With Trump goons dropping one by one as the president’s popularity craters, Gavin Newsom is wondering why Stephen Miller has suddenly disappeared.
The California governor suggests Miller, whom he compares to bald Harry Potter villain Voldemort, has gone into hiding to try to avoid becoming the next victim of Trump’s blood-letting.
The governor thinks Miller could be the next high-profile casualty in Trump’s orbit, following the abrupt departures of former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Newsom, 58, wrote: “WHY HAS VOLDEMORT BEEN HIDING?” “DID Donald Trump PUT HIM IN A TIMEOUT FOR BAD BEHAVIOR?”
Newsom posted a meme of a missing-person billboard featuring Miller’s face—complete with a White House tip line for anyone who might have seen him.
The governor previously joked that Miller had been cast as Voldemort in the HBO reboot of the Harry Potter franchise. In September, he also posted an images of the follically challenged bad guy with the caption: “A live look at Stephen Miller seeing a chance to rip families apart, arrest women, and deport children.”
Miller—long one of the administration’s most aggressive public voices on immigration—has sharply scaled back his media appearances following a deadly enforcement surge in Minneapolis.
That crackdown, overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, drew fierce criticism after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens, 37-year-old Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, in January.
Miller, 40, who also serves as a homeland security adviser, was a key architect of the policy push.
Behind the scenes, however, he remains anything but quiet.
Officials told The Atlantic that Miller frequently erupts into early morning shouting matches, barking directives like a “wartime general,” with one source adding that “nobody is spared from his wrath.”
But publicly, his presence has all but evaporated.
A New York Times analysis found Miller had been appearing on Trump’s favorite network, Fox News, roughly every four days since the start of Trump’s second term. But after the January 24 killing of Pretti, that cadence collapsed with just two appearances in February.
He resurfaced briefly on Monday for a White House Easter Egg Roll event, but has otherwise remained largely out of sight.
The retreat comes after a string of inflammatory remarks during the height of the Minneapolis surge, when Miller accused Democrats of siding with “terrorists” and labeled Pretti a “would-be assassin.”
Still, his influence appears undiminished.
The Times reports Miller is continuing to shape new immigration policies behind closed doors, including proposals targeting undocumented immigrants and tightening restrictions on green cards for those who may require public assistance.
Even as his public profile shrinks, Miller remains deeply embedded in policy decisions—regularly participating in high-level calls on national security and immigration enforcement.
In a March interview, Newsom was asked which surviving Trump administration official he would boot first to help the country. He didn’t blink. “The dark heart of the administration, period full stop, is one man—Stephen Miller,” casting him as the chief “architect” of Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda.
In a separate X post in January, Newsom accused Miller of being “directly responsible for the deaths, violence, and chaos” tied to the administration’s immigration policies—adding that he “must be fired and held accountable.”
The ballooning criticism isn’t limited only to Democrats; members of his own party have begun to fray.
Sen. Thom Tillis has also raised concerns about Miller’s grip on the administration, warning that his “outsized influence” has become a growing liability.
Tillis went further, blasting Miller as someone who has repeatedly embarrassed the president by “acting too quickly, speaking first, and thinking later.”
