Stephen Miller claimed that President Donald Trump ‘has literally saved America’ during a fiery press briefing Thursday - despite dismal recent economic results.
Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, ended up engaging in a testy back-and-forth with multiple members of the White House press corps on a range of subjects - from the Elon Musk-led DOGE to former vice president Kamala Harris - often choosing to deflect and attack rather than engage.
Towards the tail end of the session Miller was asked to respond to criticisms of Trump made by his erstwhile 2024 election opponent, who made her first major public appearance since leaving office in January on Wednesday night.
Rather than address anything the former vice president had said, Miller branded her speech “a good reminder to the American people of just how blessed we all are that the leader sitting in the Oval Office today is President Donald Trump and not President Kamala Harris.”
“This President has literally saved America, and I could not be prouder,” Miller added.
During the briefing that led up to his saccharine praise of the president, the White House official repeatedly defended Trump’s trade war policies as reporters asked about the economic effects of the import taxes he has imposed.
When he was pressed on whether there will be any news on additional tariff relief or any of the trade deals Trump and his advisers have been promising for weeks now, Miller declined to “get ahead of any announcements” but claimed that countries the world over “are desperate and dying to make trade deals with the United States.” He added that Trump was remaining “personally involved in making sure that these negotiations serve only one interest, which is the interest of the United States of America.”
Miller also refused to say whether the administration was open to offering any form of tariff relief to American automakers or small businesses that could be crushed by the so-called “reciprocal” tariffs scheduled to go into effect when a three-month reprieve enacted by Trump last month expires at the end of June.
When a reporter pointed out that CEOs of both General Motors and Ford have raised concerns over the tariffs - namely around costs to both manufacturers and consumers - Miller clapped back that the journalist had “missed the entire point.”
He claimed that the massive import taxes being imposed on auto components made in Mexico or Canada and used to build American cars will be moot because “U.S. automakers have announced dramatic investments and expansions inside the United States.”
“American auto plants are growing. They are expanding. They are opening new facilities. They are expanding existing facilities that are already in operation. Because it is now the case that for the first time in our lives that American cars receive preference in America's markets,” he said.
Pressed further on whether American consumers would have to pay more for cars, because tariffs are taxes passed on from importers to consumers in the form of higher prices, Miller claimed that prices would remain low because of the “massive economic incentive” for automakers to re-shore production back to the U.S.
The Trump aide had yet another contentious exchange when asked whether the White House had plans to respond to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce letter asking for a small business exemption for the Trump import taxes.
Instead, he claimed that the only tax relief that is in the offing is what would come from passing the partisan GOP tax bill being considered in Congress, which would extend tax cuts enacted during the first Trump administration.
He suggested that the GOP bill would help small businesses avoid tariffs by providing tax deductions for investments in manufacturing.
“This is what you have to understand about the plan ... as they're able to reshore the supply chains, that also means they'll pay no tariff, so you'll have the lowest tax environment,” he said.
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