Republican senators led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are coming to senior White House aide Stephen Miller’s defense after some of their GOP colleagues called for a White House shake-up.
GOP senators rattled over their party’s prospects in the midterms and unhappy with Miller’s public comments on Greenland and immigration enforcement view the deputy White House chief of staff as a growing political liability for both President Trump and the GOP.
But he commands strong loyalty from a number of Republican senators on Capitol Hill.
Graham, who also came to Miller’s defense last month, told The Hill on Sunday that Miller “is going to be proven right that we should be more aggressive” on immigration policy. And he argued that Miller’s and Trump’s tough talk about Greenland has put the United States in position to substantially strengthen its Arctic defenses.
“People can disagree with Stephen on rhetoric and they can disagree with him on policy but the question is, ‘Is Stephen Miller in jeopardy in Trump World?’ Absolutely not,” Graham said.
“To my Republican colleagues who wring their hands all the time about what somebody says in Trump World: We have an opportunity here to go on the offense. Sanctuary cities are about as popular as a toothache,” he argued. “I would hope that Republicans focus on — the problem’s not with Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, me or Trump. It’s with four years of Biden policy.
“It doesn’t matter what a senator thinks about a president’s adviser, as long as the president has confidence in that adviser. I have confidence in Stephen Miller that he’s going to help us go on offense,” Graham added. “We’re going to have a vote next week on the Senate floor on sanctuary cities and Stephen Miller helped orchestrate that with me.”
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.
Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), who represents a critical swing state, for example, said Miller “has been instrumental in delivering on the promises President Trump and I made during the campaign.”
“Because of him and other members of the President’s team, critical priorities like stopping deadly fentanyl, unleashing America’s energy, and bringing much-needed economic relief for working families are now a reality for Pennsylvania,” he said.
Eleven other Republican senators offered praise of Miller as key member of Trump’s team.
“I’ve worked with Stephen Miller for more than a decade to secure our borders, lock away criminals, and keep America safe. I highly value his counsel, as I know President Trump does as well,” said Senate Republican Conference Chair Tom Cotton (Ark.).
Miller’s influence over Trump’s immigration enforcement policy has come under increasing scrutiny within the Senate GOP conference as senators face a shutdown of the Homeland Security Department on Friday.
Democrats are threatening to block even a short-term continuation of Homeland Security funding unless Trump agrees to a list of reforms to “rein in ICE” and “stop the violence.”
Miller’s role in Trump’s muscular approach to foreign policy, particularly threats to use military force against Greenland, also is under a magnifying glass as about 20 senators — Democrats and Republicans — are scheduled to travel to the Munich Security Conference later this week to meet with NATO allies.
Those congressional delegation trips may get canceled because of the looming Homeland Security shutdown, which Democrats are threatening to trigger in protest of the administration’s deportation raids.
A group of Republican senators are becoming fed up with Miller’s clout at the White House and want Trump to bring in advisers with different perspectives into his inner circle.
“I think the truth be told he would not win a majority of a popularity contest in our conference,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), summarizing the view of Miller among Republican senators.
“Number one, he has a condescending demeanor to begin with. 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,” Tillis added of Miller.
Several other GOP senators who spoke on condition of anonymity said they believe Miller has too much power over Trump’s agenda and that his advice on foreign policy and immigration issues is leading the administration toward unpopular positions.
A Republican senator who requested anonymity acknowledged that Tillis, who is not seeking reelection, has been the most outspoken in criticizing Miller. But this GOP senator said Tillis’s views are shared broadly within the Senate GOP conference.
The lawmaker said many Republican senators view Miller as the driving force behind aggressive apprehensions that are becoming national stories, such as the detention of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, an asylum-seeker from Ecuador, who was picked up in Minnesota with his father and sent to a holding facility outside San Antonio.
“There are senators from deep-red states describing incidents about kids who are dropped off at school and then the parents are detained after the kids are dropped off, and the [school] principal has to be able to find someone to take the kids,” the source said. “Members say we want to be there for law enforcement, but this is not right.”
A New York Times/Siena College poll of 1,625 registered voters conducted Jan. 12-17 found that 61 percent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tactics have gone too far and just 36 percent approved of how ICE was handling its job.
A PBS News/NPR/Marist poll of 1,462 adults conducted Jan. 27-30 found that 65 percent of Americans think ICE tactics have gone too far.
A second Republican senator who requested anonymity said colleagues from battleground states want Trump to balance Miller’s influence on immigration policy and other core elements of his agenda with advisers who have different views.
