Wow. We got a good show-up today.
Hey, Stephen. Hey. Hey. Mr. Miller, you just said on CNN that you're abiding by the judge's ruling, but there's a number of federal options. What options are you considering for deploying federal resources?
Well, if I told you right now, they would just start pre-drafting their next motion for a TRO. So I would just say that the president has a very broad range and set of authorities when it comes to deploying federal assets. And again, as you know, we went through this in California with Newsom. He made a total fool of himself pretending.
He had the authority to defy a lawful presidential command of the National Guard, be one of the very liberal Ninth circuit and a portion of the California National Guard has remained federalized to this day.
What other cities is the administration considering sending National Guard troops to?
Right. So no, but there's different events happening in different cities. So here in Washington, D.C. working collaboratively and cooperatively with the mayor, we have a large-scale public safety surge. And as part of that public safety surge, we have, obviously, all your federal components. I think it's 22 agencies in all.
And you have your state -- sorry, your city resources, then, of course, the National Guard. In Memphis, very much will be modeled off of D.C., where we have -- or is being modeled off of D.C. We have the full interagency, you know, IRS, ATF, DEA, FBI and HSI. And then you have the -- in that case, you also have the state resources too, the state troopers, state investigatory agencies, then the National Guard.
So that's one model. Then in the case of Portland, you have an acute crisis with threats to life and property at the Portland ICE facility. And so that is a reactive deployment. There is an acute ongoing threat to lives and property and so National Guard was dispatched to protect ICE officers and their property in the conduct of their duties at a federal building.
The president has also said that in the immediate future, in Chicago, there's a need for the same. Obviously, you saw, for example, there was two vehicle ramming attacks against ICE officers in Chicago. The president has indicated in the future, there might be additional resources brought to Chicago, but the most recent order that he signed relates to the ICE mission.
I hope that answers your question.
Will the White House abide by the ruling -- The reason I asked that, Mr. Miller, is the president has floated other cities, perhaps in New Orleans. Is that still a consideration? And [Inaudible]
Well, Governor -- yeah.
[Inaudible] still considering others [Inaudible]
Yeah. Governor Landry sent a request, as you know. And so we're working with Governor Landry, as we speak, to figure out an appropriate next step. I'm not going to sit here and say advance what is next. Obviously, in the case of, you know, Memphis is a good example, a good model where the governor reached out to us. He said, we've had -- in fact, I think Memphis, for many years, had the highest per capita murder rate in the country.
He said that Memphis has been suffering from unimaginable levels of crime for years, we want your help. We want the full Washington D.C. package. You know, as a side note, you know, we meet every week with city leaders here in Washington D.C. and this has proven to be, in their own mind and their own words, one of the most extraordinary things that anybody has ever seen.
Yes.
You said the other day that you want to use legitimate state power to dismantle left-wing terror networks. Which organizations were you talking about? And what kind of state power are you envisioning using?
That's a great question. Thank you. And I'm glad for the opportunity to add a couple more details to that. So the struggle that's taking place right now is between the lawful exercise of power by the American people through a duly elected government, versus the unlawful exercise of street violence in the form of domestic terrorism.
So again, the clearest example of this is when you have ICE officers who are carrying out the statutes and laws of the United States to arrest and remove illegal aliens, who are being subjected to violent attacks in the conduct of their duties, that's an example of illegitimate violence, illegitimate power, in the form of domestic terrorism being used to impede the conduct their official duties.
The answer to that in a civilized -- modern civilized society, is to use legitimate state power, grand juries, subpoenas, arrest warrants, search warrants and every other federal power at the disposal of the commander in chief to identify and find everybody who was trying to use the real and actual threat of violence to impede the conduct of these federal responsibilities and ensure that they're placed behind bars.
I'm not going to give you any advanced information about what these investigations have yielded so far. The Joint Terrorism Task Force has the lead, but they have found that these campaigns -- and it's not, of course, only against ICE officers. There's also a conversation we're having about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the two attempted assassinations against President Trump, the assassination of United Health Care CEO, the attempted assassination of Justice Kavanaugh, which of course had an insane sentence of eight years.
