A Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer has sparked a row after the party’s official X account insulted White House adviser Stephen Miller.The controversy began when the official Democratic account responded to one of Miller’s posts with the phrase: “Shut up, you ugly man.”
Because the message came from the approved account of the National Party, and not from a personal or electoral account, it spread very quickly.Shortly after, Paulina Mangubat, chief digital strategist at the Democratic National Committee, appeared to refer to the exchange from her X account. “The team just evaluated Stephen Miller, who is ugly, evil, cruel, and bald,” she wrote.Mangubat, 30, currently serves as the DNC’s deputy chief mobilization officer, according to her LinkedIn profile.
She was previously the party’s digital content and creative director and worked on rapid response messaging and social media strategy for Democrats.
She graduated from Barnard College in 2017 and also served as digital and creative director for Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s campaign, where she managed online messaging and campaign communications.Online speculation has linked Mangubat directly to the Democrats X account, but the account is run by a larger social media team of about a dozen employees.
The group is free to respond online and shape the party’s tone on social media platforms.The exchange began after the Democrats’ account posted support for Texas Senate candidate James Tallarico. Miller responded by falsely claiming that Democrats had nominated a transgender candidate to the Senate.“Democrats have made history in Texas by nominating the first openly transgender candidate to the Senate,” Miller wrote, in what many interpreted as an attack on Tallarico.In another post, Miller claimed that Tallarico was “transgender,” despite there being no evidence that the candidate is transgender.The Democrats’ account responded with the insult that went viral, sparking a backlash from conservatives.Mangubat’s name was later publicly revealed by Katie Miller, Stephen Miller’s wife, who criticized the post and identified Mangubat as one of the people behind the account.In a post on [her] The name is on it.”Mangubat responded by posting a photo of herself trying on wedding dresses and wrote: “Well, now seems like a good time to share that I’m getting married! We just put the deposit down and bought my dress.”The spat came just a day after another controversy involving the Democrats’ X account. A Memorial Day post featuring 13 fallen US service members along with criticism of Donald Trump was deleted after bipartisan criticism.Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth condemned the letter, writing: “It is absolutely abhorrent to use our heroic dead to launch a political attack on Memorial Day. I am a Democrat and this post is condemned by the Democratic National Committee.”
