Stephen Miller Helped Sink Trump’s ‘Muslim Ban’ 2.0

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By Helen Chernikoff March 16, 2017

President Donald Trump has cheered the performance of top aide Steven Miller when he’s gone on television to support the president’s ban on travel from a group of Muslim majority countries.

Congratulations Stephen Miller- on representing me this morning on the various Sunday morning shows. Great job!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2017

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That ban was recently retooled to address legal objections — namely, that it contained an unconstitutional bias against Muslims — that got it quashed by a federal judge in Washington state. But the changes weren’t enough.

A federal judge from Hawaii blocked the revised ban as well — and Miller’s robust defense is partly to blame. The plaintiffs fighting the ban cited Miller’s own words.

He told Fox News last month that both versions of the ban were “fundamentally” similar: “You’re still going to have the same basic policy outcome for the country,” he said.

Contact Helen Chernikoff at chernikoff@forward.com

Helen Chernikoff is the Forward’s News Editor. She came to the Forward from The Jewish Week, where she served as the first web director and created both a blog dedicated to disability issues and a food and wine website. Before that, she covered the housing, lodging and logistics industries for Reuters, where she could sit at her desk and watch her stories move the stock market. Helen has a Master’s of Public Administration from Columbia University and a BA in History and French from Amherst College. She is also a rabbinical school dropout. Contact her at chernikoff@forward.com and follow her on Twitter at @thesimplechild.

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