The White House deployed Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser with strong connections to white nationalism, to defend Donald Trump against allegations that he is unfit for the presidency. It was a trainwreck.

Miller spent minutes denying the claim, raised in Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury,” that Trump himself met with a Russian lawyer who claimed to have dirt on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton — then Miller admitted that he as “no knowledge of anything to do with that meeting.”

He repeatedly called Trump a “political genius” and defended a Twitter rant in which the president claimed to be a “very stable genius.” CNN host Jake Tapper rebutted any suggestion that Trump is a political genius by pointing out that Trump’s approval ratings are in the 30s.


Miller claimed that Stephen Bannon’s role in the Trump White House has been “greatly exaggerated.” Bannon held the position of chief strategist and was, until recently, one of Trump’s top advisers — though Trump has tried to distance himself from Bannon after Wolff published the former top advisor’s critical comments about the president.

Miller also spent a huge chunk of the interview blasting CNN and claiming that the network could not be relied upon because its coverage is often critical of Trump. At one point, when Tapper turned the conversation to the issue of Trump’s fitness for office, Miller snapped back, “I’m getting to the issue of your fitness.”

In the end, Tapper cut the interview short, telling Miller, “I’ve wasted enough of my viewers’ time” before turning to pitch the next segment — all while Miller impotently continued to rant at Tapper from off camera.

UPDATE: Miller’s boss approves of the interview.

Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018

UPDATE (1/7, 10:05 PM): Business Insider reports that, after his CNN interview, Miller refused to leave and had to be escorted out. This was later confirmed by a source at CNN.

A source at @CNN re the Stephen Miller interview with @jaketapper on @CNNSotu: “The segment was over and Mr. Miller was politely asked to leave the set multiple times—after refusing to leave, he was escorted out by security.” — Arden Farhi (@ArdenFarhi) January 8, 2018

Farhi, a reporter for CBS, initially tweeted that CNN issued an official statement but later replaced that tweet with the one above.

UPDATE (1/8, 1:36 PM): Farhi published a transcript of what Tapper said to Stephen Miller after the cameras turned off.