So it's the broader spectrum of political violence, but obviously ICE as an agency has been subjected to a nine-month effort to substitute left wing violence for the votes of the American people. No federal officer in the conduct of their duties should have to worry about being physically attacked, being physically obstructed, being physically impeded, being doxed, having a bounty put on them.
And the fact that Democrat politicians are trying to normalize this, really indicates how far we've gone as a society, that there is not universal condemnation of this organized campaign of violence against ICE officers. Yes.
Just to follow up. Just to follow up. I don't know of many Democratic politicians who have endorsed these terrible incidences that you just referred to. And I also don't know of any evidence that there's some kind of vast underlying organization funding them. Is that what you're indicating is happening here?
Yes. In fact, we know that it's true. But obviously --
You think Tyler Robinson was being funded by some terrorist organization?
No, what I said was that the -- you asked whether there was some larger criminal conspiracy relating to domestic terrorism in this country. And I said, yes, there absolutely is. Now, of course, Antifa has been designated as a domestic terrorist organization. This is only one example of many in which we have -- it's a Ð typically, a continuum of violence.
It involves both organized doxing, it involves violent threats and intimidation. It involves explicit calls to commit violence against a targeted person and then that tends to escalate into physically violent and obstructive acts. And so it's this continuum that we see over and over again where they're trying to use illegal violence and intimidation to disturb the operations of the federal government and federal personnel.
And we see this playing out over and over and over again.
Who's they? Because Antifa isn't actually an organization, right? Sir?
Yes.
Sir, you've spoken several times about how sanctuary city leaders and state leaders, they might face charges for human smuggling and harboring illegal aliens. You also spoke about 13 US -- USC 1324. And you know, it's since gotten worse. And today Brandon Johnson signed an executive order prohibiting use of city property for federal immigration operations.
Right. Right. By the way, that's a great example. On the Brandon Johnson, it's an example of how -- I was asked the question of well, do you have any example that that this behavior hasn't been condemned by Democrat officials? Well, I can go one better. The mayor of Chicago not only has failed to condemn the violent, obstructive acts against ICE and law enforcement, but in the aftermath of two coordinated attempted murders of ICE officers through vehicle ramming attacks, he issued a no-go zone for Ice officers.
What do we think would happen if under a Democrat administration, Republican officials declared no-go zones for the FBI? What do you think the reaction to that would be? How many people do you think would be arrested and placed into jail over that? And so it's just important to understand these are not isolated incidents.
It's -- if you can't see, then you don't want to see. In other words, if you can't see that since we've taken office, there has been an organized, systematized campaign to delegitimize, dehumanize, threaten, impede, obstruct and physically assault ICE officers and their duties, then I can't persuade you of it because you're choosing not to see what's right in front of your face.
[Crosstalk]
Do you believe that James Comey should be [Inaudible]
Yes, sorry. Yes, back there. Sorry.
Jay Jones has not dropped out of the race for attorney general in Virginia.
Yes.
He's under immense pressure to do so.
He is.
He hasn't. Does that surprise you?
Sadly, it doesn't surprise me. Look, what you saw with the Jay Jones comments, and it's a piece of this whole conversation, was the deeply held inner monologue of a high-ranking Democrat. They're -- someone who rose to the top of the ranks of the Democrat Party. So if you read the text message exchange, it's clear that he talks this way often and frequently.
That is his homicidal ideation and his fantasies about elaborate murder and torture is something that clearly, he is comfortable with and is doing frequently. So you have to ask yourself what kind of system is someone operating in where they speak so freely and commonly about, again, elaborate murder plots against people they work with.
What kind of system brings somebody up like that and elevates them to the point of nearly being the attorney general. That's a system that has absorbed this narrative that we see so often, which is that the Republican Party, and in particular that the Trump movement, again from the Democrat narrative, is basically -- this is a term I've seen, is unpersoned.
Right, that they basically -- they dehumanize you to the point of not having a right to live.
And so we saw this, of course, with the four years of lawfare against President Trump and the desire to incarcerate him for life. Then, of course, that kind of eliminationist conduct and rhetoric then leads and gives rise to more violent behavior like attempted assassinations. And now, of course, because so much of this conduct was never punished over time, now we see so many Americans, and they're not all Americans, of course many foreigners too, who feel very comfortable engaging in direct day to day violence against ICE officers.
