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‘Red Flag’: Stephen Miller Accused of ‘Reviving Fascist Rhetoric’ at Kirk Memorial
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s speech at Sunday’s Charlie Kirk memorial in Phoenix drew comparisons from national security experts to rhetoric used in 1930s Germany.
Miller portrayed Kirk, who was killed earlier this month, as a martyr and symbol for the MAGA movement. He described the commentator’s death as the catalyst for what he called a struggle between good and evil.
The Steady State, a group of more than 330 former national security officials, likened Miller’s remarks to those made by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
Miller presented a tribute that “mirrors Goebbels’ 1932 speech with storm/warrior metaphors, ‘good vs evil’ binaries, and turning adversaries into destroyers while glorifying martyrdom,” the group charged.
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“In a climate marked by rising authoritarianism,” they wrote, “reviving fascist rhetoric is a red flag as it conditions the public for authoritarian rule.”
In follow up, the group added: “Miller casts the opposition as envy, hatred, and pure destruction. That’s not mobilization—it’s dehumanization. Defining half the country as wicked and illegitimate is the core of fascism: exile and exclusion, not democratic contest.”
Anders Åslund, an economist and former senior fellow at the Atlantic Council wrote simply: “This sounds like Goebbels’ speech at Horst Wessel’s funeral in 1930.” After his murder, Goebbels made Wessel into a martyr.
The New Republic characterized Miller’s speech “deranged,” reporting that “MAGA ‘patriots,’ Miller claimed, have inherited a civilizing mission from their ancestors. To continue this mission, save humanity, and continue the legacy of Kirk, he said, they must vanquish the ‘forces of darkness,’ their political opponents.”
“The speech was consistent with Miller’s white nationalist sympathies, penchant for unhinged rants against his political enemies, and apparent mission to use Kirk’s murder as a pretext for broader crackdowns,” wrote TNR’s Robert McCoy.
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Miller’s speech included sweeping language about martyrdom, ancestry, and a battle between light and darkness.
“The day that Charlie died, the angels wept, but those tears have been turned into fire in our hearts. And that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand.”
“The storm whispers to the warrior, that ‘You cannot withstand my strength,’ and the warrior whispers back, ‘I am the storm.’ Erica [Kirk] is the storm. We are the storm. And our enemies cannot comprehend our strength, our determination, our resolve, our passion.”
Miller talked about “our” “lineage” and “legacy” — presumably MAGA’s — hailing “back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello.”
“Our ancestors built the cities. They produced the art and architecture. They built the industry.”
“The light will defeat the dark. We will prevail over the forces of wickedness and evil,” Miller declared. “They cannot imagine what they have awakened. They cannot conceive of the army that they have arisen in all of us. Because we stand for what is good, what is virtuous, what is noble. And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us? What do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness, you are jealousy, you are envy, you are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing. We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create. We are the ones who lift up humanity. You thought you could kill Charlie Kirk? You have made him immortal.”
He did not specifically explain who “they” or “you” are.
Stephen Miller: “We will prevail over the forces of wickedness and evil. They cannot imagine what they have awakened…You thought you could kill Charlie Kirk? You have made him immortal!” pic.twitter.com/uMZfkmjSdF
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 21, 2025
READ MORE: White House Links Kimmel’s Comments to ‘Dangerous Rhetoric’ It Says ‘Drove’ Kirk’s Killer
Image via Reuters
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
