He Fights

By Nick Catoggio

Thursday, August 06, 2026

 

Often overlooked among the many shocking allegations about Ohio Rep. Max Miller is a confirmed fact that’s as surprising as the lurid stuff. In 2016 he got his start in Republican politics by working for the presidential campaign of … Marco Rubio.

 

Marco Rubio?

 

In saying that, I don’t mean to imply that Team Rubio was populated by saints. (Look at what’s become of Marco himself.) But read through any profile of Miller and you’re destined to arrive at this thought: The man’s personality was practically designed in a lab to make him a Trump bootlicker.

 

“A cocky bully with a quick-trigger temper” is how Politico described him in a 2021 piece, citing interviews with people who’ve known him dating back to high school. Some acquaintances accused Miller of being “volatile” and “belligerent” and of having “an anger problem.” One remembered that he could be “very scary,” adding, “I can, like, see the red face.” Another warned that you didn’t want to be on the receiving end of his “huge temper.”

 

The way Miller talked about women was also memorable to those who knew him. It wasn’t just that he bragged about his sexual exploits, said one, it was the degree to which he “trashed girls.” A second recalled him going “out of his way to make negative comments” about the opposite sex while a third called him “super misogynistic.” One female source told Politico that Miller was “not the guy you wanted to be alone in a room with.”

 

Once as a teenager, during a gathering of friends at his home, he allegedly shoved a girl “after he became enraged when she resisted his attempts to touch her.” She tumbled through a doorway and down the stairs, witnesses claimed. Miller denies that it happened, but the purported victim told Mother Jones last month that the episode was “one of the more traumatic nights of my life.”

 

What repercussions did young Max Miller suffer for his boorishness? Not many. He’s descended from two of the most powerful families in Cleveland, Ohio, and so “he would get in trouble and just—nothing ever seemed to happen,” one former classmate told Politico. “He gets out of stuff,” said another. “He’s rich, he’s well-connected, his family is well-connected. It’s not surprising to me that he doesn’t pay consequences for the things he does.”

 

An angry, entitled, domineering child of privilege who looks down on women and hurts others with impunity: That species of moth is powerless to resist the Trumpist flame. Miller did eventually end up working for the president’s campaign in 2016 after Rubio dropped out, and by 2021 he was Trump’s choice to replace Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez in Congress.

 

That’s the same Anthony Gonzalez who voted for impeachment after January 6, and who retired from politics following that term to spare his family from further death threats by MAGA lunatics. The president wanted someone new in that seat who would never choose honor over loyalty to Donald Trump, and he knew just the guy.

 

Miller has been in the news lately because of an ugly custody dispute with his ex-wife Emily, who happens to be the daughter of Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno, also of Ohio. Earlier this year, local authorities began investigating how the former couple’s 2-year-child ended up with a broken collarbone. One specialist involved in the probe reportedly thought the bruising around the fracture resembled a handprint, and Emily Moreno told investigators that the child has been heard to say “daddy’s house is scary.”

 

Moreno has also claimed that “Miller had previously thrown hot water at her, shoved her, and held a gun to her head,” per records reviewed by Mother Jones. The congressman denies that he was abusive, but that isn’t the first allegation of domestic violence he’s faced: Three people told Politico in 2021 that he once shoved and slapped former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham when they were dating, and Grisham herself claimed in her book that he “got physical” with her. Miller later sued both women for defamation but withdrew his suit against Grisham as part of an undisclosed settlement. (The suit against Emily Moreno is pending.)

 

Last week Moreno sought a new restraining order against Miller after he allegedly grabbed one of her lawyers following a court hearing, daring the attorney to “come at me.” On Sunday, after many weeks of deafening silence, Bernie Moreno finally spoke up about his former son-in-law’s behavior and declared him unfit for Congress. Miller “needs serious psychological help,” the senator warned in a statement. “He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter.”

 

How much political trouble is Max Miller in?

 

About as much as a politician in a movement of moral degenerates like the postliberal right could possibly be in, I think. Which is to say: much, much, much less than he should be.

 

A sliding scale.

 

Regular readers of this newsletter know that Trumpism is best understood as an alternate morality, not as a political program. It disdains Christian virtues like forgiveness and compassion toward one’s enemies, as the president frequently makes clear, and celebrates ruthlessness and domination. Power is its highest aspiration, and so the only behavior it regards as sinful is behavior that undermines its chances of securing it.

