At an inauguration-eve rally in Washington last weekend, celebrities took turns firing up the jubilant crowd of Trump supporters who had gathered to herald the dawn of a new American age — among them Jon Voight, Dana White and Kid Rock.
But it was not the Hollywood actor, the UFC frontman or the rock star who won the biggest roar from the Maga faithful. Instead it was a policy wonk, Stephen Miller, the architect of Donald Trump’s second-term policy agenda and anti-immigration ideologue.
“They were so sure they were going to crush this movement out of existence,” bellowed Miller as his fiery eight-minute address reached a peak. “And yet here we stand today and Maga is stronger, more powerful, more united and more determined than ever before.” The crowd went wild.
Since returning to the Oval Office, Trump has wasted no time in signing a blizzard of executive orders aimed at boosting oil production, curbing immigration, scrapping diversity initiatives and pardoning January 6 rioters, to name just a few. As the president put his name to the directives, Miller, the mastermind behind them, was standing just metres away.
“Stephen, like the president, believes that we have a finite amount of time to save our country,” says Jason Miller (no relation), a former Trump spokesperson. “For these early actions, I would say that Stephen is the key implementer-in-chief.”
Miller has been a Trump devotee from the early days of his first presidential campaign in 2016. Then a 30-year-old adviser, he crafted policy from behind a card table in a closet-sized office on the fifth floor of Trump tower.
Associates say his attention to detail stood out from the start. “During discussion on policy he always knew the most about any topic being discussed — from 150-year-old esoteric immigration provisions to international postal treaties,” says Hunter Morgen, his former deputy.
Miller’s loyalty has paid off. According to Mick Mulvaney, chief of staff during Trump’s first administration, “Stephen is probably . . . the closest to the president of anybody in the West Wing at this point, now that the family is not there. He’s going to be one of the critical players. He’s been with the president probably the longest of anybody who’s in there. The president trusts him implicitly.”
As he returns to the White House a battle-hardened policy veteran, Democrats are on high alert. “He’s the second most dangerous man in America after the president — and unlike the president he actually knows what he’s doing,” says Jim Manley, a former longtime aide to the Senate Democratic leadership.
Miller was born in Santa Monica, California in 1985. His rightwing zeal was apparent early. As a 16-year-old, he called into radio shows and wrote to local newspapers, railing against the “rampant political correctness” he said was consuming his high school.
In a 2002 letter published in the Santa Monica Lookout, he hit out at bilingual announcements, the availability of contraception, the “foster[ing]” of homosexuality, the failure to recite the pledge of allegiance and the negative depiction of US history. “Forget about being the nation that stopped Hitler, brought communism to its knees, and feeds more hungry people around the world than any other country — forget all of that, and let us just agree that we are a horrible nation. Or, we can raise our flags, lift our guns, and proclaim that we are Americans,” he wrote.
After studying at Duke University, he entered Republican politics, where he quickly made a name for himself. Former Tea Party congresswoman Michele Bachmann remembers him as a “serious, tireless communications director who quickly proved his intellect and talent”. Dave Brat, the economics professor who Miller helped oust House majority leader Eric Cantor in 2014, says he was a “straight shooter” who put “empirics” over “emotion”.
But it was with Alabama senator Jeff Sessions that he honed his skills as a hype-man. Sessions previously told the Financial Times that he had asked Miller, then a staffer in his Senate office, to introduce him at an event when someone pulled out. Miller was so good in the role, according to Sessions, that he became a regular fixture.
During the 2016 presidential race, Sessions was one of the first Republicans to endorse Trump and Miller soon joined the real estate tycoon on the campaign trail. Trump often used the young ideologue as a warm-up act.
But it was in policy that Miller would make himself invaluable, putting into action the president’s anti-immigration plans. During Trump’s first term he shaped nativist policies including the separation of families, the shortlived so-called Muslim travel ban and the ending of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) programme.
Groups representing immigrants fear his return to the heart of government. “We are deeply, deeply concerned,” says Vanessa Cárdenas, director of America’s Voice, an NGO. “It is incredibly troubling that he is back and frankly in charge of immigration policy — and also has tentacles all over our government.”
While immigration might be his driver, Miller plans to make his mark in other areas too — reshaping America’s relationship with the world and overhauling what he sees as a “corrupt and broken” system at home. “How is Stephen spending his days,” asks Mulvaney. “It’s immigration, immigration, immigration, then trade policy, then the deep state.”
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