2025-01-17
21 分钟Stephen Miller was the architect of Donald J. Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda in his first term. Now he is back with fewer internal rivals and even more influence with the president.
Hi, my name is David Farenthalb, and I'm an investigative reporter for the New York Times.
On Inauguration Day, Stephen Miller,
an unelected official who was just a few years ago a low level Senate staffer,
is poised to become one of the most powerful figures in Washington.
Now, I've reported from D.C.
for 25 years, and I used to cover Capitol Hill.
So I was one of many,
many people that Stephen Miller would reach out to when he was working
as a staffer for Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama.
And what he was known for was sending out these sort of over the top pronouncements
and lurid tales of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants.
So he was known, but he was not feared.
He was not a powerful figure.
He was seen as someone who was like a gadfly working for another gadfly.
I mean, Jeff Sessions was a senator known for railing about immigration in an empty Senate chamber.
But I was talking recently with two of my colleagues, Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman.
They covered the Trump transition better than anybody.
And they were hearing from people behind the scenes that Miller,
who joined the first Trump campaign in 2015,
was set to be far more powerful in the next Trump administration even