Since Donald Trump’s first term, Stephen Miller has risen into an architect and enforcer of some of the president’s most controversial policies. On Washington Week With The Atlantic, panelists joined to discuss the senior aide’s rise, and how he’s become one of the most powerful figures in the Trump administration.
Miller “has always believed that there is a role for provocation and performance in politics,” Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins, who has previously written about how Miller’s childhood and college experience influenced his work, argued last night.
Between Trump’s first and second terms, Miller’s “ideology has been rather consistent. It’s that he’s more visible, more powerful, in this second term,” Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent at The New York Times, continued. But whereas Miller was once limited to “being the architect in overseeing immigration policy in the Department of Homeland Security,” Young said, he is now “trying to change the perception in the nation toward immigrants … and there’s more of a tolerance for the policies he’s trying to implement.”
Joining the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to discuss this and more: Leigh Ann Caldwell, the chief Washington correspondent at Puck; McKay Coppins, a staff writer at The Atlantic; Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent at The New York Times; and Ashley Parker, a staff writer at The Atlantic.
Watch the full episode here.
