When Paramount CEO David Ellison needed to throw a Washington feast final month “honoring the Trump White Home,” he obtained a serving to hand from Katie Miller, the MAGA podcaster and onetime White Home strategist. She despatched follow-up invitations to high Trump aides to encourage attendance for the “intimate gathering” on the U.S. Institute of Peace forward of the White Home Correspondents’ Dinner on April 25.
The get together turned a conventional celebration of the CBS Information White Home crew right into a high-profile company flex. Ellison, who’s in search of federal approval for his firm’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, ended up sitting on the similar desk as President Trump and in the identical room as Miller’s husband, the Trump adviser Stephen Miller, and different senior administration officers, together with appearing Legal professional Normal Todd Blanche, whose division is presently reviewing the deal.
Katie Miller’s involvement was not totally surprising. For months earlier than, she had been speaking informally with Paramount brass about promoting her media property, The Katie Miller Podcast, to the news-media large because it expands its choices, in keeping with two folks conversant in the plans who spoke anonymously as a result of they weren’t approved to debate the nonpublic data. These talks, which had been first reported by Axios, have but to end in a finalized sale, the folks conversant in the matter stated.
However the conversations had been severe sufficient that months earlier, Stephen Miller—who has a near-boundless function overseeing coverage as deputy chief of workers—advised the White Home that he would recuse himself from all points round Paramount’s efforts to win management of Warner, which he had not beforehand labored on, the White Home spokesperson Abigail Jackson advised us.
Stephen additionally recused himself final 12 months from issues involving synthetic intelligence as a result of Katie, a longtime adviser to Elon Musk, had maintained a part-time consulting contract with xAI, the proprietor of the Grok chatbot and the social-media firm X. When SpaceX bought xAI in February, Miller additionally recused himself from area points, Jackson added.
“Katie Miller is an achieved skilled in her personal proper with over a decade of senior authorities and media expertise—Stephen is extremely happy with what his spouse has achieved by means of her personal exhausting work,” Jackson advised us in an announcement. “He totally complies with all ethics suggestions and guidelines and commonly consults with White Home ethics officers to deal with any potential conflicts of curiosity.”
Stephen Miller has not recused himself from issues associated to sponsors of Katie’s podcast, nevertheless, as a result of the White Home counsel has concluded that sponsorships differ from consulting preparations. A White Home official advised us, once we inquired about this, that Stephen nonetheless makes some extent to not work together with the sponsors of his spouse’s podcast, together with firms and commerce teams which were actively in search of favor from Trump and his crew.
A number of folks conversant in the operation, who spoke with us on the situation of anonymity, criticized Katie Miller, saying that her pitch to company—who’ve included Cupboard secretaries and company leaders with pursuits earlier than the White Home—is inextricably tied to her marriage to Stephen, one in all Trump’s most senior advisers. Some additionally charged that advertisers are coming to the present for related causes. Individuals conversant in her pitch advised us they felt like Miller was explicitly promoting entry.
Allies of Katie Miller contest this characterization. No proof has surfaced that both of the Millers has carried out something to assist a podcast sponsor exterior of the present. One other particular person concerned in some partnerships advised us that the podcast sponsorships mirrored normal trade practices and phrases, and didn’t embrace any providers out of the norm.
Katie Miller, who launched the profitable podcast in August after leaving work on the White Home, has constructed her viewers round unusually intimate conversations with high Trump administrations officers and their spouses, whom she is aware of socially and professionally. The podcast sponsors embrace the Southern Firm, a significant utility; the American Beverage Affiliation, which represents the makers of sugary soda; Polymarket, a web-based prediction market; and the Retailers Funds Coalition, a bunch pushing for laws to scale back credit-card swipe charges.
A purchase order by Paramount could be a significant win for Miller. She has made no secret of her affection for the corporate or her dislike of one in all its main rivals, Netflix. When Netflix appeared to have an higher hand in buying Warner this spring, Miller took to X to accuse the Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings of overseeing “the push of sexualized & trans content material to minors” on the streaming service; she additionally attacked the Netflix board member Susan Rice, a former adviser to President Biden, charging that the left is “hellbent on destroying our nation and corrupting our children.” (Paramount’s company crew didn’t pay or ask for her social-media posts, an organization insider advised us.)
An acquisition would additionally convey Paramount’s rising community of stories properties even nearer to the interior sanctum of the Trump administration. Final 12 months, Ellison appointed new management at CBS Information that has revamped programming in ways in which some insiders view as extra sympathetic to Trump and his motion. CBS staff advised The New York Instances in April that they had been shocked by the existence of the “intimate gathering” honoring the Trump administration, which used the CBS emblem on its invitation.
Ellison has met repeatedly with Trump, as has his father, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, who’s a significant Republican donor and a monetary backer of the media firm. In July, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million, largely to the president’s future library, to settle a civil lawsuit by Trump over a 2024 60 Minutes section that had been edited in a means he believed to be unfair. The settlement was broadly seen as an effort to safe approval from the Trump administration for Paramount’s 2025 merger with Ellison’s firm, Skydance.
The Ellisons’ imaginative and prescient for media has change into a shorthand for the sort of protection that the folks inside Trump’s interior circle imagine they deserve—and a few have voiced their assist for Ellison immediately controlling CNN if regulators approve the pending merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. “The earlier David Ellison takes over that community, the higher,” Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth stated earlier this 12 months at a Pentagon briefing during which he criticized CNN’s protection.
Katie Miller, a veteran of the primary Trump administration who as soon as labored for Vice President Pence, started working once more for Trump after the 2024 election, when she helped sherpa Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. by means of the Senate affirmation course of. Within the first months of Trump’s second time period, she labored as a particular authorities worker, primarily as an adviser to Musk and his Division of Authorities Effectivity. She stopped working for Musk full-time in August however maintained a part-time consulting relationship together with his firm.
Miller launched her podcast by nabbing an interview with Vice President Vance, then had prolonged conversations with then–Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi, then–Deputy Legal professional Normal Todd Blanche, and Kennedy. She has additionally persuaded leaders reminiscent of FBI Director Kash Patel, Home Speaker Mike Johnson, and Hegseth to make appearances with their companions. New York Inventory Change President Lynn Martin, UFC boss Dana White, the Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and United Airways CEO Scott Kirby have made appearances, as have celebrities reminiscent of the previous NBA participant Tristan Thompson and the actor Jenny McCarthy.