 

That’s why Trump is obsessed with loyalty. “Disloyal” is shorthand for whenever a Republican chooses some other interest over the party’s—which is to say, the president’s—aggrandizement.

 

To grasp how completely Trumpism has subverted traditional morality on the right, sift through the data Politico compiled last month when it asked Americans whether they’d continue to support a candidate who was accused of various misdeeds. People who voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 were no angels: Nearly 40 percent said they’d stick with someone who was accused of domestic violence or sexual assault.

 

But well over half of Trump 2024 voters said they’d remain “loyal” to a candidate accused of the latter charge, and more than 60 percent said so of the former. When Politico narrowed the sample further to strong Trump supporters (i.e., those who voted for him in 2024 and identify as MAGA), the gap was even starker. Fully 72 percent would vote for a candidate accused of domestic violence while 66 percent would vote for one accused of sexual assault.

 

“That’s not because MAGA Republicans are indifferent to those crimes, it’s because they’re more skeptical of accusations against their candidates,” you might reply. In some cases, perhaps, but certainly not all. When the Washington Post interviewed Republican voters in Miller’s home district this week, it found plenty who are still backing the incumbent—not because they doubt the charges against him but because they don’t see them as disqualifying.

 

“I’m not perfect, and I’m not that great of a person all of the time, so I can’t judge him,” one told the paper of Miller. “I’d have to vote for him, even if I can’t stand him.” Another said she was disappointed in him but, in the Post’s words, “thought it was important to keep his seat in Republican hands. She said she would probably separate his personal foibles from her political considerations, as she has done for President Donald Trump.”

 

Even so, I think Max Miller is in a little trouble.

 

It’s not because he’s a terrible person who doesn’t belong within a thousand miles of Congress. It’s because the scandal he’s snared in threatens the right’s hold on power—the cardinal sin of Trumpist amorality—and he’s done little during his political career to demonstrate the sort of ruthlessness toward the base’s enemies that would otherwise earn him ready absolution for that sin.

 

Think of his predicament in terms of a sliding scale, in which the moral depravity of which a Republican is accused is weighed against how important he is to the GOP in gaining and maintaining authority. At one end of the scale is Trump, the alpha and omega of right-wing postliberalism and the man on whom its national ambitions have depended since 2016. Such is his importance to holding power that there’s literally no form of immorality one might accuse him of that will damage his support. Absolution will always be granted—full stop, without exception, regardless of the strength of the evidence.

 

Toward the middle of the scale would be someone like former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who was a backbencher in the House, the most dispensable elected position in the federal government. Republican voters should have been willing to cast him aside if and when he created trouble for the party, and might have been if not for his talent as a demagogue. Gaetz shrewdly cultivated a high profile in right-wing media to display that talent, distinguishing himself as a warrior for Trump and a scourge of Democrats and “RINOs.”

 

So when he was accused in 2021 of having sex with an underage girl, he had reason to believe Republican voters in his district might overlook it. They did. They relished his pugnacity and bravado (he fights!), and in the end returned him to office. He romped to victory in 2022 despite the allegations against him and then—with a House Ethics Committee inquiry into his sex scandal brewing—crushed both a primary challenger and his Democratic opponent in 2024 before opting to resign prior to the committee releasing its findings.

 

Gaetz received absolution despite embarrassing the party. (Enough so that he became Trump’s first choice for, ahem, attorney general after the 2024 election.) Through his media antics and combative persona, he made himself sufficiently valuable to the right that its voters believed he was still an asset on balance despite the ugliness of what he was allegedly up to with a 17-year-old.

 

Max Miller hasn’t done that. He’s at the other end of the scale opposite Trump.

 

Max degradation.

 

Miller has kept a low media profile while in Congress. (If you watched the disastrous interview he gave to CNN this week, you can see why.) He’s not a regular in right-wing infotainment or renowned as a skilled hippie-puncher, so he’s not indispensable. The Gaetz lesson is that Republican voters will tolerate a representative being a dirtbag in his private life—provided that he’s also a dirtbag to their enemies in public.

 

If you want to fight Emily Moreno and Stephanie Grisham behind closed doors and still comfortably win reelection, you need to fight the libs on Fox News sometimes, too.

