Stephen Miller Fires Back at Ocasio-Cortez Over Height Mockery: 'We Knew Her Brain Didn't Work'

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller responded to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) after she mocked his height and called him a "clown" and a "short troll" during an Instagram livestream over the weekend.

"Well, we knew that her brain didn't work," Miller said during an appearance on Fox News's The Ingraham Angle. "Now we know that her eyes don't work. So, she's a mess, right? What a trainwreck." Miller added that "every time she's on TV, Republican approval ratings go up, Democratic approval ratings go down. That lady is a walking nightmare."

Miller, who told host Laura Ingraham that he is 5 feet 10 inches tall, was responding to Ocasio-Cortez's suggestion that he was "about 4 feet 10 inches." In a social media post of her own, the congresswoman reacted to Miller's televised response, writing: "I cannot believe they aired this and made him listen to it live," adding that she was "crying" over the exchange.

The back-and-forth began Sunday during an Instagram Live session in which Ocasio-Cortez encouraged her followers to "laugh" at members of what she called the "insecure masculinity" behind the MAGA movement. She singled out Miller as an example, calling him "a clown" and joking that his supposed height explained his hostility toward others.

"He looks like he is angry about the fact that he's 4 feet 10 inches and he has taken that anger out on any other population possible," she said.

Ocasio-Cortez argued that mockery could serve as a form of resistance against what she described as authoritarian tendencies in the Trump administration. "One of the best ways that you can dismantle a movement of insecure men is by making fun of them," she said.

She later clarified that her comments were not directed at short men in general, saying, "Short kings are great. I'm not here to make fun of anyone's anything, but the way people overcompensate over their own stories is what I'm talking about."

Monday's exchange marked the latest in a series of public clashes between the congresswoman and senior Trump officials. Back in May she publicly challenged Trump's border czar Tom Homan, daring him to follow through on threats to refer her to the Department of Justice for advising undocumented immigrants of their constitutional rights.

"Tom Homan said he was going to refer me to DOJ because I'm using my free speech rights in order to advise people of their constitutional protections," she said. "To that I say: Come for me. Do I look like I care?"