Katie Miller, the wife of President Donald Trump’s newly appointed Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, came to her husband’s defense after Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed criticized him.
During an appearance on ABC’s This Week with host Jonathan Karl, El-Sayed was asked to comment on Trump’s selection of Miller as his new chief of staff.
El-Sayed described Miller as the choice of “the most broken man to continue to run the most dysfunctional White House that we’ve seen.”
“I don’t know what Stephen Miller has actually contributed to our culture, our society, in any real way, except to make us more angry, to stoke the worst kind of fear and vitriol, to weaponize ICE in our streets, to take American lives,” the Michigan Democrat said.
“The real question is, why appoint this man White House chief of staff if you want to have a productive relationship with the Congress that actually intends to deliver on the mandate that the American public has just given us? And we’ll wait to see,” El-Sayed added.
Katie Miller, who met her husband while working in the first Trump administration, responded on X to a clip of El-Sayed’s remarks: “Stephen has contributed far more to America at 41 than Abdul El-Sayed will in a lifetime.”
She also posted a photograph of her husband spending time with three of their four children.
According to multiple reports, Katie Miller contacted several Cabinet members over the past month, urging them to tell President Trump that her husband should be chosen as the next chief of staff.
El-Sayed and Stephen Miller have clashed previously. In one incident, Miller questioned El-Sayed’s allegiance to the United States during an interview with Fox News.
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Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed criticized incoming White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller during a Sunday appearance on ABC’s This Week
Katie Miller, wife of President Donald Trump’s newly appointed Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, defended him after Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed criticized him (Source: @KatieMiller/X)
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and his wife, Katie Miller, attend UFC Freedom 250 at the White House in June
Miller specifically pointed to claims involving El-Sayed’s sister, Eman Abdelhadi, and her family’s background. El-Sayed, who is expected to become America’s first Muslim senator, was born to parents who immigrated to the United States from Egypt.
According to a 2012 post by Abdelhadi, her mother—who did not raise El-Sayed—had her home searched by the FBI in the early 2000s because of her work with the Islamic American Relief Agency and her “activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s when she was in college.”
Katie Miller arrives for the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington on April 25, 2026
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is widely seen as a potential next Speaker, also criticized Trump’s decision to appoint Miller as chief of staff.
During his own appearance on ABC’s This Week, Jeffries said he did not expect to work with Miller, contrasting that prospect with occasions when he found common ground with former White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
“There’s not going to be any opportunity, certainly, to work with Stephen Miller and what he represents,” Jeffries said.