It's a common experience for ICE officers when they're conducting an arrest to be physically assaulted by others, while they are carrying out an arrest. So you might be arresting, say, a child pornography illegal alien, and you will get physically assaulted while you're doing it. Now, ICE officers have to worry about getting sniped from rooftops when they're coming and going from their facilities.
And we've normalized the idea, not -- I haven't, of course, and you haven't, but others have, that ICE officers should have to work in a federal building every single day with they're attacked going in, they're attacked going out, where every night there has to be street battle against armed insurrectionists, every single night, night after night after night.
That's normal? You ask why we need the National Guard, why we need troops, because it takes hundreds of additional personnel, far beyond the resources of the federal officials working in Portland, to hold a -- secure a perimeter to provide freedom of movement. And it's not enough, by the way, if you're an ICE officer just to stand here and put the line back here, right, there under sniping attack.
They're going to get rocks hurled at them, right? They're in physical danger. So you have to clear a safe perimeter so that ICE officers can carry out their duties without being an imminent threat of physical harm. And the fact that we've normalized these attacks on ICE officers, that that is how you end up in a society in which domestic terrorism becomes the norm and eventually, elections don't carry the day because violence beats votes.
And that's what we're seeing attempted. And so when we see a muscular response from the federal government, it's because we're not going to let violence be votes. Next question.
[Crosstalk]
Stephen, three months from now -- three months from now --
Yes.
-- when we're having this conversation in December, what do you see the end game being? Because you clearly don't have trust in some certain local and state law enforcement entities.
How could you?
And so where do you see the National Guard? Where do you see the military going? You suggested that if the courts rule against you, you will find other ways to use the military. That would lead me to believe that there's a conversation about the Insurrection Act that is taking place. What should Americans expect over the next three and a half years, understanding that there is a real likelihood that those same local law enforcement and state officials will never ever cooperate with your efforts.
Should people expect the National Guard and the military in their streets over the next three and a half years?
I think that most -- I mean, so to be clear, the -- when you talk about the National Guard in their streets, so right now in Portland, [Inaudible] having National Guard deployed to secure a federal building in Portland. And so there's a lot of elements to your question. I'll try to get to all of them. But you know, when I hear comments from Democrat officials saying that this violence from the left is being provoked, their word, by the presence of federal officials, think about how broken of a sentence that is, right?
In other words, if tomorrow we went to, say, Dothan, Alabama and there was a federal building there and we put 100 police officers in front of it, it wouldn't be attacked. Nobody would throw rocks at them. Nobody would try to shoot them. Nobody would do anything. They would say, hello, good morning. Maybe they'd get them a cup of coffee before they go out for their shift for the day.
They'd ask, how are your kids doing, how are your kids doing? The fact that Democrats think that their own base cannot contain their desire to inflict violence upon the mere sight -- in other words, the National Guard is not being sent there proactively. They're being sent there reactively to defend ICE officers under siege.
So in theory, if ICE officers were in their building and the National Guard was in their building and nobody was violently attacking them, the only thing that you would see is there's a building, there's ICE officers, there's guardsmen. The violence is entirely rioters choosing to show up and wage violence at a specific federal building.
They've handed out fliers. I saw one Antifa flier recently and it said, we need to mobilize around the Broadview facilities -- this is in Chicago, to shut down ICE. So what does that mean? When they say we're going to mobilize to shut down ICE, what are they saying? They're saying they're going to carry out insurrection against the federal government by using force, obstructive force to keep ICE officers from going out and conducting arrests.
Would we ever tolerate this with any other law enforcement agency? If we said shut down the FBI and say, -- let's say, let's pick one of the organizations that the media might understand better. So let's say the Proud Boys said we're going to shut down the FBI, and they went and they sat. They formed a human obstructive wall in front of the entry and exit to the Washington Field office of the FBI, and they attacked anybody coming and going.
