Sid Miller
Can you tell me which of these rattlers won't bite you? Sure some of them won't, but tell me which ones so we can bring them into the house. Sid Miller comparing refugees to rattlesnakes by posting a photo of a crowd of refugees alongside one of a pile of rattlesnakes.
Sid Miller is the Commissioner of the Texas Agriculture Department and Trump’s likely pick for U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary. In January 2022, Miller challenged a Biden debt relief program to aid farmers of color, which USDA saw as a way to correct historic discrimination. Miller alleged that this aid discriminated against white farmers. Miller is fiercely against “green energy” and blamed the deadly 2021 winter storm in Texas on wind turbines, a false claim.
Per the Texas Tribune, in 2021 Miller partnered with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to “sue the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after the federal agency said transgender people should be allowed to use the bathrooms and locker rooms, and follow dress codes that correspond with their gender identities. A federal district judge decided in the state’s favor, and the Biden administration eventually dropped its appeal.”
Miller also has a history of pushing election denialism and conspiracies. After Trump lost the 2020 election, Miller promoted Trump’s Big Lie alongside Trump’s lawyer Sidney Powell, and he attended a screening of the debunked film, 2000 Mules, which spread conspiracies about the election. Trump endorsed Miller in his successful 2022 reelection campaign for commissioner. Miller has been described as a contender for Secretary of Agriculture if Trump were to win.
Miller has repeatedly posted bigoted content on social media. For example, he posted a cartoon suggesting the United States should obliterate the Middle East with a nuclear bomb, a post for which he has refused to apologize. His official Twitter account called Hillary Clinton a “cunt,” though he later blamed the post on a contractor. He has compared immigrants to rattlesnakes by posting a photo of a crowd of refugees alongside one of a pile of rattlesnakes and asking: “Can you tell me which of these rattlers won’t bite you? Sure some of them won’t, but tell me which ones so we can bring them into the house.”
In 2018, Miller offered to sponsor a Texas state license plate glorifying the Confederate soldiers that would raise money for Sons of Confederate Veterans, which has “a number of prominent members with white supremacist leanings,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Texas Ethics Commission has also fined Miller over three complaints in 2017-18, two dealing with improper accounting in reporting political contributions and a third over Miller using state funds to bankroll a personal trip to a rodeo. One of his top political aides is being charged with soliciting bribes from farmers in exchange for issuing them state licenses to grow hemp, though there is no evidence that Miller knew about these alleged shakedowns.
Note: Individuals included in the “Supply Chain” risk scenario would have decision-making purview over a regulatory space that greatly influences supply chains in key industries (e.g. agriculture, healthcare, technology, consumer goods), or whose influence on domestic or foreign policy could greatly disrupt aspects of supply chains, including shipping and logistics, trade agreements, and labor availability.
This profile has been updated.