DURHAM, N.C. _ A decade ago, an outspoken Duke University student turned up on cable TV to denounce political correctness and defend three lacrosse players wrongly accused of rape.
A conservative columnist for The Chronicle campus newspaper in 2006-07, the student had a brash style, directing his razor-sharp words at professors, smoking bans, Ted Kennedy, women's studies, David Letterman, Duke President Richard Brodhead and the city of Durham.
That student, Stephen Miller, is now a senior policy adviser to President Donald Trump and is widely reported to be a key author of the inaugural address and the controversial executive order on immigration issued Jan. 27. The order, which imposed a temporary ban on refugees and residents from seven mainly Muslim countries, prompted large protests at the nation's airports and condemnation from some foreign leaders. Still, one poll showed that many Americans support it.
Miller, 31, is the lesser known of Trump's "two Steves," the other being Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart, the conservative website big on scandal and conspiracy. Together, Bannon and Miller are considered to be the brain trust behind Trump's populist, America-first message and his promise to shake up Washington.
After a stormy weekend of demonstrations, the rollout of the executive order was criticized for the chaos it caused and the apparent lack of communication between the White House and federal agencies. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a Republican, seized on Miller's role: "You've got a very young person in the White House on a power trip, thinking that you can just write executive orders and tell all of your Cabinet agencies to go to hell."
The White House did not respond to a request to interview Miller. But Miller appeared on "CBS This Morning" on Jan. 30 to defend the immigration restrictions.
"I think anytime you do anything hugely successful that challenges a failed orthodoxy, you're going to see protests," Miller said, adding that just 109 people had been detained in airports. "In fact, if nobody's disagreeing with what you're doing, then you're probably not doing anything that really matters in the scheme of things."
