Furious that Trump is finally getting around to keeping his wildly popular promises on immigration, The New York Times has decided to take out its frustration on his wunderkind adviser, Stephen Miller.
Before I describe the opening of the hit piece, let's review some relevant polls.
Since Trump's election, Americans have consistently, overwhelmingly told pollsters that they want mass deportation of all illegals. An Axios poll in January, for example, showed an astonishing 66% in favor. Even at the mendacious Times, a poll that same month put it at 55%. (With the NYT wind chill factor, that makes it 63%.)
After months of sob stories being pumped out by propaganda factories like the Times about our beloved illegal aliens, a CBS poll last month put support for throwing them out at 54%. And this week, a Cygnal poll showed 60% of Americans in favor of this crowd-pleasing policy.
If Trump wants to be popular, he'd better get cracking on those mass deportations. Illegal aliens are about as well-liked as WNBA games without Caitlin Clark.
Along comes Jason Zengerle -- who looks like what would happen if Woody Allen and Bill Gates had a baby and then left it in the back seat of a car on a hot day -- with a hit piece entitled "The Ruthless Ambition of Stephen Miller." A Democratic aide with half the brains and drive of Miller would get an article titled "The Indispensable Genius of Stephen Miller."
Zengerle's story begins with nostalgia about Trump's first term, when -- as liberals used to say 400 times a day -- there were "adults in the room."
It seems that Miller thought it would be a good idea for Trump to keep the promises that got him elected. These could be summarized as: "Those laws on immigration? Let's enforce them!" To ensure that Trump's agenda was implemented, Miller got on the horn with the Department of Homeland Security and instructed ICE agents to start doing their jobs.
Zengerle then reveals he's talking about Trump's first (failed) term and not his current (spectacular) term.
He continues:
"Mr. Miller's demands, however, went unmet. That's because he was issuing them back in 2017, and the homeland security secretary, John Kelly, had issued his own edict to DHS officials: If Mr. Miller ordered them to do something, they were to refuse unless Mr. Kelly, the only one of the two men who'd been confirmed by the U.S. Senate to run the department, agreed to the order."
What kind of syphilitic brain would think this vignette makes Miller look bad and Kelly look good? (Turns out the Woody Allen-Bill Gates love child comparison is accurate on a number of levels.)
This will be my first "You complete moron, why didn't you listen to me?!?" interruption -- in this column, at least. One lonely voice in the woods (ME!) warned Trump directly, repeatedly, emphatically that today's generals are useless, social justice warrior, diversity-mad fruitcakes. Trump thought he was getting George Patton; in fact, he was getting something more like Jason Zengerle.
To become a general today, you have to impress Democratic senators with all the women and transgenders you've promoted and with your dedication to defeating America's real enemies: straight, native-born, white men. (What've they ever done for the military, anyway?)
In addition to sabotaging Trump's immigration plans, Kelly was the guy who concocted the disgusting claim that Trump called fallen U.S. soldiers "suckers" and "losers." And that's not all! In 2022, Kelly told The New Yorker that Trump admired Hitler, and in 2024, he told a (highly receptive) Times that Trump met the definition of a "fascist." Apparently, he's an expert on who is and isn't a fascist.
That's the guy Trump made his head of Homeland Security, to throw roadblocks in the way of the one guy trying to fulfill Trump's immigration agenda.
This is my second "You complete moron, why didn't you listen to me?!?" interruption. Seeing the writing on the wall soon after Trump's 2016 election victory -- I was tipped off when he didn't immediately start interviewing rebar guys about the wall -- I wrote a column laying out in Technicolor exactly how the establishment would destroy his presidency (cryptically entitled: "How the Establishment Will Try To Destroy Trump").
Reminding Trump that millions of people were chanting "Build the Wall!" at his rallies, and not "End Obamacare!" or some equally anodyne slogan that would be just as appropriate at a Jeb! rally, I warned him that the media, the Democrats, the Republicans and his own staff -- if he wasn't careful -- would be trying to get him to betray his voters on immigration.
From my sneakily titled column:
"Any Cabinet appointees likely to impress The New York Times aren't going to get it done. They won't have to expressly defy Trump. They just won't do it.
"Perhaps they'll make some showy effort at deporting illegals -- and then back down at the first La Raza lawsuit. Or they will allow career government lawyers to submit briefs in court that cite all the wrong cases. Or they'll wait for Speaker Paul Ryan's approval to do anything. Or they'll be moved by a Nikki Haley speech about the vibrant diversity of Somali refugees. Or they'll be scared off by Washington bureaucrats who say, You can't do that!"
That was the "adult in the room," John Kelly. No wonder the Times is nostalgic.