CNN’s Brianna Keilar had to repeatedly tell top Trump adviser Stephen Miller to “calm down” after he flew off the handle during an interview about cuts that President Donald Trump’s second administration is making to federal spending.
Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, grew increasingly frustrated with Keilar’s questions on the ax that is currently being wielded at the government by the non-official Department of Government Efficiency, which President Donald Trump has tasked the non-elected, world’s richest person Elon Musk to lead.
It saw Miller dubbed a “snowflake” on social media.
“The American people are exhausted and tired of watching their tax dollars be corruptly spent, abused, wasted and in every sense robbed and stolen from them,” said Miller. “This president, for the first time in history, is committed to restoring accountability at every level of the federal government.”
Miller, taking his volume up a notch, declared to Keilar: “You may assert there’s no waste in the Pentagon. You may assert there’s no waste in Treasury. You may assert…”
Keilar clarified: “Oh, Stephen, I’m not asserting. I don’t think anyone would assert that, Stephen.”
It prompted the anti-immigration hard-liner to start shouting: “Then why are you not celebrating these cuts? If you agree there is waste, if you agree there is abuse, if you agree there is corruption, why are you not celebrating the cuts, the reforms that are being instituted? Every day that no action is taken, the entire...”
Keilar replied, “But Stephen, let’s calm down. Stephen, let’s calm down. We’re not having a debate about whether there are...”
Miller was undeterred, though, and responded: “Well, you are clearly trying to debate me, and I will be as excited as I want to be about the fact that we are saving Americans billions of dollars, that we are ending the theft and waste and grift and corruption, that we are stopping American taxpayer dollars from subsidizing a rogue federal bureaucracy that has been relentlessly weaponized against the American people.”
The Trump adviser started shouting again, saying, “You may not care about this issue. Your colleagues may not care about this issue. But we care about his issue.”
The duo talked over each other before Keilar suggested a subject change about Internal Revenue Service data that DOGE will have access to.
The exchange went viral on social media, where Miller’s behavior was widely mocked.