Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller came unglued on Fox News Monday morning.
The top Trump aide launched into a voice-cracking tirade justifying the Trump administration’s refusal to bring home a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
“He was not mistakenly sent to El Salvador. He’s an illegal alien from El Salvador!” Miller barked, steamrolling America’s Newsroom host Bill Hemmer, who struggled to rein him in.
“His only options in life are to be deported to El Salvador or to be deported to some other country. That’s it! He has a deportation order,” Miller snapped, growing increasingly hostile toward Hemmer. “So Bill, you tell me. What country should we deport him to? Tell me, please! Tell me.”
Miller’s claims directly contradict the Trump administration’s own admission that it wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia—who came to the United States from El Salvador at 16—due to an “administrative error.”
On Thursday, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the government must “facilitate and effectuate” Garcia’s return, upholding a district judge’s decision that blasted the deportation as unlawful.
But Miller said that bringing Abrego Garcia back from the El Salvador mega-prison he’s been deported to would amount to “kidnapping” and an “unimaginable invasion of El Salvador’s sovereignty.”
His comments reflect the Trump administration’s continued defiance of the judge’s order. In a legal filing Sunday, the administration argued that “facilitate” only means updating Garcia’s immigration status—not doing anything to bring him back to the U.S.
During his visit to the Oval Office Monday, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, an ally in the administration’s deportation efforts, stated that he would not release Abrego Garcia back to U.S. soil, saying “of course I’m not going to.”
At one point during Miller’s spiraling diatribe—in which he accused the media of staging a hoax by distorting the facts—an exasperated Hemmer tried to wrest back control of the segment.
“Give me a chance,” Hemmer begged as Miller barreled ahead. “You haven’t even allowed me to ask a question.”
Abrego Garcia allegedly fled to the U.S. to escape gang threats in El Salvador and filed for asylum in 2019. Since he had been in the country illegally for some time before filing his application, his request was denied. However, an immigration judge ruled that he could not be deported to El Salvador because of potential persecution.
Hemmer is the latest in a long line of TV anchors who have had to grapple with Miller’s on-air tantrums. Last week, it was Fox News host Martha MacCallum’s turn to grapple with an out-of-control Miller, who was yelling about President Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff rollout.
In that episode, Miller heatedly defended the tariffs—most of which Trump has since been paused—telling MacCallum they would make “America the manufacturing center of the world.”
