A SPEECH at a memorial for right-wing activist Charlie Kirk has drawn comparisons with an infamous address given by the Nazis’ chief propagandist.
White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller’s speech at a Turning Point USA event for the murdered campaigner bore similarities with the words of Joseph Goebbels at an election rally in 1932, according to observers.
Miller is one of Donald Trump’s most senior advisors and responsible for homeland security policy.
He spoke at an event commemorating Kirk, the co-founder of Turning Point USA, who was assassinated at a university debating event in Utah earlier this month.
Beyond grotesque. Miller is a megalomaniac unmoored Christian Nationalist whose rage belies any notion of grief. He turned a funeral into a rally for Trump's war on ‘the left.’ Even Kirk’s foes are treating his death with more reverence than this! pic.twitter.com/MlDvJktaKu
— Justin Brannan (@JustinBrannan) September 22, 2025
Paying tribute to Kirk’s widow Erika, Miller said: “The day that Charlie died, the angels wept, but those tears had been turned into fire in our hearts. And that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand. But I see Erika and her strength and her courage.
“I am reminded of a famous expression: The storm whispers to the warrior that you cannot withstand my strength and the warrior whispers back, ‘I am the storm.’
“Erica is the storm. We are the storm. And our enemies cannot comprehend our strength, our determination, our resolve, our passion.”
Commentators on social media said this bore a resemblance to Goebbels's speech in Berlin, delivered the year before the Nazis came to power in Germany.
In that speech, Goebbels – who entitled the piece “The Storm is Coming” – said: “We think no longer in terms of class. We are not workers or middle class. We are not first of all Protestants or Catholics. We do not ask about ancestry or class. Together we share the words of the poet: ‘People, rise up, and storm, break loose!’”
Elsewhere in Miller’s speech, he addressed supporters as the descendants of those who built the great classical civilisations of Athens and Rome, adding: “Erica stands on the shoulders of thousands of years of warriors, of women, who raised up families, raised up city, raised up industry, raised up civilization, who pulled us out of the caves and the darkness into the light.”
Goebbels in his 1932 speech addressed Nazis gathered in Berlin’s Lustgarten as “the witnesses, the builders, the will-bearers of our idea and our worldview”.
The future head of propaganda for the Third Reich invoked the memory of the slain Nazi martyr Horst Wessel – having at the time of his death two years earlier attributed his murder to “degenerate communist subhumans” – quoting the street agitator who had predicted that the “day of freedom and prosperity is coming” under fascist rule.
Goebbels said: “So our dead comrade Horst Wessel wrote, and we are fulfilling his prophesy. The others may lie, slander, and pour their scorn on us – their political days are numbered.
“Adolf Hitler is knocking at the gates of power, and in his fist are joined the fists of millions of workers and farmers. The time of shame and disgrace is nearly over.”
Miller said: “You thought you could kill Charlie Kirk. You have made him immortal. You have immortalized Charlie Kirk. And now millions will carry on his legacy.
“And we will devote the rest of our lives to finishing the causes for which Charlie gave his last measure of devotion. You cannot defeat us.”
In summing up his speech, Goebbels said: “We will not allow Germany to sink into disgrace. We will give back to Germany a reason for its existence, a meaning to life. That is why you men and women are here, an army of two hundred thousand.”
Miller concluded: “To my brother Charlie. I know you are looking at us right now. I know you're watching Erica right now. I know you're watching your children right now. And I promise you my friend, I promise you my brother, we will prove worthy of your sacrifice.
“We will prove worthy of your time on earth. We will make you proud. We will finish the job. We will defeat the forces of darkness and evil.
“And we will stand every day for what is true, what is beautiful, what is good. And we will achieve victory for our children, for our families, for our civilization, and for every patriot who stands with us.”
Swedish economist Anders Aslund tweeted: “Stephen Miller is Goebbels. This sounds like Goebbels' speech at Horst Wessel's funeral in 1930.”
The speech has frequently been cited incorrectly on social media as having been delivered at Wessel’s funeral when it was in fact delivered two years later, according to the German Propaganda Archive at Calvin University in Michigan.
Justin Brannan, chair of finance at New York City Council, shared the speech adding: “Beyond grotesque. Miller is a megalomaniac unmoored Christian Nationalist whose rage belies any notion of grief.
“He turned a funeral into a rally for Trump's war on ‘the left.’ Even Kirk’s foes are treating his death with more reverence than this!”
Another social media user added: “I honestly wonder how many Goebbels speeches Stephen Miller has studied at home to mimic him so convincingly.”
