Jake Tapper takes down Stephen Miller

Next to former chief White House strategist, Steve Bannon, the younger and even meaner Stephen Miller is perhaps the White House's meanest attack dog.   So they sent this senior policy adviser out  to spar on CNN's "Meet the Press" and spin the Trump response to Michael Wolff's book.

Let me start with a quote that succinctly sums up the book's point of view.  From Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury:  Insitde the Trump White House:

"Here, arguably, was the central issue of the Trump presidency, informing every aspect of Trumpian policy and leadership: He didn’t process information in any conventional sense. He didn’t read. He didn’t really even skim. Some believed that for all practical purposes he was no more than semi-­literate. He trusted his own expertise­—no matter how paltry or irrelevant—more than anyone else’s. He was often confident, but he was just as often paralyzed, less a savant than a figure of sputtering and dangerous insecurities, whose instinctive response was to lash out and behave as if his gut, however confused, was in fact in some clear and forceful way telling him what to do. It was, said Walsh, “like trying to figure out what a child wants.”

[That reference is to Katie Walsh, Gen. Kelly's deputy chief of staff, one of the first to leave her White House job.]

So Jake Tapper and Stephen Miller went at it.   Miller spouted talking points and dodged any questions posed by Tapper.    Despite saying that he "had no knowledge" of the meeting in Trump Tower, Miller insisted that Wolff's account of allegations others have made of that meeting were "a pure work of fiction" and that the book is "nothing but a pile of trash through and through."

Calling Trump "a political genius" and demanding to be given three minutes to proclaim all of Trump's accomplishments -- Miller refused to address any questions Tapper raised, repeatedly talking over him.

Tapper finally said, "I think I have wasted enough of my viewers' time" and abruptly ended the interview.   This is not going well for Team Trump.

Ralph
[based on the HuffPost reporting by S. V. Date]