The Millers: Washington energy couple straddles Trump-Musk feud

CNN
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They’re the Washington couple on the heart of energy within the Trump administration. They’re additionally straddling opposing sides of an explosive breakup between President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk.

CNN reported final week that Katie Miller, the spouse of Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of workers, can be departing her senior function on the White Home as a high spokesperson and adviser for Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity. She was on her solution to work for Musk as he went again to operating his corporations, serving to the tech titan handle and prepare interviews unrelated to his time in authorities.

However days later, amid the smoldering wreck of Musk and Trump’s epic meltdown on Thursday over social media, that job abruptly took on a complete new layer.

Among the many assaults each males lobbed at one another was Musk endorsing the potential for impeaching Trump and putting in Vice President JD Vance in his place. Trump, in flip, raised the potential for terminating federal contracts for Musk’s corporations.

The episode has left the Millers on conflicting sides of the most important breakup of Trump’s second time period, spawning gossip amongst White Home aides and rounds of hypothesis about how the fallout might affect the political fortunes of some of the highly effective {couples} in Trump’s Washington, the place loyalty reigns.

“Everyone seems to be speaking about it,” a former Trump staffer instructed CNN.

Katie Miller was in Texas final week for the sequence of interviews Musk held with house and know-how journalists as SpaceX’s Starship had its ninth check flight. It was there that Musk first delicately expressed he was “dissatisfied” within the Republican’s home coverage invoice in an interview with CBS Information.

Her X account is now a gradual stream of laudatory posts about Musk and his corporations, with a banner picture of a SpaceX rocket launching into house and a biography that claims, “spouse of @stephenm.” Her solely social media submit on Friday was a reply with laughing emojis to an altered picture of her husband as a Residence Depot worker connected to a submit about immigration raids on the chain’s shops.

One former colleague instructed CNN that she is going to finally want to choose.

“She has a alternative between Elon and Trump, however it will possibly’t be each,” the administration official mentioned.

Musk unfollowed Stephen Miller on X on Thursday, though each Millers continued following Musk on the platform into Friday.

There are divided views on how the state of affairs will affect Stephen Miller’s ascendance.

Amongst Trump’s closest advisers, many imagine he’s surpassed in energy solely by Chief of Employees Susie Wiles, fueling hypothesis amongst some over whether or not he might take over ought to Wiles resolve to maneuver on.

“This complete factor will certainly make that extra sophisticated,” one senior White Home official instructed CNN. “Katie being paid by Elon just isn’t good for Stephen.”

One other senior White Home official strongly pushed again on the concept this episode with Musk would affect Miller in any means with the President.

“Subsequent to Susie, Trump trusts and depends on Stephen probably the most,” the official mentioned, including that the President and high brass have been understanding that his spouse working for Musk had nothing to do with Stephen or the present state of occasions.

Katie Miller declined to remark for this story.

Deeply related and influential in Republican circles and on the highest ranges of presidency, Stephen Miller and Katie Miller (née Waldman) met throughout Trump’s first time period in 2018. He was a senior adviser and speechwriter on the White Home; she was on the Division of Homeland Safety’s public affairs staff and on her solution to changing into then-Vice President Mike Pence’s communications director.

He developed a popularity because the architect of a number of the administration’s most hardline immigration insurance policies, changing into an influential and trusted aide within the Trump orbit.

She developed her personal popularity as a staunch supporter of these insurance policies, as soon as reflecting on a visit to the US-Mexico border because the administration got here below hearth for its baby separation coverage.

“My household and colleagues instructed me that when I’ve youngsters I’ll take into consideration the separations otherwise. However I don’t suppose so … DHS despatched me to the border to see the separations for myself — to attempt to make me extra compassionate — nevertheless it didn’t work,” Miller instructed NBC Information journalist Jacob Soboroff in an interview for his ebook, “Separated.”

The pair married at Trump’s Washington, DC, lodge in February 2020. Trump attended the marriage.

Within the 4 years after Trump left workplace, each set their sights on a Trump return to the White Home. Stephen Miller launched a conservative nonprofit group, America First Authorized Basis, that served partially as a prelude to the coverage of Trump’s second time period.

Katie Miller headed to the non-public sector, the place she consulted a variety of main corporations, together with Apple. They have been additionally elevating three younger youngsters.

Stephen Miller returned to the White Home in January with an enormous mandate, deeply concerned in most of the president’s signature coverage initiatives and additional empowered from the primary time period. Katie Miller joined the administration as properly, engaged on behalf of DOGE and Musk, who had grow to be a brand new determine within the Trump orbit after being an lively marketing campaign surrogate and 2024 megadonor.

Like Musk, Katie Miller was working on the White Home as a “Particular Authorities Worker,” which limits the variety of days one can work inside the administration.

As their skilled lives intertwined, the couple additionally grew to become personally shut with Musk, socializing outdoors of labor.

Within the warmth of the Thursday afternoon social media showdown, Stephen Miller had been scheduled to look on Larry Kudlow’s present on Fox Enterprise Community – an look that was canceled.

“We misplaced Mr. Miller to a gathering within the Oval Workplace. Completely comprehensible. Once I was in authorities, it will occur on a regular basis. We’d should kill a TV present. You’re on the president’s beck and name,” Kudlow mentioned throughout his eponymous broadcast.

This isn’t the primary time Trump has divided a conjugal relationship. Throughout his first time period, Trump lashed out on the husband of considered one of his high advisers, Kellyanne Conway. Her husband, George Conway, had been intensely crucial of Trump on social media.

“He’s a whack job. There’s no query about it. However I actually don’t know him,” Trump mentioned on the time of George Conway. “I feel he’s doing an incredible disservice to an exquisite spouse.”

In 2023, the couple introduced they have been submitting for divorce.

George Conway, a prolific consumer of Musk’s X platform and ardent anti-Trump determine, posted dozens of occasions concerning the Trump-Musk spat.

“Does anybody have any updates on Katie Miller?” he requested Thursday night.