Stephen Miller’s Charlie Kirk Tribute Was as Sinister as It Gets

Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, delivered a deranged speech at the Sunday memorial service for Charlie Kirk in Arizona.

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.

At the beginning of his remarks, Miller said Kirk’s widow, Erika, reminds him 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.’”

“Erika is the storm,” Miller declared. “We are the storm. And our enemies cannot comprehend our strength, our determination, our resolve, our passion.

“Our lineage and our legacy hails back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello,” Miller continued. “Our ancestors built the cities. They produced the art and architecture. They built the industry,” he said, pulling “us out of the caves and the darkness into the light.

“We built the world that we inhabit now, generation by generation, and we will defend this world,” he later added.

Addressing “the forces of wickedness and evil,” Miller said: “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 have no idea the dragon you have awakened,” he warned, as the MAGA movement will strive to “save this civilization, to save the West, to save this republic, because our children are strong, and our grandchildren will be strong, and our children’s children’s children will be strong. And what will you leave behind? Nothing, nothing.”

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. Last week, he vowed to avenge Kirk’s death by “go[ing] after the left-leaning organizations” that, he claimed, “are promoting violence in this country.”

President Trump took the stage at Charlie Kirk’s memorial Sunday evening to promise more political violence and retribution against his enemies moments after Kirk’s wife, Erika, promised to forgive them. Both received similar applause. 

“In a private moment on his dying day, we find everything we need to know about who Charlie Kirk truly was,” Trump said at the podium. “He was a missionary with a noble spirit, and a great, great purpose. He did not hate his opponents, he wanted the best for them.”  

Then Trump went off script, turning the speech into something better suited for a campaign rally than a memorial. 

“That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent. And I don’t want the best for them, I’m sorry,” he said as the crowd roared with laughter. “I am sorry Erika. But now Erika can talk to me and the whole group, and maybe they can convince me that that’s not right. But I can’t stand my opponent.” 

Trump was referencing the slight 180 that Erika Kirk has done in her messaging since her husband’s killing. Initially, she claimed that “the evildoers responsible for my husband’s assassination have no idea what they have done.… If you thought that my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea. You have no idea what you have just unleashed across this entire country.”

This messaging fit in snugly with the other calls for war and revolution against the left from people like Elon Musk and Steve Bannon. But on Sunday, Erika Kirk made a point to emphasize that she forgave Tyler Robinson, her husband’s suspected assassin. 

“My husband, Charlie, he wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life.… On the cross, our savior said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they not know what they do.’ That young man. I forgive him,” she said, evoking the actions of Jesus, while he took his dying breaths, in the Bible. 

Trump made it clear that he saw no value in that, and the crowd ate it up. Asking the president to embody Christlike qualities of forgiveness sounds like an insurmountable task, even for Erika Kirk. 

President Donald Trump will reportedly seek to increase the cost of an H-1B temporary visa by a factor of more than 10,000 percent via a forthcoming proclamation.* The program applies to foreign workers with bachelor’s degrees and job offers from U.S. employers in certain specialty occupations.

As soon as Friday, Bloomberg reports, Trump is planning on signing a proclamation barring entry under H-1B without a $100,000 payment. It is a marked increase from the $995 in fees currently required of H-1B applicants (a $215 registration fee, along with $780 for employer petition).

Economics journalist Catherine Rampell of MSNBC described the move as consistent with other Trump administration decisions poised to compromise “America’s role as a global leader in science and innovation,” including gutting the civil service, canceling research grants, and expelling international students.

“These are visas for skilled workers—doctors, scientists, and engineers,” wrote Representative Pramila Jayapal, a progressive Democrat, on X. “This move will hurt US innovation and exacerbate an already serious shortage of medical professionals. In what world does this make sense?”

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an American Immigration Council fellow, observed that the move would exacerbate an ongoing shortage of doctors in the U.S.: “Every year, hundreds of doctors get H-1B visas to help fill those gaps,” he noted. “If hospitals had to pay an additional $100,000 fee, it’s possible they would simply give up and not even try to fill positions.”

Reichlin-Melnick also pointed out that the action is “likely to be struck down in court,” given that the U.S. government lacks “statutory authority to impose fees designed to limit the use of a visa.” Sam Peak of the Economic Innovation Group too predicted that the administration will “get sued and lose” over the move, given that the Department of Homeland Security “has a biannual fee schedule where they can change fees after notice and comment.”

* This article originally miscalculated the size of the increase.

President Trump is taking deportation protections away from Syrian immigrants in the midst of a resurgence of militant groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Around 6,000 Syrians are currently living and working in America under Temporary Protected Status. Now they will be forced to return to a country that the United Nations described as “fragile,” and rife with “sectarian tension” just one month ago.

The U.N. reported that Syria still “remained in a volatile and precarious phase” six months after the fall of President Bashar Al Assad in December 2024. “Member States warned of growing risks posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Al-Qaeda, who continue to view the country as a strategic base for external operations.… The interim Government of the Syrian Arab Republic, led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), faced multiple security challenges, including asserting control over territory and diverse armed factions/fighters, as well as controlling foreign terrorist fighters, and countering ISIL resurgence.”

This does not sound like a stable, amicable situation to abruptly force Syrians to go back to. These people came here as civil war refugees under President Obama, and now they’re being forced back into a situation that has similarly devolved into factional violence.

Former Citizenship and Immigration policy head Amanda Baran told The New York Times that the Trump administration’s revoking of Syrian TPS while the country deals with an internal power struggle is “gutting for the thousands of Syrians here with T.P.S. and the communities in which they live.”

“Conditions in Syria remain dangerous and unstable, clearly warranting an extension under the law,” she continued. “This administration’s disregard for the expertise of human rights experts is having real, dire consequences on the lives of everyday people as demonstrated by this reckless decision.”

But the Trump administration sees it much differently.

“This is what restoring sanity to America’s immigration system looks like,” said Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at Homeland Security. “Conditions in Syria no longer prevent their nationals from returning home. Syria has been a hotbed of terrorism and extremism for nearly two decades, and it is contrary to our national interest to allow Syrians to remain in our country. T.P.S. is meant to be temporary.”

Syrians will have 60 days to gather their lives and leave the country, or face arrest and forced deportation.

The Trump administration has also spitefully moved to revoke the TPS status of people from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Cameroon.

If you donate to President Donald Trump’s vanity construction project, then you, too, could have the privilege of leaving a physical stain on American history: In exchange for contributions, donors may be able to have their names etched into the stone of the new White House ballroom.

The ballroom, which will cost roughly $250 million, will be paid for by private donors and the president himself, Trump has said. White House officials have said that nearly $200 million has already been pledged.

So far, Google, tobacco company R.J. Reynolds, government cybersecurity contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, data analysis and surveillance company Palantir, and weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin have all donated, with Lockheed Martin donating more than $10 million to the project.

Some officials from donor companies say that their decision to contribute was made out of a desire to show support for Trump while still backing a nonpartisan cause, as the ballroom will outlive the president’s term, according to CBS. Of course, their pledge agreements call the project “The Donald J. Trump Ballroom at the White House.” But that could mean anything!

Indeed, donations to the ballroom may well be even more meaningful to the president than these corporations realized, as its development has proven a balm to Trump while he mourns the death of ally Charlie Kirk. In times of trouble, some people look to family; others look to faith. Trump looks to construction.