A heated exchange over Israel and antisemitism erupted Wednesday night on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” when former Trump White House aide Katie Miller sparred with far-left commentator Cenk Uygur in a segment that quickly turned personal and nearly drove Miller off the set.
Miller, who served as communications director for former Vice President Mike Pence and is married to Trump adviser Stephen Miller, was defending criticism of New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani when she questioned the tone of debate surrounding Israel.
“Why is it that every time someone wants to criticize Mamdani, it immediately comes back to the Jews and the anti-Israel movement instead of actually talking about his viewpoints?” she asked.
Uygur, host of “The Young Turks,” interrupted sharply. “Nobody said Jews. You just said it. You always do that,” he charged. “We say Israel, you say Jews. We say Israel as a government — please don’t make it about Jewish Americans — and you come back with, ‘You have to make it about Jewish Americans.’ What’s wrong with you?”
Miller responded that Israel is “a Jewish state” and accused Uygur of using “encoded language to attack American Jews.” Uygur shot back, “No! I want Israel to be safe. Nonsense. You’re totally lying. That’s very normal for a Miller to be completely and utterly lying.”
At that, Miller accused Uygur of racism. “Quite frankly, I’m really sick and tired of this racist, bigoted rhetoric that comes from people like you against my husband, against my family, and my children. I am raising Jewish children in this country,” she said.
Uygur dismissed her response with a sneer. “Who brought your children into this? What a weirdo.”
Turning to the host, Miller said she would not continue under such conditions. “Piers, I’m gonna be done with this if you’re going to allow racist and bigoted attacks against one of your commentators,” she warned. “He inserted a line that said ‘the Millers lie.’ Is that not coded language for therefore we are Jewish? Come on, Piers. Where are you?”
Uygur mocked her again, saying, “What? God, you’re so pathetic.”
Political analyst Omar Baddar, another guest on the panel, stepped in to defend Uygur. “Somebody criticizing you personally is not an antisemitic attack,” Baddar argued. “If somebody says that you are lying, that is not an attack on Jews, that is an attack on you. And just stop hiding behind identity.”
Baddar continued by claiming that accusations of antisemitism amounted to “snowflake behavior that the right is supposedly criticizing the left for.” He added that Stephen Miller’s record as a Trump adviser could be criticized “without invoking religion,” calling him “a destructive force on American society.”
As the conversation devolved, Miller fell silent, visibly frustrated, while Morgan attempted to shift the discussion back to policy issues.
The confrontation reflected the growing polarization around debates involving Israel, religion, and free speech — and the increasingly personal nature of political discourse on air. For Miller, the incident underscored what many conservatives see as a double standard in public debate: that defending Jewish identity or Israel from harsh criticism can itself provoke a hostility that frequently is merely a cover for antisemitism.
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