He may not be an elected official, but as one of US President Donald Trump’s closest advisers, Stephen Miller is widely regarded as being the ideological driving force behind the American president’s highly divisive Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda.
A devoted Trump loyalist who has the rare distinction of serving in both Trump administrations, the 40-year-old seems to be a central figure in the president’s more controversial policy decisions.
Miller, whose official title is White House deputy chief of staff for policy, lost no time defending Trump’s decision at the start of the year to use military force to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and transfer them to a detention facility in New York to stand trial on drug trafficking charges.
Miller justified America’s military intervention on the grounds that it was the only effective way of tackling drug trafficking to the US, as well as curbing the flow of illegal migrants.
And he was unapologetic about defending Trump’s claim that the US would take control of running Venezuela for the time being until the country had been stabilised after decades of misrule.
“The United States is in charge, but obviously that doesn’t mean President Trump is setting the bus fare schedule inside the country,” Miller explained in an interview with CNN. “We are in charge because we have the United States military stationed outside the country. We set the terms and conditions.”
The architect of Trump's anti-immigrant crackdown, Miller has led the drive for violent ICE raids in major American cities
Miller was even more forthright, justifying Trump's equally controversial demand that the US assume control over the Arctic country of Greenland, a demand that has caused enormous ill-will among America's NATO allies in Europe and Canada.
"We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else," Miller said in another CNN interview. "But we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power."
"We're a superpower. And under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower."
Apart from his willingness to publicly justify some of the president's more controversial decisions, Miller, who works closely with Susie Wiles, Trump's chief of staff, is the driving force behind many of Trump's core policies. He's known for having extreme views, even by the president's own standards.
Miller, who is Jewish and pro-Israel, was a strong proponent and key figure in the Trump administration regarding the Abraham Accords, describing the Israel-UAE peace deal as a "historic achievement" and the "biggest breakthrough in the Middle East" in years.
He is also credited with being the architect of Trump's anti-immigrant crackdown. He has pushed for a narrowing of legal immigration pathways and led the drive for the highly divisive deployment of ICE immigration enforcement officers to major American cities to enforce the Trump administration's uncompromising crackdown on illegal immigration.
Such is the range of Miller's influence within the Trump administration that he is involved in most major policy issues, from immigration to homeland security, including law enforcement, foreign policy, trade, and even education. Critics claim that most of the controversial policies being implemented during Trump's second term in the White House were conceived by Miller, and not the president.
Trump himself has acknowledged the importance of Miller's unique contribution to his administration, often introducing him at rallies as "the great Stephen Miller".
US President Donald Trump, alongside Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, on 3 January 2026.
Trusted advisor
Regarded as one of Trump's most trusted advisers, Miller is also one of the longest serving, having joined Trump's first campaign in January 2016. While many of Trump's appointees during his first administration lasted little more than a year, Miller stayed the course, becoming one of only a handful of advisers to have served in both Trump's first and second terms.
The two men are said to have developed a close working relationship, meeting daily with Wiles to review Trump's diary and the executive orders to be signed. His central role in the administration is reflected in Trump's description of his most loyal servant as sitting "at the top of the totem pole" of his administration. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt recently revealed that a continual refrain from the Oval Office is: "Where's Stephen? Tell him to get that done."
Another important part of his brief is to serve as a key liaison between the White House and Capitol Hill, briefing lawmakers on Trump's plans.
Miller's burgeoning profile is also boosted by his marriage to podcaster Katie Miller, with whom he has three small children, with another on the way.
"He is an incredibly inspiring man who gets me going in the morning with his speeches being like, 'Let's start the day, I am going to defeat the left, and we are going to win,'" she said of her husband. "He wakes up the day ready to carry out the mission that President Trump was elected to do."
Even during the four years when Trump was out of power, he and Miller spoke nearly every day, say fellow Republicans. But Miller's influence is not just how close to the president he is; it's also how broad his remit is and how he has his hand in policies that people might not expect, like the Trump administration's war against higher education and against Harvard University.
Miller has also been good at convincing Americans that acquiring Greenland is "essential" to US national security. "The new domain of international competition is going to be Arctic competition," he told Fox News's Sean Hannity. "That is where more and more resources are being spent by our nation's adversaries and rivals, the ability to control movement, navigation, and lanes of travel in the polar and Arctic region."
He added that because Denmark "cannot defend" Greenland, citing weaknesses in their military and economy, it should not have claims to the land. "To control a territory, you have to be able to defend, improve and inhabit it," Miller said. "Denmark has failed at every single one of these tests."
Danish MP Rasmus Jarlov responded to Miller, saying, "I hope he's kept away from young women, because that's the mentality of a rapist. You can't defend yourself, so I'm going to take you. That's basically what he's saying."
Early life and career
Miller grew up in a politically liberal Jewish family in Santa Monica, California. He reportedly became conservative after reading Guns, Crime, and Freedom (1994) by Wayne LaPierre, a leading light in the powerful National Rifle Association lobby.
In high school, Miller was a vocal critic of what he perceived as his school's liberalism and began appearing on conservative radio talk shows. He went on to attend Duke University, where he studied political science and wrote 'Miller Time', an opinion column for the school's newspaper, The Chronicle. According to some of his former classmates, he embraced being a provocateur, and his columns were often polarising.
After graduating in 2007, Miller pursued a career in Republican politics, working as a congressional staffer. In 2009, Miller began working for Senator Jeff Sessions (Alabama), who was known for his opposition to immigration. Miller, who eventually became chief of communications, reportedly encouraged Sessions to become more combative and often supplied him with talking points.
Senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, Deputy National Security adviser Dina Powell and strategist Steve Bannon exit Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on 13 May 2017.
Their views on immigration were shared by Steve Bannon, a key figure at the conservative Breitbart News, and the three men often worked in tandem to advance their policies. They have been credited with laying the political groundwork that helped Trump win the 2016 election.
During the 2016 presidential contest, Miller joined Trump's campaign as a policy adviser. (Bannon also worked on the campaign, and Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump.) Miller later became a speechwriter and sometimes served as Trump's warm-up speaker at rallies.
After Trump won, Miller served as a senior policy adviser in the administration. His primary responsibility was shaping immigration policies. Notably, he was a leading advocate of the family separation policy, in which children were taken from parents who had illegally crossed the US-Mexico border. Miller also supported the so-called Muslim ban, which barred entry into the United States from several Muslim-majority countries.
In 2020, Trump lost his re-election bid, and Miller left the White House the following year. He subsequently founded (in 2021) the America First Legal Foundation. In a statement announcing the new venture, he said, "Those who believe in America First must not shy away from using our legal system to defend our society and our families from any unlawful actions by the left." He later played a key role in Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. Among his appearances in support of Trump was at an October rally in New York during which he asserted that "America is for Americans and Americans only."
Homeland security advisor
He also continued to help craft immigration policy, and one of the former president's campaign promises was to carry out mass deportations of undocumented workers. Soon after winning the election, Trump announced that Miller would serve as deputy chief of staff for policy and as homeland security adviser; neither requires Senate confirmation. Miller assumed the posts on 20 January 2025.
Trump will also be aware that the Millers' growing public profile could prove to be a double-edged sword for the Trump administration. Despite saying out loud what many on the far-right of the Republican party want to hear, their apparent extremism is increasingly a focus for Trump's critics.
California's democrat governor, Gavin Newsom – generally thought to be preparing for a presidential run in 2028 has referred to Miller as Voldemort, the personification of evil in the Harry Potter novels. Even so, so long as Miller can retain Trump's enthusiastic support, he will remain one of the administration's most outspoken and influential operators.
