Controversial Jewish White House couple wed in DC ceremony
Trump attends wedding of immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller and Pence’s press secretary Katie Waldman at one of his hotels
US President Donald Trump went from the Daytona 500 on Sunday to attending the wedding of two top members of his administration, senior adviser Stephen Miller and Katie Waldman, press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence.
Shortly after landing at Andrews Air Force Base after a busy day in Florida, the president made a quick stop at the White House. The presidential motorcade then made a five-block jaunt to the Trump International Hotel where the White House announced after press queries that the president was attending “the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Miller.”
Both Miller, 34, and Waldman, 28, are Jewish and descendants of immigrants. Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone, who is a senior adviser to David Friedman, the United States ambassador to Israel, officiated, The New York Times reported.
The combative Miller is one of the White House’s most conservative and influential voices in pushing moves that Trump has taken to curb immigration. He is widely viewed as the driving force behind the administration’s hardest-line immigration policies.
Spectacular and very special wedding tonight with new bride and groom Stephen and Katie Miller! So much fun and still going with @realDonaldTrump having fun and the band is going strong! pic.twitter.com/1LreZhe2pd
— Reince Priebus (@Reince) February 17, 2020
Waldman served as a spokesperson for the US Department of Homeland Security, where she defended the policy of separating families of migrants, before moving to the vice president’s office.
The press pool was held outside of the hotel during Sunday’s festivities. Trump spent more than two hours at the event.
In December, Jewish Democratic House members urged Trump to dismiss Miller after leaked emails revealed he had promoted white nationalist materials to the right-wing Breitbart News website.
“With America experiencing historic levels of anti-Semitism, xenophobia, racism, and white supremacy, there should be no place in our government and on any President’s staff for people propagating such views,” the letter said.
In the emails, published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Miller sent a Breitbart reporter links to VDare, a news website popular with white nationalists, and recommended that she read “The Camp of the Saints,” a racist French novel by Jean Raspail from the 1970s that has become an ideological foundation document for white nationalists.
He also railed against the removal of Confederate monuments and flags after a white nationalist, Dylann Roof, opened fire at a South Carolina church and killed nine worshipers.
