Stephen Miller Must Have Amnesia if This Is Why He Hates ICE Protests

The Trump administration is continuing to pretend as if the January 6 insurrection never happened.

“When in our history have we tolerated unlawful riots and assemblies night after night around FBI buildings, or ATF buildings, or DEA buildings?” Trump adviser Stephen Miller said Monday on CNN, referring to protesters at ICE facilities in Chicago and Portland. “This is the textbook definition of domestic terrorism!”

If Miller’s definition of domestic terrorism is “unlawful riots and assemblies” at government buildings, then the insurrection his boss started absolutely qualifies.

“I kinda remember Trump pardoning a bunch of people for this, many of whom beat up cops and put them in the hospital,” Ron Filipkowski wrote on X. “I think they were yelling something about the Vice President as they stormed the building.”

But the administration that is labeling anything vaguely critical of America as domestic terrorism will never admit that they incited, supported, and pardoned hundreds of domestic terrorists—even as virtually all of it was caught on camera.

“We’re drawing a blank, let us get back to you Stephen,” the House Homeland Security Committee Democrats wrote in response to Miller’s ridiculous question. They attached one of the many images of January 6 insurrectionists breaking into the Capitol Building.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday lashed out at a federal judge and then the press in order to deflect from a question about the Trump administration’s effort to deploy the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, over the objections of local officials.

Over the weekend, U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut temporarily blocked the National Guard’s deployment to Portland. While Donald Trump hysterically claims the city is “under siege from attack by Antifa,” the Trump-appointed judge wrote that the president’s assessment that conditions in the city warrant National Guard deployment is “simply untethered to the facts.”

Given Immergut’s ruling, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Leavitt a straightforward question: “Which local officials in Portland have said that the National Guard is needed there?”

Leavitt dodged the question by attacking Immergut’s ruling. “With all due respect to that judge, I think her opinion is untethered in reality and in the law,” the press secretary said. “The president is using his authority as commander-in-chief, U.S. Code [Section] 12406, which clearly states that the president has the right to call up the National Guard in cases where he deems it’s appropriate.”

The statute to which Leavitt referred does not allow the deployment of the National Guard whenever the president “deems it’s appropriate,” but rather to “repel” an “invasion,” “suppress” a “rebellion,” or execute laws that he is unable to “with the regular forces”—criteria that Immergut ruled were not met in Portland (hence her point about the untetheredness of his decision).

Having received no answer from Leavitt, Collins pressed on: “But no local officials that you can point to that have said we need the National Guard?” she asked, citing her recent interview with Portland Police Chief Bob Day, who told her the federal government’s descriptions of conditions in Portland are “not lining up” with reality.

“I would encourage you as a reporter to go on the ground and to take a look for yourself,” Leavitt said, urging Collins to cover the “anarchy” that purportedly grips the city “night after night.”

Collins again mentioned the insights of local officials, to which Leavitt said, “Yeah, but you’re probably talking to partisan Democrat officials who are opposed to everything this president does.”

Portland’s police chief, of course, is a nonpartisan official.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt tried Monday to blame Democrats for President Donald Trump’s unprecedented decision to fire federal workers during the government shutdown.

During a press briefing, Leavitt was asked about Trump’s Sunday comments blaming Democrats for the sweeping layoffs he’s threatened as a result of the government shutdown.

“The president said yesterday that Democrats will be to blame if federal workers lose their jobs. Historically, though, in past shutdowns workers have been furloughed, but they have not been laid off en masse,” said CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “So, wouldn’t that be the president’s call to lay people off?”

“As I’ve said repeatedly, Kaitlan, this conversation about layoffs would not be happening right now if the Democrats did not vote to shut the government down,” Leavitt said.

But no one is forcing Trump to lay off workers: he’s using them as leverage to bring the Democrats to kneel.

Last month, the White House Office of Management and Budget wrote to Congress warning that if lawmakers failed to pass a short-term funding measure through November, then federal agencies would prepare for another round of mass firings, with a focus on eliminating positions where funding has been discontinued or that do not align with Trump’s agenda.

