Stephen Miller, the chief architect of President Donald Trump’s nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration, delivered a sharp rebuttal to CNN’s Jake Tapper during a recent interview—one that has MAGA supporters applauding his performance. From the start, Tapper attempted to steer the conversation toward the economic impact of illegal immigrant labor in the agricultural sector, suggesting that their presence helps keep grocery prices lower.
He argued that if Trump were to proceed with mass deportations, food prices could rise, potentially undermining the president’s commitment to reducing the cost of living for Americans. “In 2022, forty-two percent of crop workers were undocumented immigrants,” Tapper said on Tuesday. “In many cases, these migrants do jobs that many Americans do not want to do. So, how do you, how does President Trump, make sure that the effort to deport people who are not in this country legally doesn’t end up hurting Americans who want safe borders absolutely, but also don’t want to see even more higher prices in groceries?”
Miller appeared to be ready for the well-worn Democrat talking point that the country needs more illegal aliens ‘to pick our crops.’ “I’m sure it’s not your position, Jake. You’re just asking the question that we should supply America’s food with exploitative illegal alien labor. I obviously don’t think that’s what you’re implying,” he replied with a straight face. The Trump adviser then emphasized that the majority of newly arrived undocumented immigrants have settled in major urban centers rather than in America’s heartland, per the video below.
“Only one percent of alien workers in the entire county work in agriculture. The top destination for illegal aliens are large cities like New York, like Los Angeles… none of those illegal aliens are doing farm work,” Miller continued, but Tapper wasn’t getting the response he was likely after. “You’re kind of changing the subject,” Tapper interjected. “No, no, no, no, no. Give me thirty minutes, and I’ll go as deep as you want,” Miller shot back.
“There’s no universe in which this nation is going to allow the previous president to flood our nation with millions and millions of illegal aliens who just get to stay here, and we are especially not going to allow a subset of those illegal aliens to rape and murder our citizens,” Miller insisted. “We are going to unapologetically enforce our immigration laws,” he finished before Tapper ended the interview.
