A group of MAGA senators made a point of praising President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, after some of their Republican colleagues begged Trump to rely less on his increasingly unpopular adviser.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina has repeatedly blasted Miller over his mass deportation drive, which has resulted in the deaths of two U.S. citizens at the hands of federal agents, and his “stupid” comments about the U.S. seizing Greenland.
“Stephen Miller never fails to live up to my expectations of incompetence,” he told reporters last month after Miller accused slain ICU nurse Alex Pretti of being a “would-be assassin.”
The Republican Senate conference broadly shares Tillis’ concerns that Miller’s hardline demands on foreign policy and immigration are turning off voters and hurting Republicans’ chances in the midterms, an unnamed GOP senator told The Hill.
Senators in battleground states are particularly anxious for the president to consider a broader range of perspectives and options, especially on immigration enforcement policy.
Miller, however, appears to be calling in reinforcements to try to regain the upper hand.
“More than a dozen Republican senators submitted on-the-record comments to The Hill on Sunday praising Miller and pushing back against public and anonymous criticisms from Senate GOP colleagues who want to diminish Miller’s clout at the White House,” The Hill reported.
It wasn’t clear what prompted the statements, which were all sent the same day the newspaper interviewed Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has repeatedly warned his colleagues that Trump will never turn on Miller.
The president’s long-time aide “is going to be proven right that we should be more aggressive” on immigration policy, Graham said.
“It doesn’t matter what a senator thinks about a president’s adviser, as long as the president has confidence in that adviser,” he added. “I have confidence in Stephen Miller that he’s going to help us go on offense.”
Others, like Tennessee’s Sen. Bill Hagerty, offered boilerplate statements.
“Stephen has effectively pushed for policies that are making America safer, like in Memphis in my home state of Tennessee, more prosperous, and more respected around the world,” Hagerty said.
Sens. Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania, Mike Lee of Utah, Steve Daines of Montana, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Ted Cruz of Texas, Bernie Moreno of Ohio, Jim Risch of Idaho, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Rick Scott of Florida, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin also submitted statements praising Miller, according to The Hill.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
Most Republican senators don’t get along with Miller, according to Tillis, who is retiring this year and therefore speaking more openly than most Republicans about tensions within the administration.
“He has a condescending demeanor to begin with,” Tillis told The Hill. “He doesn’t take advice. He sort of dictates. He provides doctrine. And you know these are U.S. senators with an election certificate. He should show them some respect.”
Following public outrage over the killings of Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, both 37-year-old Minnesotans, Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have been locked in a public battle over who’s to blame for the administration’s violent immigration enforcement tactics.
The Wall Street Journal reported this month that Trump wasn’t “comfortable” with how extreme Miller’s views on immigration are.
The president has also fielded calls from business leaders who are angry about Miller’s deportation quotas hurting their workforces, according to the Journal.
One of Trump’s top allies predicted that Miller would cost Republicans the midterms, while the opinion editors of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal blamed Miller after Democrats easily flipped a Texas state Senate seat in a district that Trump carried by 17 points in 2024.
Trump’s spokesperson Karoline Leavitt previously told the Daily Beast in a statement, “Stephen Miller has faithfully served President Trump for eleven years because he’s intelligent, hardworking, and loyal.”
She also said his results over the course of the past year “speak for themselves.”
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