How many nights do you think that situation would persist for, not even one, let alone over 100. We all understand this to be true. So to your other question, the -- yes, the president has multiple statutory authorities under federal law to secure a federal building. And so when a court issues an injunction, the only activity that's enjoined is what's specifically enjoined in that order, not activity that isn't addressed or spoken to that order.
There was another part to your -- oh, in three or four months. So this is the most important point I can make, this is -- the behavior of the anti-ICE rioters violent attack [Inaudible] is motivated by a desire to achieve a concrete outcome. In other words, their objective is fewer ICE arrests in Chicago, fewer ICE arrests in Portland.
So very straightforwardly, the way to end this ongoing assault is to demonstrate that they will fail, that they will fail completely and totally. In other words, if you were able to secure these buildings using additional resources, you're not having your entire federal law enforcement apparatus doing nothing but physical building security, if you're able to use the National Guard to secure these buildings and free up your ICE officers and your FBI agents and everyone else to go out and do enforcement in the community, to go out and find dangerous predators and remove them, you will demonstrate very conclusively, as we did in Los Angeles, by the way, that all your riots and violence will get you is more deportations.
That has happened in Washington D.C. That has happened in Washington, D.C., has it not? And yet the men and women of the National Guard remain here in the streets instead of being at home.
Well, see, it's a great example, but not in the way that you phrased. So -- I know you all have questions, but it's [Inaudible]
But I think that's where if you're a Democrat city, you're looking at Washington D.C., you're saying, they complied, there is no mass protests. And the crime -- President Trump said it's a crime-free city now. So why are the National Guard remaining? And that is why there is such a front.
You're adjacent to a great point. But the reason why there's the reason why there's peace and calm in the city is because the criminal element is understood that their criminal activity will not achieve their desired outcome. That's the most important point. And the second thing is --
So you support them remaining in the streets of the American cities long term?
Here in Washington, D.C., the National Guard, as John Fetterman has said, is one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to this city. It means you can go out to the National Mall and not have to worry about being attacked. But the other thing is that --
But you support them in American cities long term?
The National Guard deployment is part of a cohesive public safety operation like in D.C., and like in Memphis, is an extraordinary blessing. The tragedy that I see is when Ð
So you support them in American cities long term?
I answered the question the way that I did. The tragedy that I see is when you have a six-year-old boy, as happened recently, his killer, who stabbed him in the head until the knife was blunt, got released from jail on good behavior. The tragedy is when you try to murder a Supreme Court justice and you're out of jail in eight years.
Right, the tragedy is when you have somebody who's been in and out of the criminal justice system for, you know, well over a decade, with 39 arrests, like in North Carolina, and can just walk up to an innocent, Ukrainian refugee and knife her to death in the throat. That's the thing that gets me upset and that's the thing that gets the American people upset.
And the second thing to your question is putting people in jail who are committing this terrorist activity is the number one most important deterrent. Yes, question.
But you long term believe that over the next three and a half years, the military --
I think everyone wants me to move on to the next question. Thank you.
Sure. Sure.
I've been very patient. Thank you. Thank you.
Last week, Director Vought paused infrastructure funding in New York City, the subway, the Hudson River tunnel and then he also paused funds in Chicago. They were connected to DEI, but I mean, can we expect for one, is the administration going after infrastructure projects in Democratic-led cities? And are there other cities that the administration is [Inaudible] right now?
It's a great question for Russ Vought. I'll do two more. Thank you.
[Crosstalk]
[Inaudible] your full interview with CNN, so just to be clear here, will the administration abide by the judge's ruling? And then also, also can you just clarify, is the administration actively looking into other legal avenues to deploy the National Guard in Oregon? I know you don't want to get into specifics.
So yes, the administration is going through the appellate process to obtain relief from the ruling, just as we did in the Ninth Circuit in California. And at the same time, we're availing ourselves of all available options and we'll examine them. All right. Two more questions because that was a short one.
[Crosstalk]
Venezuela. Venezuela. Do you want to see Maduro out of Venezuela? What's next there?
I have nothing to add to that other than what the attorney general and the secretary of state have said, which is that there's a $50 million bounty that has been placed on Maduro in connection to his indictment as a narco terrorist drug trafficker and he needs to be brought to justice for the crimes that he was -- for which he was convicted in an American court.
