Max Miller is the GOP’s Graham Platner — and – Latest News
Washington is the hardest metropolis in the world during which to keep a secret, as Rep. Max Miller now is aware of all too properly.
Rumors have reverberated on Capitol Hill for years that home violence allegations towards the two-term Ohio Republican would quickly explode.
Now they’ve hit the fan, in the ugliest possible approach — and Republicans should select between ideas and celebration loyalties.
Rep. Max Miller arrives for a Congressional briefing on Venezuela at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, January 7, 2026. Bloomberg through Getty Images
This previous weekend, Miller and Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno, his former father-in-law, launched dueling statements about alleged abuse during Miller’s marriage to the senator’s daughter.
They got here two weeks after Mother Jones revealed a damning report based mostly on 1,000 pages of courtroom paperwork from the contentious divorce proceedings between Miller and Emily Moreno, his now ex-wife.
Miller has been accused of assaulting a romantic companion in the previous: Stephanie Grisham, a White House press secretary during President Donald Trump’s first time period, made accusations towards Miller much like these Moreno has lodged — and has now filed a restraining order towards him.
Worse, Miller isn’t accused solely of bodily violence towards grown girls; the accidents Moreno described to police got here up as half of a child-abuse investigation into their 2-year-old daughter’s damaged collarbone.
In Sunday’s video assertion, Miller — positioning himself in entrance of a backdrop of little one art work — tried to brush off his ex-wife’s claims by saying that she’d provided to cook him dinner simply days after one alleged bodily altercation.
Anyone acquainted with home violence acknowledged that as a inform: It’s an unlucky actuality that victims usually attempt to placate an abuser as a means of defusing tensions.
The whispers have been circulating round Washington for years — and have generally even oozed into the open.
“You’re a woman beater,” former Republican Rep. George Santos yelled at Miller during a heated argument on the House ground in 2023.
The rumor mill has solely accelerated since.
Republicans know, and have recognized, that Miller is problematic, at best.
Now they’re confronted with the identical calculation Democrats have been pressured to make simply weeks in the past, when their hopes for control of the Senate hung in the stability of their ethical calculations.
Last month Democrats lastly jettisoned Graham Platner, their well-liked Senate candidate in Maine, whose checkered previous, Nazi tattoo and credible accusations of companion violence weren’t enough to drive him off the ticket.
Not till a second girl made a sickening allegation of rape did Democrats lastly draw a line and declare they have been no longer snug having Platner carry a D behind his identify, representing the celebration and its values on the national stage.
This week, Republicans should grapple with a related painful query.
The GOP’s dedication to household values has long been the core of its electoral energy.
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The celebration has promised to translate that dedication into insurance policies that make it simpler and more interesting for Americans to marry and begin households.
Even setting apart the contested allegations of violence, Republicans ought to critically think about whether or not defending Miller is value sacrificing their credibility on such a defining challenge.
This is a man who objected in legal proceedings to answering questions like, “Admit that you referred to the childbirth of your daughter as ‘setting your playground on fire,’” and “Why did you tell Defendant that you would not be present during the delivery of your minor child?”
President Trump, to his credit, seems to acknowledge the drawback.
On Monday Trump declined to defend Miller, calling the accusations “a very sad thing” earlier than including, “I’m going to let the families figure that out.”
There’s a political calculation, too: Just as Platner’s polling had sunk in the days earlier than his ouster, Miller’s electoral prospects appear to be fading.
“He’s down by six in the latest poll,” one White House source advised Semafor on Monday. “If he cared about the president and the party, he’d drop out.”
Sen. Moreno, in the meantime, has confronted criticism for not talking publicly towards his former son-in-law prior to now.
But such complaints ignore the actuality of his household’s state of affairs.
His daughter was engaged in ongoing, contentious litigation with Miller involving their younger little one, and Moreno was nearly actually constrained in what he might responsibly say whereas that litigation performed out.
The circumstances modified when Miller took the dispute public: Once the congressman introduced the battle into the political area, Moreno was entitled to reply.
And his choice to take action, adopted by Trump’s conspicuous refusal to take Miller’s facet, has modified the political calculus for Republicans who might have heard the rumors however have been reluctant to behave on them.
They ought to take the opening directly.
A political celebration can’t credibly ask Americans to take its values critically if it refuses to uphold these values when doing so is inconvenient.
Republicans now have a probability to show that “family values” describes a normal they’re prepared to implement, not merely a slogan they’re prepared to marketing campaign on.
Some strains must matter more than the letter after a politician’s identify.
Bethany Mandel writes and podcasts at The Mom Wars.
