E-mails Show White House Aide's Connections To White Supremacy
LEMON: Newly released e-mails revealing ties between top White House immigration adviser Stephen Miller and websites linked to known white nationalists. The leaked e-mails, well, they shed new light on Miller's belief about immigration. CNN's Sara Sidner has more.</s>SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A trove of e- mails released by the Southern Poverty Law Center show now senior White House adviser Stephen Miller pushing theories from white nationalist sources to far-right website Breitbart. Miller e-mails suggesting that Breitbart use ideas from the book "Camp of the Saints." "You see the Pope saying west must, in effect, get rid of borders. Someone should point out the parallels to "Camp of the Saints," he writes. It's a book hailed by racists, which depicts white women being raped by immigrants and mass immigration destroying western civilization. Breitbart published the content, Miller suggested it. In one e-mail dated October 2015, while Miller still worked for then Senator Jeff Sessions, he touts what he saw as the dangers of allowing hurricane victims from Mexico to come to the U.S. "They will all get TPS," he writes. That's Temporary Protection Status. He goes on to write, "that needs to be the weekend's big story. TPS is everything." Then he sends then Breitbart's staffer, Katie McHugh, an article from prominent white nationalist website, VDARE, of the dangers of TPS. The Web site VDARE has espoused the sentiment that America was made for white people and non-whites are destroying it. Miller's sentiments began turning into policy when he joined the Trump administration. In 2018, well after Miller joined Trump's inner circle, the president tried to end the TPS status for several countries with predominantly black and brown citizens. But legal challenges so far have successfully kept the program in place. McHugh, who gave the e-mails to the Southern Poverty Law Center, said Miller also asked her to use an article from American Renaissance, the website traffics in the idea that blacks are less intelligent than whites.</s>KATIE MCHUGH, FORMER BREITBART EDITOR (voice-over): He would pull crime statistics from there and then try to funnel that through conservative media in order to target people of color.</s>SIDNER (voice-over): In another e-mail in July 2015, Miller sent McHugh a link from the website Infowars, which peddles in conspiracy theories. The Infowars headline quotes Reverend Franklin Graham. "We are under attack. Stop all immigration of Muslims to the U.S." A year and a half later, shortly after the president took office and Miller was in the West Wing, the newly elected president signed an executive order based on this campaign pledge.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.</s>SIDNER (voice-over): Ultimately, the Southern Poverty Law Center says Miller's efforts with Breitbart were meant to influence policy and it worked.</s>MICHAEL HAYDEN, SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: What you see in these e-mails is Stephen Miller creating an appetite for the type of anti-immigrant policies Trump administration is enacted through Breitbart news.</s>SIDNER (voice-over): Miller did not answer specific questions about his e-mails. Instead, a White House spokesperson sent a statement. "SPLC is engaged in a vile smear campaign against a Jewish staffer. While Mr. Miller condemns racism and bigotry in all forms, those defaming him are trying to deny his Jewish identity which is a pernicious form of anti-Semitism."</s>HAYDEN: It's an absolutely laughable and offensive attack. I think Miller is responding with these charges of anti-Semitism because he has no other answer to it.</s>SIDNER: A Breitbart spokesperson sent a statement, that the SPLC claims to have 3- to 4-year-old e-mails involving an individual whom we fired years ago from multitude of reasons, including lying, they say, and you now have an even better idea why we fired her. Having said that, the Breitbart spokesperson says it's not exactly a news flash that political staffers pitch stories to journalists. Sometimes those pitches are successful, sometimes not. But McHugh says she is not lying, she has the e-mails to prove her point, and she says, actually, Miller was acting more as like an assignment editor, more an editor for Breitbart than a source. Don?</s>LEMON: Sara, thank you very much. With Ukraine scandal causing all sorts of chaos, is President Trump playing right into Vladimir Putin's hands? We'll dig into that and the many other times the president's actions have benefited Putin.