It’s weird, right? You expect Donald Trump to be the biggest presence in any room — he’s spent decades in the public eye, after all — but there’s someone near him who seems to collect attention the way others collect stamps. Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff, is that person. Maybe “more narcissistic” is too sharp a label. But if you squint and listen to the stories, it doesn’t feel wrong to say Miller can be bafflingly self-focused, sometimes in ways that make even a showman like Trump seem almost casual.
A strange early start
Miller’s relationship with attention didn’t begin in the White House. He was already playing to an audience as a teenager. At 16, while still at Santa Monica High School, he appeared on radio — “The Larry Elder Show” — talking about political correctness on campus. That got him more appearances, letters in the local paper, and a small but steady public profile before he even hit college. Think about that for a second: most kids are worried about grades, prom, or college apps; he was building a mini media footprint. Maybe that shaped him. Maybe it didn’t. Hard to say for sure, but it’s a detail that makes the later behavior less surprising.
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A home shrine? Sort of.
If you imagine a person who keeps records of every time they’ve been on TV or radio, you might picture an old reel-to-reel archive, or a well-organized digital drive. Stephen Miller, according to his wife Katie, apparently has something closer to, well, piles. In a September 2025 chat on “The Alex Marlow Show,” Katie described “piles and piles and piles” of DVDs and CDs — basically stacks of his appearances — stored around their home. The phrasing is oddly vivid. It conjures the image of a shrine, I guess, or at least a very committed hobbyist.
You can take that description two ways. Maybe it’s a harmless archive, something he keeps because he’s interested in his own public work. Or maybe it’s a sign of a deeper, more consuming need to collect proof of attention. I find myself leaning toward the latter, but I won’t insist. People keep things for all sorts of personal reasons. Still, the mental image of stacks of his interviews — piled up — makes me smile and cringe at the same time.
Public moments that reveal a pattern
There have been other, less quaint moments that suggest Miller isn’t shy about making himself the center of things. One memorable episode involved CNN’s Jake Tapper. Miller and Tapper had a tense segment where things escalated, and Tapper ended up cutting the interview short. The host later accused Miller of performing for the one viewer he most wanted to please — and you can probably guess who that viewer was. Tapper described Miller as being “obsequious,” which is a word that lands hard. Trump, predictably, jumped in on X with praise for Miller, saying Tapper “just got destroyed.” It’s a tidy little loop: Miller seeks favor, the host calls him out, the president praises him, and the whole thing becomes another notch in the archived pile.
That incident also reportedly ended with Miller being escorted off CNN’s property by security. That’s not exactly a minor footnote. It reads like someone trying to force his way into being heard — and failing publicly. Embarrassing? Yes. A bit theatrical? Definitely.
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Interrupting the room
Another episode came in a press briefing, when Miller bluntly demanded to speak about a specific migrant case. As the briefing tried to proceed, he snapped, “I’m talking now,” effectively steamrolling whoever was answering. There’s a single sentence there that tells you something important: he wanted the floor at any cost. Sometimes that’s just confidence or professional eagerness. Other times it looks like an insistence on being the center of attention — almost like he can’t help himself.
A pattern, perhaps, but not a diagnosis
All these moments together sketch out a pattern: early media-building, a home archive of appearances, and several public incidents where Miller aggressively sought to place himself front and center. That can look like narcissism, sure. But whether it’s clinical narcissism? I can’t say — I’m not making a medical claim. What I will say is this: it looks intentional. It reads as carefully nurtured self-presentation, not an accident.
There’s also a deeper, weirder dynamic at play. Trump is famously attention-hungry, but he’s also an amplifier: he uses people who get results, who mirror his style or who will publicly praise him. Miller seems to fit that role well. He’ll perform and archive and then perform again. That strategy isn’t uncommon in politics; there are lots of aides who play the part. But Miller’s approach feels particularly obsessive — and maybe that’s why it stands out.
Why it matters
It’s not just gossip about TV appearances and piles of discs. When the people close to power are focused on their own spotlight, the priorities in policy meetings and public briefings shift. That doesn’t always end well. Attention-seeking can drive messaging that favors spectacle over substance. It can make conversations louder and less thoughtful. And when such behavior comes from someone with influence over immigration policy, messaging, or communications, the stakes are real; they affect people’s lives.
Anyway, the story of Stephen Miller — teenage radio guest to prominent White House figure, archivist of his own media life, and frequent interrupter of public forums — is oddly compelling. It’s the kind of thing that you notice and then can’t stop noticing: the small, repeated behaviors that paint a larger portrait. Is he more narcissistic than Trump? Maybe — in a quieter, more methodical way. Or maybe he’s simply someone who knows how to work the spotlight and hoard the souvenirs.
People change, or they don’t. I’m not sure Miller will. But those piles? They’re an image I won’t forget.
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