ABC News has suspended one of its national correspondents, Terry Moran, after he criticized both President Trump and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller in a late-night X post while the White House was celebrating the deployment of the national guard at Los Angeles. Mr. Moran called Mr. Miller a “world-class hater” in a lengthy post criticizing the White House deputy chief of staff. 

According to CNN’s chief media reporter, Brian Stelter, Mr. Moran was suspended by his bosses on Sunday morning. The night before, Mr. Moran posted online that Mr. Miller’s biggest asset was not his “brains” but his “bile.”

“He is one of the people who conceptualizes the impulses of the Trumpist movement and translates them into policy,” Mr. Moran wrote in his now-deleted post. “But that’s not what’s interesting about Miller. It’s not brains. It’s bile.”

“Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater,” Mr. Moran wrote. “You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.”

Mr. Moran used the same term to describe the president himself, though in a different context. He said Mr. Trump’s hatred is a “means to an end, and that end [is] his own glorification.”

By early Sunday morning, the White House and many of its allies were calling for the journalist to be fired. Vice President Vance described the post from Mr. Moran as an “absolutely vile smear” against Mr. Miller that was “dripping with hatred.”

“I know Stephen quite well. And he’s motivated by love of country. He’s motivated by a fear that people like Terry Moran make rules that normal Americans have to follow, but well connected people don’t,” Mr. Vance wrote, calling on ABC News to apologize to Mr. Miller directly. 

In a statement, ABC News said it “stands for objectivity and impartiality in its news coverage and does not condone subjective personal attacks on others.” 

“The post does not reflect the views of ABC News and violated our standards,” the organization said. 

Other White House staffers also piled on Mr. Moran Sunday morning. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt called Mr. Moran’s post “unhinged and unacceptable.” 

Mr. Miller’s own wife, Katie Miller — who worked in the White House up until May and now works for Elon Musk — called for Mr. Moran to be fired. “This is why Americans don’t trust the Legacy Media,” Mrs. Miller writes. “These are the people feeding propaganda across the airwaves under the guise of righteousness.”

ABC News faced a flood of criticism late last year after Mr. Trump won the presidency and the organization made a decision to settle a defamation case with the then-president-elect. Mr. Trump sued the news conglomerate and its star host George Stephanopoulos after Mr. Stephanopoulos erroneously said on air that Mr. Trump had been found liable for raping E. Jean Carroll. In reality, Mr. Trump had been found liable for sexual abuse. 

In December 2024, a judge ordered both Messrs. Trump and Stephanopoulos to sit for depositions in the case, which led ABC News to settle out of court. They agreed to donate $15 million to Mr. Trump’s presidential library, while also publicly apologizing and paying his legal fees.