White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller raised his voice as he fought back against questions from CNN anchor Brianna Keilar over the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and efforts President Trump has made to trim the size of the federal government.
“I realize that even a brief interruption in federal employment is a great crisis for you and for CNN,” Miller told Keilar during an appearance on the network Tuesday afternoon. “What the American people see is a government that is finally delivering on the promise of accountability under President Trump.”
The anchor shot back that the “crisis here has to do with the nation’s nuclear stockpile,” in reference to layoffs that have hit that federal program.
“It’s not my personal crisis,” she said as she attempted to direct the conversation forward.
“Does your administration understand who is in the federal workforce,” Keilar asked, eliciting laughter from Miller.
“You are clearly trying to debate me,” he said. “And I will be as excited as I want to be about the fact we are saving Americans billions of dollars …. you don’t care about this issue. Your colleagues don’t care about this issue but we care about this issue.”
DOGE, led by billionaire Elon Musk, has slashed thousands of federal jobs and sparked vocal pushback from Democrats in Congress who have argued the Trump administration does not have the legal authority for such reforms.
