California Governor Gavin Newsom has summed up the divisive White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller in just two words.
“He’s about cruelty and chaos,” Newsom told Gen Z political commentator Jack Cocchiarella on the latest episode of his podcast.
“I think there’s a cruelty to him,” Newsom said, explaining that he had “nothing good to say” about the Trump ally whom he previously compared to Harry Potter villain Voldemort.
The Democrat said that he did not know Miller personally and could only analyse him from afar. The future presidential candidate said he was focused on Miller’s ongoing obsession with endorsing ICE raids that have split up American families.
“Quite literally, people are disappearing,” Newsom said. “The screams. You can’t unhear what you hear or see in these videos of moms that are losing family members. Those screams are real.”
Newsom also spoke of meeting a 16-year-old boy who couldn’t look him in the eye after both his parents “disappeared” from the jobs packing vegetables they’d been working for 20 years.
“That’s Stephen Miller,” Newsom said, pointing the blame. “That cruelty is… I feel that, man.”
Newsom also relayed the story of a 15-year-old boy with disabilities who said border patrol had put a gun to his head while he was waiting for his sister to walk across the street from his school in Los Angeles.
“That’s Stephen Miller,” Newsom repeated. “So, spare me any niceties with respect to this guy. I have nothing good to say about him, period. I don’t know what his motivations are, but the one thing all his actions have in common is cruelty.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
Cocchiarella also asked Newsom for his thoughts on Miller’s wife, Katie, and her failing podcast, which features a string of MAGA figures, including Mike Johnson and Pete Hegseth.
“I’ve seen a few appearances on the cable networks,” Newsom said diplomatically. He said he would “withhold” his thoughts on her podcast out of respect for the Miller family.
“I have a lot more energy that I need to put behind my strong opinions of Steven Miller,” Newsom said.
He also shared his view on what will happen post-Trump. He said Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio “can’t operate at that level like Trump.”
“There’s no Trumpism without Trump,” Newsom said. “It’s a cult of personality. Rubio can’t keep it together, Vance can’t keep it together. (Trumpism is) not an ideology, it’s about Trump. It’s the great grift. That’s all this is about. It’s the great grift. I mean, the level of corruption, the crony capitalism, the state capitalism, that’s what this is about.”
“They’ll attempt to, perhaps, but they cannot keep this coalition together,” Newsom said.
The governor used the current example of MAGA infighting over their views on right-wing broadcasters Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro as an example of how Republicans are “fraying.”
“You’re seeing it corrode everywhere,” Newsom said. “There’s no capacity for any of these other people to hold that together in my mind and estimation.”
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