Maga star Katie Miller's new podcast reeks of toxic femininity. I listened so you don't have to

The Guardian

5 days ago

Want to hear a cute little story about JD Vance and a Dutch baby? Don't worry, he didn't deport it, he cooked one for breakfast. Then he sat down with Katie Miller to tell her all about his baking skills in the very first episode of her brand-new podcast. Which, by the way, I have heroically listened to all 44 excruciating minutes of so that you don't have to.
Miller, for the uninitiated, is a Maga bigwig and married to Stephen Miller, Donald Trump's far-right chief of staff and a man so odious his own uncle once wrote an article calling him a 'hypocrite'.
A Trump loyalist, Miller has form when it comes to surrounding herself with odious men: she held top communications jobs during Trump's first term and, earlier this year, became a spokesperson for Elon Musk's pet project, the so-called 'department of government efficiency' (Doge).
In May, she absconded to a mysterious role at Musk's private ventures. I imagine that she was attracted to Musk's views on free speech (summed up as: I can say whatever I fancy but you can't) because it's been reported that when Miller was in university she once stole and threw away student newspapers because she didn't like the politician they endorsed.
Now, she's launched the Katie Miller Podcast, the first episode of which came out on Monday. Why jump from the highest echelons of government into podcasting? According to Miller, it's because 'as a mom of three young kids, who eats healthy, goes to the gym, works full-time, I know there isn't a podcast for women like myself'.
In a promo video, in which she sits cross-legged on an armchair (with shoes on!) in front of a bookshelf with three books on it, including The Great Gatsby and To Kill a Mockingbird, she explains that 'there isn't a place for conservative women to gather online' and she wanted to create a space to have 'real honest conversations' about what matters to women.
Apparently what matters to women is the minutiae of vice-president Vance's life: the first 44-minute episode, which I suggest she rename Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, was devoted to fawning over a man who has said professional women 'choose a path to misery' when they prioritize careers over children.
Miller, who is not a natural host, awkwardly serves softball questions ('is a hotdog a sandwich?') while Vance drones on about what a great daddy and vice-president he is and how much he loves ice-cream and joking around with Marco Rubio. The closest they get to a controversial topic is Vance talking about all the memes he's inspired and saying that one of his favourites features the pope, Usha Vance and a couch. (There have been online jokes that Vance was intimate with a couch and that he killed the pope.) There is also light mockery of Late Show host Stephen Colbert, whose show recently got cancelled.
Other than the memes, the most memorable moment of the episode is when Miller seems to imply that her husband subsists entirely on a diet of mayonnaise, like some sort of anaemic vampire. Stephen Miller also apparently runs around his house with his shoes on, as does JD. Usha, sensibly, takes her shoes off at the front door. All of this is exactly the sort of content I'm sure the busy mums are desperate for.
Miller has said she thinks there is a gap in the market for podcasts aimed at conservative women, but the market says otherwise. While young women in the US tend to be progressive, there is a thriving 'womanosphere' of anti-feminist media aimed at conservatives. Some of these outlets don't explicitly cater to young conservative mums in the way that the Katie Miller Podcast says it does, but they're still aiming for the same general demographic.
Gen Z commentator Brett Cooper, for example, who has 1.6 million YouTube subscribers, looks at pop culture with a rightwing slant and her show attracts conservative female listeners. In between hot takes on Justin Bieber, Cooper argues that feminism's goal is to 'make men angry and dominate them', a worldview that recently got her a gig at Fox News. Then there's Candace Owens, a conservative conspiracy theorist who recently turned on Maga over the Jeffrey Epstein files fiasco. Owens has 4.57 million subscribers on YouTube and her streams get millions of views. Bari Weiss also has a successful podcast and is currently in talks to sell her 'anti-woke' media startup The Free Press for more than $200m to CBS News. The Financial Times recently reported: 'Weiss has won over [CBS owner David Ellison] partly by taking a pro-Israel stance … as well as her ability to build a younger, digitally savvy audience.'
Then, of course, you've got all the trending 'tradwife' content on TikTok, where creators such as Estee Williams and Gwen the Milkmaid glorify traditional gender roles. Beyond tradwives, there's an ecosystem of lifestyle content aimed at young women that camouflages rightwing messages. Think: makeup tutorials with a running commentary about how feminism will make you miserable. Canadian media outlet Global News recently obtained a report prepared by Canada's Integrated Threat Assessment Centre that warns female 'extremist influencers' are using popular online platforms to radicalize and recruit women.
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'A body of open-source research shows that women in extremist communities are taking on an active role by creating content specifically on image-based platforms with live streaming capabilities,' the report says. 'These women foster a sense of community and create spaces that put their followers at ease, thereby normalizing and mainstreaming extremist rhetoric.'
While Miller's podcast may not exactly be revolutionary, it is yet another reminder that Republicans are doing a far better job of spreading their talking points on new media than the Democrats. Sure, the Katie Miller Podcast isn't an 'official' White House podcast, but the humanizing interview with Vance, along with Miller's deep Maga ties, suggest it is very much Trump-approved. In an interview with the Washington Post published on Tuesday, Miller also insinuated that her podcast is a voter recruitment drive for 2028. 'In order to cultivate the future of Maga, we have to talk to women,' she said.
As the Republicans stretch their tentacles further into the world of podcasting and TikTok, Democrats are still desperately jumping on cringe memes to appeal to a younger audience while flailing around writing long policy documents about how they can spend millions of dollars manufacturing a 'Joe Rogan of the left'. The Katie Miller Podcast may not end up being a hit, but it's just one small part of a very effective Republican messaging strategy.
Of course, the really important issue here – the question I'm sure you're pondering right now – is whether the veep thinks a hotdog is a sandwich? The answer is: definitely not. Which, coincidentally, is also my answer to the question: will you ever voluntarily listen to the Katie Miller Podcast again?