US President Donald Trump’s senior White House advisor, Stephen Miller, in a talk show interview, made comments that many in the US political scene considered an attack on the judiciary and importantly, an indication of the new administration’s creeping authoritarianism.
Speaking on ‘Face the Nation’ about Trump’s executive order banning travel to the US from a number of Muslim-majority nations, and the subsequent pushback from various US courts against it, Miller said:
Well, I think that it’s been an important reminder to all Americans that we have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become, in many cases, a supreme branch of government. One unelected judge in Seattle cannot remake laws for the entire country. I mean this is just crazy, John, the idea that you have a judge in Seattle say that a foreign national living in Libya has an effective right to enter the United States is - is - is beyond anything we’ve ever seen before. The end result of this, though, is that our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.
In particular, it is the sentence “the powers of the President [...] will not be questioned” that is making those involved politics sit up and take notice.
Mr Trump himself appeared to view the interview in an extremely positive light, publicly congratulating Miller on Twitter for defending him and his policy.
Twitter Can’t Let It Slide
But the rest of the Twitterverse wasn’t quite so keen on the illuminating interview.
(With inputs from Washington Post)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)