On Aug. 25, 2025, according to posts on social media, U.S. President Donald Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called the Democratic party a "domestic, extremist organization" on live television.
Using such language to describe the opposition party to the current presidential administration startled many online, some of whom called Miller's rhetoric "fascist." Snopes readers searched the site wondering if Miller had indeed said those words.
He did. The claim is true.
Miller appeared on Fox News' "Hannity" to talk about "how Democrats have let crime run rampant in Chicago," according to a Fox News clip of his comments. (According to Chicago's NBC affiliate WMAQ, Chicago Police Department statistics show the city saw a 21.9% decrease in violent crime in 2024).
The appearance followed Trump's Aug. 11 decision to station national guard troops in Washington, D.C., in order to, as he said, decrease crime and comments suggesting that Chicago and other cities with mayors from the Democratic party might follow.
Hannity introduced Miller with the following remarks:
You know Steven, I've been running a scroll of the names of people that have been shot and shot and killed. You could predict with pinpoint accuracy how many people on any given weekend are going to be shot and shot and killed in Chicago. They haven't lifted a finger to solve the problem.
You know, they've fallen in to this "defund," "dismantle," "reimagine," "no-bail" insanity. And now Donald Trump wants to help and they're mad at him?
Over a chyron that read "Dems fall on the wrong side of every issue," Miller responded as follows (emphasis added):
Look, we discussed this last time I was on your show. The Democrat party does not fight for, care about or represent American citizens. It is an entity devoted exclusively to the defense of hardened criminals, gangbangers, and illegal alien killers and terrorists. The Democrat party is not a political party. It is a domestic, extremist organization.
Look at Chicago. They've shut down the police department, they've handcuffed law enforcement, and as President Trump says, they have turned the streets of Chicago into a bloody killing field.
Here in Washington, D.C., before President Trump launched the federal law enforcement liberation in D.C., there was a murder on the streets of this town every other day — body after body after body after body. That was Washington, D.C. Residents were afraid to go to restaurants, they were afraid to go into entire neighborhoods, they were getting carjacked right and left, robbed and beaten. That was Washington, D.C.
Now we're two weeks homicide free — the safest the city has ever been in its entire history. And the Democrats, instead of jumping up and down and saying, "Thank you President Trump, thank you for saving our lives, thank you for saving our cities, thank you for scrubbing away all the graffiti, the trash, the homeless encampments, the druggies" — instead of cleaning up the city, instead of thanking him for that, they're saying, "President Trump, how dare you save our lives, how dare you save our children, how dare you save our city."
The Democrat party, Sean, that exists today, it disgusts me. I do not recognize that party, Sean.
In Trump's first administration, Miller served as a senior policy adviser and speechwriter. According to The Guardian, he was the architect behind several of Trump's "most notorious policy initiatives," including the "Muslim ban" on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries in 2017. As of this writing, he serves as Trump's deputy chief of staff of policy and homeland security adviser.