Miller is one of the last men standing in the White House. And so it's time for the GOP establishment to play its favorite game, "If only it wasn't for Stephen Miller."
Here’s one thing even Republicans negotiating an immigration deal agree on: Trump aide Stephen Miller is hurting their chances of getting anything done.
"Even Republicans".
You know, even the Republicans who want nothing more than full and total amnesty. The Gang of 8 gang. Even they. Even.
They blame him for insisting the administration gets approval for an unrealistic number of immigration policies in exchange for protections for young people brought into the country illegally as children.
In short, he's trying to get the best deal possible. While they want a fake deal that gives the left everything in exchange for some meaningless "protections" that will never be implemented and some more border funding.
At least until a Fed judge decides that having a border is illegal because it prevents MS-13 members from enrolling at UCLA.
They loathe his intensity when delivering his hardline views.
It's America they really loathe. I'm sorry, was that too intense?
And they accuse him of coordinating with outside advocacy groups that oppose their efforts.
And they're not coordinating with outside groups. Nope. And there's no gambling at Rick's.
“It's no secret that he’s an obstacle to getting anything done on immigration,” said a Republican House member involved in the immigration talks.
Let's rephrase that.
"It's no secret that he's an obstacle to selling out the country."
The House Republican lawmaker said it’s widely viewed that “to move past the speed bumps, there’s no option but to kind of get him out of the way.”
Will no one rid me of this meddlesome patriot.
Yet Miller’s close relationship to the president, which spans the campaign and transition, means they are unlikely to do or say anything to get him out of the negotiations.
Except leak hit pieces to the media. Like this one.
Some Republicans say Miller has tried to poison the deal with policies he knows will never survive a vote in the Senate, where Republicans hold a slim majority and are constantly searching for Democratic votes. “He’s trying to craft a deal he knows is not viable because he doesn’t want a deal,” said a Republican strategist who has long sought an immigration overhaul.
I like how all these quotes come from anonymous "Republicans." Yes, I put the quotation marks in the right place.
In the fall, Miller helped draft a wish list of immigration policies that the administration had to have in exchange for Dreamer protections, including eliminating protections for unaccompanied children who are in the country illegally; restricting eligibility for asylum, humanitarian parole and abused or abandoned foreign children and hiring thousands more immigration officers, prosecutors and judges. Miller had a hand in writing the list but the Department of Homeland Security actually derived the list of priorities based on their needs, according to the White House.
“Stephen is unfairly trying to sabotage this,” said a former DHS official for President George W. Bush who is in contact with Republican staffers in the Senate.
A former Bush official. Well now I'm convinced.
Many on Capitol Hill remember how Miller, then an aide to Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican who led the opposition to the deal, worked in 2013 to kill a bipartisan immigration deal in the Senate that would have allowed immigrants in the country illegally to gain legal status and eventually citizenship.
“Look what happened last time,” said a second former Trump adviser, who worked with Miller and is in close contact with the White House. “He almost single handily blew (the bill) up. They are having flashbacks.”
So are we. To 1986. The last time the amnesty gang got its wish.
Miller sent out hundreds of emails attacking the bill as he went through the text line by line, according to a former Republican aide involved in the 2013 debate.
“His immigration viewpoints are extreme,” the former Republican aide said. “Most Republicans are very uncomfortable with that.”
Most Republicans are uncomfortable with the Republican aides and their discomfort with the views of their base. That's how they got Trump.