 

Miller has other things working against him. The misconduct he’s accused of, in particular the injury to his 2-year-old child, is unusually infuriating by the standards of political scandals. He also has the misfortune of being pitted in this matter against a fellow Trump-loving Republican politician, which makes the right’s usual knee-jerk response to a test of credibility in assault cases a nonstarter. “I don’t believe the lib accuser” doesn’t work when the accusers are Bernie Moreno and his daughter.

 

The denouement of Graham Platner’s scandal-rama in Maine obliges the GOP establishment to halfheartedly show concern about Miller, too. Democrats made every possible excuse for Platner until a rape allegation shortly before the withdrawal deadline led them to shove him in unison toward the exit—but they did eventually start shoving. Republicans would look terrible by contrast if they didn’t lightly nudge Miller toward leaving the race, and a few have.

 

And it’s the congressman’s bad luck that the midterm environment has left his party with no margin for electoral error, especially in his surprisingly competitive home state of Ohio. “Take a GOP voter depression, mix it with the war in Iran, and now sprinkle with some Max Miller abuse [allegations], and you’ve got the recipe for a very dicey outcome in November,” one party strategist told Axios. If the cardinal sin of Trumpism is weakening the right’s hold on power, Miller’s scandal risks becoming more sinful as the Republican outlook deteriorates.

 

No wonder his good friend, the president, reportedly phoned him on Monday to talk to him about dropping out. “It’s not looking good for you,” he allegedly told Miller. “I’m hearing from people you're not going to win.” See what I mean about an alternate morality? Trump didn’t dial him up out of concern for what a member of his party might have done to his ex-wife and child. (He called Miller “a very good person” as recently as Monday.) He was worried about power, i.e., Miller’s ability to hold the seat.

 

With the president against him (sort of), the congressman’s career is now hanging by a thread, right?

 

I don’t think so. Belatedly, Miller has hit on a strategy that might see him through this crisis and back to the House next year: He fights!

 

He told CNN earlier this week that he’s not dropping out and had a specific reason why.

 

In 2016, when President Donald J. Trump faced the most extreme allegations in the world that hit him day after day after day, and people in the media, very much like yourself and others, said that he would have no shot at winning, that he should not be the President of the United States. But guess what? He stayed in, and he was resilient.

 

And what the American people can see, is that they can see that somebody is fighting, who is resilient, and that is a quality that the American people cherish.

 

In a movement of moral degenerates, that’s precisely the right approach. Celebrate the president’s refusal to quit after the Access Hollywood tape leaked; pit oneself against the dreaded liberal media in defying calls to drop out; reframe your own shamelessness and moral bankruptcy as “resilience” and a willingness to fight. I bet Trump saw that answer from Miller and loved it.

 

Nihilistic Republican voters in his red-leaning home district will love it, too.

 

The clock is also working in Miller’s favor. Ohio’s deadline for candidates to withdraw from the ballot is four days away; if he brazens it out until next week, Republicans will be stuck with him. And once they are, there’s not a scintilla of doubt about whether they’ll go on distancing themselves from a man who appears to need serious psychological help, to quote Bernie Moreno, or reluctantly line up behind him in the interest of maintaining power in the House. We’ve been watching that movie for 10 years now. We know how it ends.

 

Congressional Republicans have been watching it too, which probably explains why most aren’t lifting a finger to get Miller to quit. Speaker Mike Johnson wants to let a House investigation into the abuse claims play out; Rep. Jim Jordan is insisting “it’s up to the voters.” Why would they bother calling for him to resign? If Miller insists on staying in, they’ll all be making excuses for him a week from now.

 

And if the “he fights!” strategy succeeds in rallying Republican voters to the congressman’s side, any party official who called on him to drop out risks suddenly being seen as working against the right’s interests. How’s that for irony? Instead of blaming Miller for committing the Trumpist sin of undermining the GOP’s hold on power, the base might turn around after the withdrawal deadline passes and conclude that it’s his critics in the Republican establishment who need to repent.

 

Won’t that be lovely for the Moreno family. Amid living in fear for their own safety and having to watch Miller repeatedly, and none-too-subtly, allude in interviews to blackmailing Bernie Moreno, they may yet endure the indignity of Republican officials siding en masse with Miller against the senator about whether he’s fit for office. You picked a heck of a party to join, Bernie.

 

The story of the Trump era is a story of the remorseless degradation of the United States. Americans chose that degradation. Max Miller isn’t the congressman any decent person should want, but he’s the congressman we deserve. I would not bet against him in a red-leaning district in November.