Tim Miller (political strategist)
American political consultant and writer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tim Miller (born December 25, 1981) is an American political commentator, YouTube streamer, writer, and former political consultant. He was communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, but that year became an early and prominent Republican critic of Donald Trump.
Republican National Committee spokesman
Never Trump movement
Tim Miller | |
|---|---|
June 2022 | |
| Born | December 25, 1981 St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
| Education | George Washington University (BA) |
| Occupations | Political consultant, writer |
| Known for | Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign communications director Republican National Committee spokesman Never Trump movement |
Political party | Republican (before 2020) Independent (2020 – present) |
| Spouse | Tyler Jameson[1] |
| Children | 1 |
Miller is a writer-at-large for the Never Trump opinion website The Bulwark and has hosted for The Bulwark's daily podcast since 2023.[2] He contributes as an MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) analyst.
Early life
In 2000, Miller graduated from Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora, Colorado, and in 2004, he graduated from George Washington University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science.[3]
McCain and Bush campaigns
A native of Littleton, Colorado, Miller started out in Republican politics as an intern working on the 1998 Colorado gubernatorial election.[4][5] He later earned a bachelor's degree from the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs.[6]
Miller was an Iowa staffer for John McCain in the 2008 Republican Party presidential primaries, and later served as national press secretary for the Jon Huntsman 2012 presidential campaign.[6] In his role with the Huntsman campaign, Miller was credited by Esquire for making its daily email to reporters "surprisingly hip".[7] After the primary, Miller joined the Republican National Committee as its liaison to Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.[8]
He was hired in 2015 by former Florida governor Jeb Bush as a senior adviser to Bush's presidential exploratory committee, Right to Rise political action committee (PAC), and went on to act as the communications director for Bush's presidential campaign.[6][9][10] During the campaign, Miller drew notice as a "vocal critic" of Donald Trump.[11] Following a 2016 South Carolina Republican primary debate, Miller followed Trump around the spin room heckling him until Miller was "hip-checked" by Trump campaign strategist Corey Lewandowski.[12]
Anti-Trump advocacy
Miller joined the anti-Trump Our Principles PAC (political action committee) following Bush's exit from the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, and then drew notice for lambasting Trump supporters with whom he appeared on-air.[13]
Following Trump's election, Miller announced that he had donated to Doug Jones, the Democratic opponent of Republican nominee and accused sex offender Roy Moore in the 2017 United States Senate special election in Alabama to fill Jeff Sessions's seat.[14][15]
In 2020, he co-founded the advocacy organization Republican Voters Against Trump, which sponsored television and internet advertisements featuring lifelong Republicans explaining their rationale for voting for Joe Biden instead of Trump, and served as its political director.[8][16] He was included in The Washington Post 2016 list of Republicans "who hate Donald Trump the most".[17] In November 2020, he announced he had left the Republican Party.[18][19]
Miller has been a member of Definers Public Affairs, an opposition research-styled consulting firm since 2016. The group circulated a research document in 2018 linking anti-Facebook activists with financier George Soros—a frequent subject of antisemitic conspiracy theories—on behalf of Facebook.[20] As a result of the controversy, Facebook ended its relationship with Definers.[21]
Media career
In February 2024, Miller replaced Charlie Sykes as host of The Bulwark Podcast.[22] He is also an MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) contributor,[23] a frequent guest on progressive outlet Crooked Media's Pod Save America podcast,[14][8][21] and co-hosts a regular series on Brian Tyler Cohen's YouTube channel called Inside the Right.[24]
He is a writer for The Bulwark and Rolling Stone.[8][25] He has written in support of Omar Ameen, an Iraqi refugee accused by Trump of being a member of ISIS.[26] A Rolling Stone column by Miller on seeking background comments from reluctant Republican Trump supporters elicited a widely shared quote, "There are two options, you can be on this hell ship, or you can be in the water drowning".[25]
His memoir of working in pre-Trump era Republican politics, Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell, was published by Harper in June 2022.[27] The book details Miller's political career, analysing the rise of Trump and the motivations of Republican politicians who remained firmly loyal to the MAGA movement,[28][29] and reached #2 on The New York Times non fiction list in July 2022.[30]
The book was positively received for its writing style and analysis of political changes within the post-Trump GOP during the late 2010s and early 2020s.[31][32] In a review for The New York Times, Jennifer Szalai called the book "darkly funny" and praised Miller's insights into the inner workings of the Republican Party and the Washington, D.C., political scene.[33] New York Times columnist David French wrote that it offered "painful" insights into the impact of partisanship and Trumpism on the American conservative Right.[30]
Views
Prior to the 2016 election, Miller described himself as a conservative and labeled himself a "Conservative activist".[34] Since working with The Bulwark and Trump's first election win, Miller has self-identified as both a libertarian[35] and a "liberal millennial."[36] Miller has compared his journey to liberalism as similar to his experience as coming out as gay.[37]
Miller has also referred to himself as "capitalist moderate neolib" in a June 2025 interview with then-mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, where Miller admitted that if he lived in New York City he would not rank Mamdani or then-candidate Andrew Cuomo in the first four slots of the ranked-choice ballot for the 2025 New York City Democratic mayoral primary.[38]
Miller has stated that "conservatism is pretty much MAGA. I mean, some people are objecting to that, but in colloquial usage, conservatism is MAGA" and that "leftism, the stuff that I don't like about the left, is mostly defined now as progressivism or leftist or you know something to that effect or socialism. And so I think I am a liberal."[39] Describing the Trump presidencies as fascist, Miller has called Trump a "bigoted, barmy, bargain-basement Berlusconi"[40] and wrote in Why We Did It that "As much as you think you loathe [Trump], I loathe him infinity-to-the-nth-degree more."[41]
Personal life
Miller is gay. In May 2018 he married Tyler Jameson, with whom he has an adopted daughter.[1][42] He attributes his decision to take the risk of coming out in 2007 while still working on Republican campaigns, in part, to the Larry Craig scandal.[8]
In 2023, Miller relocated from Oakland, California, to New Orleans, Louisiana, with his husband and child.[20][26]
Miller is a fan of the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Phish, Oasis, Goose, Geese.[43] He is also a fan of the Denver Nuggets.[44]
Books
- Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell, Harper (June 28, 2022). ISBN 0063161478
