Family Member Writes Brutal Take Down of House GOP Candidate and Ex-Trump Staffer: He’s ‘Endangering America and Endangering Jews’
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The Republican nominee for Ohio’s newly-drawn 7th Congressional district, Max Miller, came under fire this week from a familiar source – his own cousin.
Daniel Miller published an op-ed in The Forward on Monday accusing his first cousin, who was also a close aide of former President Donald Trump, of belonging “to a political movement that’s endangering America and endangering Jews.”
Max Miller made headlines after Trump left office when his ex-girfriend, former Trump Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, accused him of abuse. Miller denied the allegations and filed a lawsuit for defamation.
In the op-ed, Daniel Miller argues that while “not every Trump supporter is antisemitic” there are “factors” within Trumpism that inherently endanger America’s minority populations – Jews included.
“Trumpism, with its xenophobia, conspiratorial worldview, and courting of white supremacists, is helping to transform this country from one where Jews are relatively safe to one where Jews are more in danger,” Daniel Miller writes, adding:
It feels like some of my relatives are waiting to hear ominous music playing on blast to warn them of impending danger. But this is not how history works.
While working up to that ominous warning, Daniel Miller began by noting that Max spoke at Trump’s recent Ohio rally alongside controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
“During the rally, some in the crowd gave Trump a straight armed, one-finger salute. I and many others were horrified at the resemblance to a Nazi Sieg Heil. Apparently, it’s a QAnon gesture. But under these circumstances, no board member of the Holocaust Memorial Council, like my cousin, should have tweeted out the next day that the rally was a ‘fantastic night,’” argued Daniel, noting that this rally led him to publish the op-ed.
Daniel also invoked his shared family heritage with Max, questioning what their grandmother and great-grandfather might say given his cousin’s current political affiliations.
“Throughout it all, I’ve thought a lot about my Jewish ancestors. My great-grandfather (who is also Max’s great-grandfather) was smuggled out of Poland dressed as a cattle herder, and eventually made it to the U.S. and achieved more than he ever could have dreamed,” Daniel wrote.
“What would he think about the Hungarian fascist Victor Orban being warmly embraced in America by the political movement that includes his descendant?” Daniel then asked of his late great-grandfather, adding:
His daughter, our bubbe, ran for Congress in Ohio as a Republican and was one of the most beloved women in Cleveland when she died in 1996. What would she think about her grandson running for Congress as an ally of a man who once said that he wished American Generals behaved more like “German Generals”?
Daniel concludes by noting the rifts the op-ed may cause in his future family gatherings.
“I worry that some relatives I love will take personal offense at this article. I worry that I might not feel welcome by some at our family Seder, a convening that has lasted generations and often counts more than 100 in attendance,” Daniel wrote.
“My uncle Abe, Max’s father, is my favorite uncle. And until I spoke out against his son, I believe he would have done anything for me,” he added, but concluded he felt duty bound to speak out against his cousin.
