Stephen Miller Identified as Architect of Polarizing Push to Normalize Insurrection Act Threats

Overview

• New reporting casts Stephen Miller as coordinating a White House messaging drive that seeks to accustom voters to extraordinary domestic powers under the Insurrection Act.
• President Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act after a federal judge curtailed National Guard deployments to Portland and noted his claims about crime there were fabricated.
• Miller labeled the Portland ruling a "legal insurrection" and argued judges lack authority to limit the president’s ability to deploy forces to protect federal property.
• Miller publicly celebrated an ICE raid in Chicago as a major success, reframing aggressive enforcement actions as heroic to generate attention and deepen polarization.
• Governors J.B. Pritzker and Gavin Newsom are mounting a public counternarrative, as polling cited in the coverage shows 58% oppose National Guard deployments and 51% oppose Guard assistance to ICE.