been signed. Miller wrote Trump's speech to a joint session of Congress that month. He sought to purge the federal government of Barack Obama's political appointees. The dynamics of Miller's influence in the Trump administration shifted by April as Bannon entered into conflict with Jared Kushner; Miller informed colleagues that he was not affiliated with Bannon. That month, he began to work with Office of American Innovation, led by Kushner, and began focusing on energy and regulatory issues. Miller remained an ally of Bannon. Miller supported the dismissal of James Comey, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and drafted the letter firing him. He and Bannon were allegedly responsible for removing a line in Trump's speech before the 2017 Brussels NATO summit mentioning Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, leading to a dispute with H. R. McMaster, the national security advisor. In June, Politico reported that secretary of state Rex Tillerson had sparred with Miller over immigration after Miller told Tillerson that the Department of State should be tougher on immigration. Prior to assuming the position of chief of staff, John F. Kelly worked to develop a relationship with Miller. In August, Miller publicly sparred with CNN's Jim Acosta—whom he accused of "cosmopolitan bias"—in a press briefing for the RAISE Act. Days later, Reuters reported that Miller was a contender for White House communications director, succeeding Anthony Scaramucci.