Venezuela is run by a drug cartel that is guilty of not only flooding our nation with TDA and other foreign terrorists, but of course helping to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans through deadly drugs.
[Crosstalk]
Stephen, can you talk about the shutdown? So we've heard that the president is considering cutting off funding, certain aid to Portland. What is the timeline on that and what is he considering cutting off funds to?
I'll get an update from Russ. Yes, sorry.
So regarding the shutdown, both the president and the House speaker have sort of alluded to being open to reforms to Obamacare. What supports are they -- what reforms to the ACA would the White House actually support?
My only comment on the shutdown right now is that Democrats should support a clean funding bill to reopen the government and that it's outrageous to shut the government down in an attempt to get free health care for illegal aliens. Time for one more question.
[Crosstalk]
Yeah, back there. Brian.
You called a legal ruling, legal insurrection. Are you recommending the president take action against judges whose rulings he disagrees with?
No. It's simply a factually accurate statement that when a judge assumes for him or herself the powers that have been relegated or delegated by the Constitution to the president, that that is a form of a legal insurrection and we have seen --
[Inaudible] legal weight, so are you recommending --
No, the -- we have seen over the last nine months, an ongoing legal insurrection in which district court judges as a class, in many cases, have issued -- which is why they've been overturned so much, have issued rulings that are flagrantly unlawful and unconstitutional. And it is an insurrection against the laws and constitution of the United States.
And we need to have district courts in this country that see themselves as being under the laws and constitution and not being able to take for themselves powers that are reserved solely for the president. One more question.
[Crosstalk]
Yes, yes.
Is farmer relief going to be announced this week?
Sorry, back there. Thanks.
Why are White House staffers being let go?
I have no information on that.
[Crosstalk]
This week, James Comey being arraigned. Do you believe that he should be perp walked? Is he above the law? Is Christopher Wray next? And --
I sure -- I sure hope -- I don't have anything to say -- I sure hope that James Comey is not above the law. And I think the American people want to make sure that James Comey is held to the full legal standard to which any American who committed similar crimes would be subjected. Next to you. One last question.
Thank you. As we're seeing a surge of attacks on ice agents, including for example, the shooting in Dallas, this weekend in Chicago, 10 cars, you know, surrounding ICE agents, another one ramming into an ICE vehicle.
Yes, right.
To what extent does administration believe that such attacks are organized? And based on that possibility or you're alluding to Antifa, how does that change the calculation and how the administration is going to respond to these attacks?
Yeah. Look, as I've said repeatedly, this is organized domestic terrorism. The purpose of domestic terrorism is to obtain through violence and intimidation and the threat of violence, a change in politics or policy that cannot be obtained through lawful democratic means. So when you have a 10-car ramming attack with armed attackers clearly intending to murder ICE officers in the conduct of the duties, what else can you call that?
Right? The Ð remember, the central issue that was litigated in 2024 was whether or not to turn back the border invasion. Americans voted to send the illegals home. The invasion that took place was one of the greatest crimes that has ever happened in the history of this country. And now that ICE officers are simply trying to execute on the mandate of the last election and the laws that were passed by Congress, they have been the victims of an unceasing campaign of violence and intimidation and terrorism.
As Secretary Noem said, they're now bounties on the heads of ICE officers. They had to shield their families' identities at school and in public. They're being constantly doxed and threatened with assassination. And we're just days from an attempted assassination of ICE officers at an ICE facility. And the response to that has been to try to, for example, in Chicago to try to prevent ICE officers from being able to enter key parts of the city to conduct their responsibilities.
This is an all-out campaign of insurrection against the sovereignty of the United States because the Democrat Party and those who are committing violence in this country do not believe in the legitimacy of the sovereign territory of the United States and they don't want any of these illegal aliens to go home.
So they want to cement by force, by violent force, the invasion that took place between 2021 and 2024. Thank you.
[Crosstalk]
On the South Carolina fire, Stephen, have you heard anything from law enforcement on that cause?
What I've heard so far was that they [Inaudible]
Likely an accident?
Likely. Yeah.
Would you be willing to say that, no?
You'll have to call [Inaudible]
Thank you. Thank you, Stephen.