Former President Donald Trump held a rally in Youngstown, Ohio on Saturday night in support of Republican Senate Candidate J.D. Vance, with approximately 50 days until the November midterm elections.

Republican Senate Candidate J.D. Vance, who is running against Democrat Tim Ryan in a race that could ascertain which political party controls the Senate next year, was one of the guest speakers.

Also present at the rally was former Trump aide Max Miller.

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Who is Max Miller?

Max L. Miller is a former Trump aide and politician from the United States. Miller is the Republican candidate for Ohio’s 7th congressional district in 2022.

Miller grew up in Northeast Ohio and attended Shaker Heights High School before graduating in 2007. He began his education at the University of Arizona before transferring to Cleveland State University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 2013.

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Miller is the grandchild of former Forest City Realty Trust co-chairman emeritus Samuel H. Miller. Ruth Miller, his grandmother, ran for Ohio’s 22nd congressional district in 1980. Aaron David Miller, a Middle East studies scholar, is his uncle.

Miller is Jewish by religion. Max Miller was appointed to the Holocaust Memorial Council by President Trump in December 2020.

Miller was engaged to Emily Moreno in 2021.

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Miller worked at an Ohio Lululemon store before joining the Marine Corps Reserves in 2013. He was a corporal who had never been deployed. He was promoted from the Selected Marine Corps Reserve to the Individual Ready Reserve in 2019.

After briefly working for Marco Rubio’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign, Miller left the Rubio campaign in February 2016 to join Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Max Miller joined the Trump administration as a political appointee after working as a Trump campaign aide.

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In 2017, he was a private assistant in the US Treasury, then a lead advance representative in the White House Office, and finally (at the age of 29) associate director of the Presidential Personnel Office and special assistant to the president in Trump’s White House. 

Miller was one of the aides who followed Trump on his photo op at St. John’s Church in June 2020; a month later, he was assigned “deputy campaign manager for presidential operations” on Trump’s ultimately fruitless re-election campaign. Miller, a Trump supporter, called him “the greatest POTUS this country has ever had.” He was a Trump dealmaker for the presidential debates and helped organise the 2020 Republican convention.

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Miller was one of several Trump administration officials who faced scrutiny in 2018 due to their lack of credentials and experience. Miller’s LinkedIn page incorrectly stated that he was a Marine recruiter and that he graduated from college in 2011 rather than 2013. After The Washington Post raised concerns about his biography, Miller deleted the claims and blamed them on a relative who he claimed created the LinkedIn page on his behalf.

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Miller launched a congressional campaign in February 2021, against incumbent Republican Anthony Gonzalez in the Republican primary. Gonzalez announced in September 2021 that he would not run for reelection to a third term, calling Trump a “cancer for the country.” Gonzalez cited the possibility of a “brutally hard primary” against Miller, family factors, and a wave of threats against him as reasons for his decision.

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Miller managed to run after Gonzalez voted to impeach Trump for provocation of insurgency in the aftermath of the January 6 Capitol attack. Miller returned to Ohio from Washington, DC, and bought a home in Rocky River in order to challenge Gonzalez.

Trump showed up in Wellington, Ohio with Miller in June 2021, in his first rally since the January 6 attack; Trump praised Miller, reiterated falsehoods about the 2020 election, and repeatedly claimed that the attack on the Capitol several months prior had been “mostly peaceful.”