How a 'tedious' MAGA insider's effort to mask her 'whispery chit-chat about nothing' fails

Katie Miller, wife of Stephen Miller — President Donald Trump's White House deputy chief of staff for policy — is now hosting a podcast. But the tone isn't that of a confrontational MAGA firebrand, which is how Stephen Miller is often described. Katie Miller, with her podcast, clearly isn't emulating the fiery, bombastic, in-your-face approach of Tomi Lahren or Fox News' Laura Ingraham. She's much more low-key.

In an article published on September 8, Salon's Amanda Marcotte emphasizes that Katie Miller clearly isn't trying to sound like her husband on her podcast — which, according to Marcotte, might be the point.

"It's technically called 'The Katie Miller Podcast,'" Marcotte argues, "but a better title would be 'The Banality of Evil.' The premise of every interview seems to be that just because the guests are far-right authoritarians, it doesn't mean they're interesting. Each episode is roughly an hour of scintillating content like which sorority Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., pledged in college, or how former ESPN host Sage Steele feels about wedding planning. Even her much-discussed premiere episode, which featured a 45-minute interview with Vice President JD Vance, was a big nothingburger. The biggest news that came out of it was that Stephen Miller eats a lot of mayonnaise."

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Marcotte continues, "The show was so bad that when I got to the fourth interview — in which we learn that Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia taught himself to code by designing his own websites — I was begging for the sweet release of death. But I was also puzzled. All Katie Miller's faux-pleasant, tedious small talk is just so different from her husband's persona of relentless top-volume aggrievement. He could never be on her show. His screeching bigotry would feel out of place in her pastel-colored dreamland, where nothing interesting ever happens."

The Salon journalist goes on to say, however, that Katie Miller and her MAGA allies might have made the podcast bland on purpose.

"Don't get me wrong," Marcotte writes. "Both their personal styles are horrible, just in very different ways. He comes across like he's murdering you with a hammer, while she will drive you into an early grave with whispery chit-chat about nothing. It's hard to believe they're married. That's probably the point: To create the illusion that Stephen Miller is a normal person. The unsubtle goal (of) 'The Katie Miller Podcast' is to 'humanize' its subjects with 'they’re just like you!' interviews."

Marcotte adds, "The underlying message is that fascists can't be so bad, if they also tell dad jokes or feel bad about eating too much chocolate. All that, in turn, serves the larger message of the show, which is that the Millers aren't sick monsters who hate America, because gosh — that Mrs. Stephen Miller just acts so darn normal. Or at least boring, which is what passes for normal in the twisted far-right mind. Another alternate title for the show: 'The Opiate of MAGA.'"

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Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.