White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller had one viewer in mind when duking it out with CNN host Jake Tapper yesterday — President Donald Trump.
During a Monday interview on the widely talked-about segment, MSNBC panelists agreed that the Trump administration's decision to send a high-ranking official like Miller onto CNN after not providing anyone to the network for weeks was completely intentional.
The combative back-and-forth between Miller and Tapper "was orchestrated for exactly what we saw," Axios' Jonathan Swan said. "They have not given Jake Tapper on CNN, they have not given him a single senior administration official for weeks. To send Stephen Miller, the most provocative one, out there — it was bloodsport."
"They obviously wanted this fight," The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson said, agreeing with Swan. "They're not in the habit of providing senior administration officials to go on Jake Tapper's show. They just don't do that."
Rather than appealing to the base, Swan continued, Miller's CNN appearance was also intended to do Trump's bidding.
"One of the reasons he was on was to publicly behead Steve Bannon," the Axios writer said of the former White House adviser's ally. "That was one of the purposes of him going on that show."
Watch below, via MSNBC:
