Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon Wrote Trump’s Inaugural Speech

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By Daniel J. Solomon January 21, 2017

President Donald Trump’s passionately nationalistic speech was written by two of his most hard-right aides, White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and Senior Adviser Stephen Miller.

With its calls to put “America First” and end “American carnage,” address carried the trademarks of both of them. Trump had promised to write his own address.

Miller served as a national policy and communications adviser in the Trump campaign, when he developed a reputation for fiery speeches on the trail, and for warming up the crowds with chants of “Build the wall!” A self-described “practicing Jew,” Miller, 30, grew up in a liberal home in California, but turned to the right when he discovered the writings of National Rifle Association head Wayne LaPierre in Guns and Ammo magazine.

He was a conservative student activist at Duke, where he was acquainted with white supremacist Richard Spencer, who later praised him.

Bannon served as the chairman of the campaign, and before that as the head of Breitbart News, which he bragged was “a platform for the alt-right.”

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

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