In mid-July 2025, a rumor circulated online that MSNBC host Rachel Maddow “shattered” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s reputation during a live TV interview.
For example, one Facebook page called Groupe Rafia ofisialy claimed that Miller appeared on “The Rachel Maddow Show” to “defend his wife” but left “with his reputation in ashes” (archived). The post, which had amassed more than 52,000 reactions as of this writing, used real images of Maddow, Millertech billionaire Elon Musk and Katie Millerthe latter of whom is Stephen Miller’s wife.
The caption read, in part: “‘I Don’t Debate Monsters. I Expose Them.’ — Rachel Maddow’s On-Air Takedown Leaves Stephen Miller Shattered and Washington Reeling.”
Other Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Bluesky (archived) and X (archived) users also shared the rumor. On Facebook, posts featured links in top comments leading to articles hosted by WordPress blogs. Likewise, Snopes readers searched our site to ask if the rumor was true.
However, searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no news media outlets reporting about Miller’s alleged appearance on “The Rachel Maddow Show” (archived, archived, archived, archived). Prominent news media outlets would have widely reported this rumor if it were true. Given this was not the case and further facts laid out below, we have rated this claim as false.
Additionally, the articles linked in the Facebook posts about the alleged appearance included easily debunked facts. For example, one article claimed that Miller appeared on the show on July 10, 2025, a Thursday. However, “The Rachel Maddow Show” airs on Mondays, according to its official website.
That same article also claimed that Nicolle Wallace, an MSNBC host who was once an adviser to former President George W. Bush, posted about Maddow’s alleged takedown on X. However, there was no such post on Wallace’s X account (archived), which has been largely inactive since November 2024.
The person or people who write such articles fabricate entire stories involving celebrities, politicians, athletes and other public figures. They aim to earn advertising revenue on websites linked from the aforementioned Facebook posts.
An examination of Groupe rafia official’s other stories revealed multiple indications of artificial intelligence-generated (AI) images and text. Snopes contacted a manager of the Facebook page to ask about the fictional stories displayed on the feed and will update this story if we receive more information.
These stories all resembled glurgewhich Dictionary.com defines as “stories, often sent by email, that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental.”
For further reading, Snopes previously reported on a slew of false claims relating to Maddow and the deadly flooding in Texas. We also reported on rumors regarding relations between Stephen and Katie Miller and former Trump adviser Musk.
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