“I think there need to be other people advising the president because certainly for a number of our members that are going to be in tough elections … [they want] different points of view advising the president so that he has a menu of options and selections in front of him,” the senator said. “Some are going to work better in certain states than others. It’s not a broad stroke of the brush here.”
The senator added that Trump’s policy menu “has been limited” for much of his second term so far, especially on immigration enforcement policy.
But there’s also a large group of Trump allies in the Senate Republican conference who support Miller’s no-holds-barred approach to immigration policy and are willing to give the administration broad latitude to pressure European allies over Greenland.
“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,” said Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.).
Graham, who has perhaps the closest relationship with Trump of anyone in the Senate GOP conference, told The Hill that Miller is in many ways the architect of the Make America Great Again movement.
He predicts that Senate Republicans will unify this week behind Miller’s aggressive approach to sanctuary cities, despite the public backlash sparked by the fatal shootings of two protesters in Minneapolis last month by federal immigration officers.
“Any GOP colleague or observer of Washington that believes that Donald Trump doesn’t have full faith in Stephen Miller should not be allowed to be driving in Washington. He is Karl Rove to MAGA,” Graham said in an interview, referring to President George W. Bush’s top political adviser.
Rove was so influential during the earlier administration that he was called “Bush’s Brain.”
GOP Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Steve Daines (Mont.), Roger Marshall (Kan.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Bernie Moreno (Ohio), James E. Risch (Idaho), Eric Schmitt (Mo.), Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.), Rick Scott (Fla.), and Ron Johnson (Wis.) also submitted statements Sunday praising Miller.
GOP Sens. Jim Banks (Ind.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Tommy Tuberville (Ala.) have also praised Miller on social media.
“@StephenM is a long time friend and trusted advisor. Grateful for his leadership and everything he does to help President Trump every day,” Banks posted on the social platform X on Jan. 27.
Miller, who served as a senior adviser to Trump during his first term, has seen his power and authority grow dramatically since then. Correspondingly, Trump has taken a much more aggressive approach toward immigration enforcement and foreign policy within the Western Hemisphere during his second term.
And the senior advisers who cautioned the president during his first term to restrain himself on domestic and international affairs — former White House chiefs of staff Reince Priebus and John Kelly, former Attorney General Bill Barr, former Secretaries of Defense Jim Mattis and Mark Esper, and former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley — are long gone.
Esper and Miller, for example, clashed over what Esper called Miller’s “absurd” plan to send 250,000 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Miller clashed with other senior advisers including Barr and Milley over how to respond to the Black Lives Matter protests that were raging in cities around the country, according to a book by Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender.
When Miller remarked the protests reminded him of a war zone, Milley turned around in his seat, pointed his finger at Miller and said, “Shut the f‑‑‑ up, Stephen,” according to the book.
But Trump appeared to side at the time with Miller and seemed more inclined to bring force to bear on the protests, despite caution and restraint urged by other senior aides.
Milley has since fallen out of favor with Trump and had his security detail and clearance stripped by the Pentagon in January.
During Trump’s second term, Miller has expanded his influence over the president’s foreign policy agenda, proclaiming in CNN interview earlier this year that the United States has a right to take over Greenland.
“You can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he told CNN host Jake Tapper.
A third Republican senator who requested anonymity said Miller should stay away from foreign policy, arguing that his swaggering talk about Greenland threatens important NATO alliances.
“The thing is the president is very fond of Stephen Miller and that’s the main thing,” the lawmaker said. “I think there are some things I would rather the administration stay away from,” the lawmaker added, referring to the White House’s aggressive push for Greenland.
The senator added that talk of seizing Danish territory by military force if necessary and the images of masked ICE and Border Patrol personnel using excessive force on protesters in Minneapolis have fueled Democratic criticism that Trump is leading the country toward authoritarianism.
But Graham, a prominent defense hawk on Capitol Hill, said that most GOP senators don’t understand what the Trump administration is trying to accomplish by maneuvering for U.S. control of Greenland.
“People have no idea what they’re talking about on Greenland. I’ve been on the ground floor of that. Stephen Miller and a lot of us were helping the president. The critics of Trump seem to have zero depth about what’s really going on,” he said.
“We wound up getting Greenland in a good spot. We have more control over Greenland than ever and we’re going to build up our Arctic defenses,” Graham added. “It’s fashionable now, it seems to be, in Republican circles to worry about what Trump said or somebody said in Trump world.
“My advice would be, let’s keep governing well,” he said. “Let’s start prosecuting the case about how out-of-sync the Democrats are with the American people.”
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