It’s Stephen Miller’s First Day as Wannabe Mob Boss

Stephen Miller trying to look cool by wearing sunglasses and an American flag-themed neck gaiter. Chris Kleponis/CNP/Zuma Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. How will Stephen Miller, the public face of some of President Donald Trump’s cruelest policies, operate in his new role as White House chief of staff? One likely clue is in Miller’s apparent obsession with the mobster characters in movies such as Goodfellas and Casino, a fixation he reportedly has held since childhood. The obsession runs so deep that, as a teen and into adulthood, Miller reportedly had a habit of wearing the whole get-up: gold pinky ring, polo shirts, formal pants, and slicked-back hair to mimic his favorite fictional mob bosses. As one of his friends told Vanity Fair in 2020, Miller would wear bright, loud suits in Las Vegas, inspired by Robert De Niro’s character in Casino, and even seemed to take up the physical gestures like touching his fingertips together and specific head tics. Today, his wife, Katie Miller, apparently shares the same affinity. It’s an fandom that clearly informed the intensely combative worldview Miller is now notorious for. NPR’s Monday episode of Up First pointed to his remarks addressing law enforcement agents in Memphis, Tennessee, in October 2025, just before 1,500 National Guard members began patrolling the city under Trump’s direction, as well as others across the country: “The gangbangers that you deal with, they think that they’re ruthless. They have no idea how ruthless we are.” As White House chief of staff, Miller is now in an even more powerful position to inflict suffering on immigrants, while treating those who dare to stand up to him and the president as going against the family. It’s that complete and total loyalty, as well as willingness to break real laws, that likely helped elevate Miller to the role. That mobster obsession, dovetailed with Miller’s white supremacism, previews what’s all but certain to be a dark next two years. In other words, more revenge, dirty work, and mob-like cruelty. As Robert De Niro’s Jimmy Conway says to a young Henry Hill (played by Ray Liotta) in Goodfellas, “Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.”