In an apparent attempt to demonstrate objectivity and civility, CNN host Kate Bolduan on Monday defended perhaps the most demonized member of the Trump administration.
Bolduan was speaking with prominent immigration attorney David Leopold, when he said, “I have no doubt that this administration, Donald Trump, who advised by a white nationalist, Stephen Miller in the White House.” At that moment, she cut him off.
“I don’t know if you want to go as far as—I mean, let’s not—I just did an entire segment about civility here,” Bolduan told him. “I don’t know if you want to call Stephen Miller a white nationalist.”
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Leopold responded, “It’s not an uncivil thing, I would argue that it’s a fact.”
Bolduan insisted that “honestly,” she “had not seen that” and wanted to know where her guest was getting such a fact.
“Well, look at the type of policies that we’ve seen from this administration,” Leopold replied. “Look at who’s getting targeted by this administration.”
As for Miller’s actual white nationalist ties, Nazi sympathizer Richard Spencer has claimed to have “mentored” the current White House adviser when they both attended Duke University and continues to publicly applaud his influence over Trump. However, Miller disputed that assertion, saying just before the 2016 election, “I have absolutely no relationship with Mr. Spencer. I completely repudiate his views, and his claims are 100 percent false.”
A Politifact review of the argument that Trump has surrounded himself with white nationalists in the White House found the claim to be “a bit too strong.” But that was nearly a year ago.
Writing for The Daily Beast in January, former Obama speechwriter David Litt described Miller’s State of the Union address for Trump as a “white nationalist wish list” that included slashing legal immigration by 50 percent.
And just last week, The New York Times reported that Miller was a driving force behind the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, which led to the separation of families at the border. “It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period. The message is that no one is exempt from immigration law,” Miller told the Times.
A few days later, Vanity Fair quoted an external White House adviser who said Miller “actually enjoys seeing those pictures at the border,” adding, “He’s a twisted guy, the way he was raised and picked on. There’s always been a way he’s gone about this. He’s Waffen-SS.”