By his own admission, Trump is taking the “unprecedented opportunity” to execute the sweeping cuts to programs and departments that he doesn’t like, as outlined in Project 2025, amid other large-scale firings that were already underway. So, Leavitt’s attempt to blame Democrats for Trump’s retaliatory decision has about as much logic as saying, “Look what you made me do.”

And the president doesn’t seem to be losing any sleep over his massive layoffs. In the trough of (often racist) AI slop Trump posted last week mocking Democrats for the shutdown, he cheerleaded the efforts of his “grim reaper” OMB Director Russell Vought. Leavitt struggled at the time to explain how the president was taking the shutdown seriously, while arguing that he was allowed “to have a little fun every now and then.”

Speaking to reporters on the White House lawn Sunday, Trump termed his efforts to reduce the size of the federal work force as “Democrat layoffs.”

“They’re Democrat layoffs. They’re causing it. We’re ready to go back,” Trump said, adding “It’s up to them. Anybody laid off—that’s because of the Democrats.”

An Illinois police chief has accused ICE agents of making fake 911 calls to local police.

Broadview Police Chief Thomas Mills told CBS News that multiple officers responded to a call about someone trying to break into the gate of an ICE facility on Thursday. When they arrived, they just saw a CBS News cameraman and security guard taking pictures.

“It’s disturbing. It’s ridiculous,” Mills said.

“It sure doesn’t look like anyone’s forcing anything in any fence over here,” a Broadview officer said in bodycam footage obtained by CBS News.

According to an incident report, it was an ICE agent that made the call.

This is the very same ICE facility where masked agents shot a pepper ball inside CBS News Chicago reporter Asal Rezaei’s car completely unprompted. Mills said that what happened to Rezaei was “horrific” and said that he will be reviewing all 911 calls made from the detention center.

“We’re going to look at maybe reaching out to Cook County State’s Attorney for subpoenas, “ said Mills, who has vowed to get the name of every officer involved in the incident. “It’s actually a violation of law. It would be classified under disorderly conduct, filing a false official report.”

If what Mills says about the fake 911 calls is true, this would be yet another instance of ICE operating essentially as a private gestapo, finding time to tear-gas innocent people (and local officers), using extreme force, and making prank calls to police departments that already have their hands full.

This comes as Illinois and the city of Chicago on Monday sued the Trump administration over its decision to send hundreds of National Guardsmen into their city streets.

After a spate of appalling federal immigration operations in Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson on Monday signed an executive order to curb abuses by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the city—which has already incensed the White House.

The executive order establishes “ICE-free zones,” limiting ICE agents from using “city property and unwilling private businesses” as “staging grounds” for their raids, Johnson said at a press conference.

Under the order, private businesses can choose to display signage indicating that ICE cannot enter without a warrant—thereby designating “their property as part of a city-wide network of community spaces that stand together in affirming the safety, dignity, and belonging of all of our residents,” the mayor said.

Johnson touted the order for building “a broad civic shield that limits the reach of harmful enforcement practices. It strengthens neighborhood solidarity and it reaffirms Chicago’s role as a welcoming city.”

According to the mayor, while federal agents in violation of the order would not be arrested by Chicago police, the city will take the federal government to court if necessary.

“Our school parking lots are not for ICE to load their weapons,” Johnson said. “They are for Chicagoans who drop their kids off to learn. Our libraries are not for ICE to prepare for a raid. They’re for Chicagoans to read and relax. Our parks are not for ICE to set up checkpoints. They are for Chicagoans to play and enjoy.”

Donald Trump’s rapid-response White House X account decried the move. “This is SICK,” said the president’s team, accusing Johnson of “aiding and abetting criminal illegal immigrant killers, rapists, traffickers, and gang bangers.”

The order came after a series of high-profile instances of brutality by federal immigration agents in the city.

Last week, for example, some 300 agents conducted a massive raid on an apartment in the middle of the night, reportedly rappelling in from helicopters, deploying flash bangs, and tearing tenants—including naked children—from their units. Several tenants, including U.S. citizens, said they were zip-tied and held for hours. In a separate incident, agents detained a local elected official for peacefully inquiring about the due process rights of a detainee being treated in a hospital.