The Left truly hates President Trump's resolve to get some control of illegal immigration into the United States, and routinely suggests that any effort to restrict immigration is motivated by racism, a hatred for "black and brown people." But on Monday's Morning Joe, they took this argument to a new level. Jean Guerrero, who reports on the border for KPBS in San Diego, has a new book out called Hate Monger about Trump aide Stephen Miller, and she insisted Trump "wants to be seen as a killer and Stephen Miller shares his instincts for violence."
Joe Scarborough began with guilt by association:
If you do a basic Google search Jean you see that of course David Duke praising Donald Trump time and time again for his policies after Charlottesville. And you see Stephen Miller as a Senate aide passing around articles written in white nationalist publications and even being praised by white nationalist Richard Spencer. What did you find out in researching your book?
Guerrero got her chance to speak, and it’s as radical as you’d expect:
JEAN GUERRERO: So Miller really, with his help and the help of other extremist mentors learned how to launder white supremacist viewpoints through the language of heritage, through the language of economics and through the language of national security in order to make it palatable to the mainstream. That's really what I show in my book. You have to understand Stephen Miller.
Stephen Miller is a public relations flack who at the age of 31 with little policy experience was put in charge of making policies for this country, and from day one in the White House, he began to narrow the focus of the Department of Homeland Security away from its focus of protecting the American people from a broad mandate of protecting them from terrorism, protecting them from public health crisis like the pandemic, into something that was laser-focused on something like keeping brown and black people out of this country, mostly asylum seekers and refugees, people who in most cases didn't break any laws, not criminals and cartels like Trump likes to say, but truly families.
But the last part of Guerrero’s comments really takes the cake of radicalism:
GUERRERO: Stephen Miller always encourages Trump's most aggressive and most violent impulses, which Trump appreciates because every time he listens to a more moderate adviser he gets pummeled and ridiculed by his base as weak, which Trump hates. He wants to be seen as a killer and Stephen Miller shares his instincts for violence. He has his fingers on the pulse of his most violent voting base who want to see these really hostile policies separating children from parents, systematically turning away the most vulnerable, most desperate people at the U.S./Mexico border.
Wayfair was a willing partner in this demonization, go here and tell them how you feel about that.
Read the full transcript below to learn more.
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
8-10-20
7:39 AM ET
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: He's been the man behind some of President Trump's most controversial policies and speeches. Now a new book taking a closer look at Stephen Miller and his impact on the administration. Joining us now is investigative reporter Jean Guerrero, the author of the new book entitled "Hate Monger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the white nationalist agenda. Joe.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: I mean, obviously even the title is extraordinary harsh but if you do a basic Google search Jean you see that of course David Duke praising Donald Trump time and time again for his policies after Charlottesville. And you see Stephen Miller as a Senate aide passing around articles written in white nationalist publications and even being praised by white nationalist Richard Spencer. What did you find out in researching your book?
JEAN GUERRERO: Stephen Miller is a case study in radicalization, in my book Hate Monger I show how he was indoctrinated during a difficult time in his life. His family had lost a lot of money, he was feeling displaced and this is when he meets a conservative writer through his high school named David Horowitz who introduces Stephen Miller to the fantasy that he needs to save the United States from destruction in the form of too many brown and black people coming here. This is the man who becomes like a father figure to Stephen Miller and believes that the only real racism is racism against white men. You know, I obtained emails showing Horowitz shaping Stephen Miller's career, feeding explosive talking points for the Trump campaign, feeding policies through Miller that you saw Trump adopting thereafter. So Miller really, with his help and the help of other extremist mentors learned how to launder white supremacist viewpoints through the language of heritage, through the language of economics and through the language of national security in order to make it palatable to the main stream. That's really what I show in my book.
JONATHAN LEMIRE: So Stephen Miller had a remarkable rise Jean from a congressional aide who would pepper reporters inboxes with talking points about immigration to being one of Jeff Sessions when he was Senator of Alabama, one his top advisors then moving to the Trump campaign and now being a powerful voice in the building behind me. Talk a little bit about how you see his influence, those ideas that you're talking about now being enacted in policy, how you are seeing it drive day in and day out being generated from the West Wing, what sort of imprint have you seen Miller leave?
GUERRERO: I truly believe, you know, after reporting for this book Hate Monger, if you want to understand the disaster that we're living today, in 2020, you have to understand Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller is a public relations flack who at the age of 31 with little policy experience was put in charge of making policies for this country and from day one in the White House he began to narrow the focus of the Department of Homeland Security away from its focus of protecting the American people from a broad mandate of protecting them from terrorism, protecting them from public health crisis like the pandemic into something that was laser focused on something like keeping brown and black people out of this country, mostly asylum seekers and refugees, people who in most cases didn't break any laws, not criminals and cartels like Trump likes to say, but truly families. And for Stephen Miller, as I show in my book Hate Monger, it's about reengineering the demographics of the country. In the book I connect the dots between everything that Miller does and his white supremacist influences. For example, Miller pulls policies from think tanks that were created by white supremacists who believe in population control for nonwhite people. He repeatedly disregarded the input of national security experts to push through his white nationalist agenda and as a result of this, from my conversations with White House officials from the book, Americans have been left vulnerable to a range of real threats, including the public health crisis that we're seeing today.
MICHAEL STEELE: Jean, this is Michael Steele, to pick up on the reengineering part of this narrative in your book. How has he been able to get the Republican establishment, which he presumably been outside of, to so conform in such a short time to this sort of white supremacist narrative? Is that something that's sort of baked into the party? So it was an easy transition? What's your analysis and what does your book tell us about how he was able to broaden the scope of that philosophy to not just policy but to the body politics as a whole?
GUERRERO: That's a great question. As I show in the book, Stephen Miller was instrumental in Trump's win in 2016 because of his anti-immigrant agenda. The Republican party began to realize that this anti-immigrant hostility was really speaking to voters. Beyond that a big part of the reason he's been so influential in the White House is that Stephen Miller gets Donald Trump in a way I believe no one else in the White House does. Part of this has roots in his childhood which I delve into in the book, Stephen Miller's father is a real estate investor who’s described to me as being Trump- like, was plagued by bankruptcies and numerous legal disputes. So part of it is he grew up in a similar family. The other thing is that Stephen Miller, and this is part is really important, Stephen Miller always encourages Trump's most aggressive and most violent impulses, which Trump appreciates because every time he listens to a more moderate adviser he gets pummeled and ridiculed by his base as weak, which Trump hates. He wants to be seen as a killer and Stephen Miller shares his instincts for violence. He has his fingers on the pulse of his most violent voting base who want to see these really hostile policies separating children from parents, systematically turning away the most vulnerable, most desperate people at the U.S./Mexico border. So all these really cruel policies, he needs the, you know, hatred in order to rally people around the policies and he's been effective at getting that hatred through systemic demonization of immigrants as well as the people who support them in the Democratic party.
