Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) said the quiet part out loud Saturday when she thanked former President Donald Trump at an Illinois rally for his role in overturning Roe v. Wade by picking conservative justices.
“President Trump, on behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court,” she said, to cheers and applause.
A spokesperson for Miller later told NBC News that she had misread the prepared remarks, and intended to say “right to life.”
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But Miller has made a number of major stumbles during her time in office and campaigning. Just days after taking office in January 2021, constituents called for her resignation for praising Adolf Hitler in a speech to a conservative women’s group, the Chicago Tribune reported.
“You know, if we win a few elections, we’re still going to be losing unless we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle,” Miller said at the time. “Hitler was right on one thing: He said whoever has the youth has the future.”
She later apologized, but also insisted enemies had somehow twisted her words.
After a gunman killed 19 young children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, in May, Miller attacked those fighting for gun safety as “trying to destroy our society’s central pillars of faith, family and freedom,” the Tribune reported. “We need to go back to God,” she added.
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As for “white life,” some conservatives see abortion crackdowns as a way to keep up numbers of white citizens amid evolving American demographics. It plays into the racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory that Democrats and others are covertly plotting to replace whites with people of color and immigrants.
Miller, who has been endorsed by Trump, will face off against rival Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) in a state primary Tuesday.
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