School shootings might be considered a crisis by much of the American public at the moment, but the issue wasn’t enough to hold the attention of Trump adviser Stephen Miller on Monday afternoon, when he seemed to fell asleep during a White House meeting with the nation’s governors on the topic.
European Pressphoto Agency photographer Jim Lo Scalzo snapped photos of Miller yawning broadly, shutting his eyes and seeming to get some Z’s. The caption accompanying the photos read, “Miller nods off during Trump speech about gun violence at high schools with nation’s governors. The discussion comes after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead.”
Variations of the captions included the words,”Miller yawns” and “Miller rubs face.”
Photographer from @epaphotos caught Stephen Miller nodding off during the hour-plus White House meeting on school safety. pic.twitter.com/R9F9hqfaCW
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) February 26, 2018
In one shot, Miller yawned openly, with no attempt to stifle or hide it with a hand; at one point, he folded his arms over a chair back and seemed to doze off.
Perhaps Miller simply had a late night, because President Trump’s comments during the meeting were no more circuitous than usual. “So we have to confront the issue, and we have to discuss mental health,” he said at one point. “And we have to do something about it. You know, in the old days, we had mental institutions. We had a lot of them, and you could nab somebody like this. Because, you know, they did — they knew he was — something was off. You had to know that.”
Monday was not a good day for Miller, a staunch nationalist and anti-immigration hardliner. The Supreme Court declined the Trump administration’s request to immediately hear a challenge to a lower court’s ruling in favor of DACA. It means the government must continue to accept applications for the program while the case makes its way through the usual channels. Miller, along with chief of staff John Kelly, have been blamed for torpedoing progress on a bipartisan deal to grant amnesty to the children of undocumented immigrants.
Miller’s gaffe resulted in a few inspired tweets, including this:
i guess you could say stephen miller was a DREAMer https://t.co/4NcRva1ctX
— kelly cohen (@politiCOHEN_) February 26, 2018
