Stephen Miller, Descendant Of Refugees, Would Be ‘Happy’ With No New Refugees
Image by Getty Images
By Aiden Pink January 30, 2019
White House senior advisor Stephen Miller said he would be “happy if not a single refugee foot ever again touched America’s soil,” a new tell-all book by a former Trump administration staffer claims.
“Team of Vipers,” by former White House communications advisor Cliff Sims, details the infighting and backstabbing that took place between administration officials. In his book, the contents of which were revealed Monday by The Atlantic, Sims, a devout Christian, expressed disappointment that Trump had promised to protect Christian refugees from the Middle East but never did so. Sims said Trump was pushed in that regard by Miller, the staunch immigration restrictionist who later advocated for the family separation policy at the Mexican border.
Miller’s family fled anti-Semitic persecution in the early 20th century, arriving in America before the modern refugee system was established. Miller has been condemned by his relatives and his childhood rabbi over his harsh anti-refugee stances, which they say would have prevented Miller’s family from arriving in America.
“I have watched with dismay and increasing horror as my nephew, who is an educated man and well aware of his heritage, has become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundation of our family’s life in this country,” David Glosser, the brother of Miller’s mother Miriam Glosser Miller, wrote in Politico last August.
According to The Atlantic, Sims claimed in his book that Miller helped overthrow his erstwhile ally and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, “plung[ing] the knife” into Bannon’s back and “twisting it with relish” by telling Trump that Bannon was leaking to the press and undermining senior advisor/son-in-law Jared Kushner.
In one episode in Sims’ book, he recounts National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow acting befuddled after Trump ordered him to stop a “special deal” that the Postal Service supposedly had with Amazon. Kudlow asked his outgoing predecessor, Gary Cohn, what Trump was talking about. Sims wrote that Cohn laughed and said, “It’s total bulls—-…He’s just mad at [Jeff] Bezos for owning The Washington Post.”
Cohn recommended that Kudlow not try to do anything about the nonexistent Amazon deal. “But now you know why I’m so happy to be leaving,” he said.
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
