Some people call him the space cowboy

Stephen Miller, a top aide to Trump's presidential campaign, will serve as a senior White House adviser for policy, Trump's transition team announced Tuesday. Miller is a former staffer for the nativist Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), now Trump's nominee for attorney general. The announcement of Miller's new role drew praise from white nationalist leader Richard Spencer. "Stephen is a highly competent and tough individual," Spencer, who famously coined the term "alt-right" to describe the insurgent right-wing movement that has attracted white nationalists and supremacists, told Mother Jones on Wednesday. "So I have no doubt that he will do a great job."

Spencer and Miller first came to know each other in the late 2000s as students at Duke University, where they both belonged to the Duke Conservative Union. Miller earned notice for standing up for white lacrosse players falsely accused in 2006 of gang raping a black woman. Spencer also defended the Duke lacrosse players, writing about the case for Pat Buchanan's American Conservative, which later hired him as an editor.

Spencer told me that at Duke, Miller helped him with fundraising and promotion for an on-campus debate on immigration policy that Spencer organized in 2007, featuring influential white nationalist Peter Brimelow. Another former member of the Duke Conservative Union confirms that Miller and Spencer worked together on the event. At DCU meetings, according to a past president of the group, Miller denounced multiculturalism and expressed concerns that immigrants from non-European countries were not assimilating.

"I knew [Miller] very well when I was at Duke," Spencer told me when I visited him at his home in Whitefish, Montana, a few weeks before the election. "But I am kind of glad no one's talked about this, because I don't want to harm Trump."

Miller wrote about two dozen columns for the Duke Chronicle, and his articles assailed multiculturalism (which he called "segregation") and paid family leave (which he said results in men getting laid off). He also denied there was systematic racism (which he dubbed "racial paranoia").

"The President of the United States has accomplished more in just a few weeks than many presidents accomplish in an entire administration."

"I think that it's been an important reminder for all Americans that we have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become in many cases a supreme branch of government."

"George, go to New Hampshire. Talk to anybody who has worked in politics there for a long time ... I can tell you that this issue of busing voters into New Hampshire is widely known by anyone who's worked in New Hampshire politics. It's very real. It's very serious. This morning, on this show, is not the venue for me to lay out all the evidence."

"They did not give me anything to say ... It's not for me to answer hypothetical. It wouldn't be responsible. It's a sensitive matter."

Dickerson: What have you all learned from this experience with the executive order? 

Miller: Well, I think that it's been an important reminder to all Americans that we have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become in many cases a supreme branch of government ...The end result of this, though is that our opponents, the media, and THE WHOLE WORLD will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that THE POWERS OF THE PRESIDENT to protect our country are very substantial and WILL NOT BE QUESTIONED.