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Miller Gaggles with Reporters Outside the White House, Apr. 18, 2025: 'Beyond Appalled' over the Abrego Garcia Case

April 18, 2025 · Roll Call Factbase Videos · 0:13:35

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What happened

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller took reporters’ questions outside the White House on April 18, 2025, in Roll Call Factbase Videos’ recording, leading with Senator Chris Van Hollen’s meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador. Miller said he was “almost at a loss for words for how outrageous it is,” describing the deported man — in the administration’s account, stated by Miller at the gaggle — as a documented member of MS-13, now a designated foreign terrorist organization, implicated in human smuggling and trafficking.

Miller contrasted the senator’s trip with Maryland victims whose families, he said, never received a call from Van Hollen, naming Rachel Morin and Kayla Hamilton, and said of the senator: “I am beyond appalled.” Asked about moving Abrego Garcia to another country, Miller said President Bukele’s view governs what El Salvador does with its own citizen, and argued the gang Abrego Garcia had claimed to fear in El Salvador “no longer exists.” He also attacked New York Attorney General Letitia James over the allegations against her, calling her, in his words, “one of the most corrupt, shameless individuals ever to hold public office” — criticism attributed here to Miller.

Why it matters

The gaggle is the administration’s most direct public confrontation over the Abrego Garcia deportation, delivered by Miller personally: the case for the removal, the attack on the senator who flew to San Salvador, and the argument that the claimed basis for fearing return had ceased to exist.

Sources: Roll Call Factbase Videos, “Stephen Miller Speaks to Reporters Outside the White House — April 18, 2025” (video PyKrfqG51uI); transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, never republished verbatim). The characterizations of Abrego Garcia and of Attorney General James are Miller’s, as stated at the gaggle.