Trump adviser Stephen Miller tests positive for COVID-19

By Chris Sommerfeldt

New York Daily News

Stephen Miller, a senior White House adviser responsible for some of President Donald Trump’s most extreme immigration policies, tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday, he told the Daily News in a statement.

Miller, 35, said he has been working from home since Friday, when Trump shocked the nation by announcing that he and the first lady had tested positive for the respiratory virus that’s killed more than 210,000 Americans.

“I have been working remotely and self-isolating, testing negative every day through yesterday. Today, I tested positive for COVID-19 and am in quarantine,” Miller said in a statement.

Miller’s diagnosis, which was first reported by NBC News, brings the total number of Trump staffers, associates and relatives to test positive since last week to at least 23.

Many within Trump’s reach who have contracted the virus attended the Oct. 26 largely maskless Rose Garden event where the president formally nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the Supreme Court seat left open by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

It was not immediately clear if Miller attended the Rose Garden ceremony, though he was in close contact last week with Hope Hicks, another senior Trump adviser, who became the first White House official to test positive.

Miller is a well-known figure in the White House as he was a chief architect of Trump’s self-described Muslim travel ban, the administration’s reduction of refugees accepted into the U.S. and Trump’s policy of separating migrant children from their families at the southern border.

Trump and his wife, Melania, remain in quarantine at the White House.

The 74-year-old president, who was discharged from Walter Reed Medical Center on Monday after three days of intense treatment, is at high risk of developing severe complications from COVID-19 because of his age, clinical obesity and history of heart issues.