Katie Miller makes an ‘Extra ICE’ joke with her Starbucks, but the internet is one step ahead, as always
Miller really thought she did something.
Timing is everything. And on January 17, Katie Miller managed to pick the worst possible moment to post a joke about “extra ICE.” Miller logged onto X, snapped a Starbucks photo, and decided irony was appropriate. It wasn’t.
Katie Miller, a vocal defender of hardline immigration enforcement, clearly thought she was being cute on January 17. The former White House press official posted a photo of a Starbucks cup on her X with the scrawled words “EXTRA ICE” and the caption:
“I like my coffee how I like my country. EXTRA ICE”
Taken at face value, it’s a pun on ice in coffee. In context, her post comes just days after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. The incident sparked massive outrage over federal law enforcement conduct and widespread protests against ICE. When seen in that light, Miller’s post seems something else entirely. A cup with ice, sloppily hand-written “EXTRA ICE,” then becomes a visual metaphor by association.
In that climate, a post that so casually puts “extra ICE” front and center is clearly an implicit endorsement of the agency’s actions. Miller’s post cannot be read as humor. It is a tone-deaf celebration of a force that has just killed a U.S. resident for no justifiable, or even evident reason. It lands as insensitive, oblivious, and, to many observers, deeply cruel. After Good’s death, where ICE agents blocked bystanders from rendering aid after shooting her, a cavalier pun doesn’t look cute. It looks dismissive.
But social media did not disappoint. The reaction to her post was sharp and unfiltered. “So pay and get less? Sounds exactly like Trump’s economy,” one user wrote, riffing on the idea of “extra” being inherently less. Another dismissed the joke as juvenile, writing, “Congratulations! You have the sense of humor of a 5-year-old.”
But one caught the hypocrisy in Miller’s post. “Weren’t you Red Hats supposed to be boycotting progressive Starbucks?” they wrote. The comment section then kept getting harsher as people connected the pun to the serious ongoing controversy. “This is the level of discourse from the Miller household while plotting mass deportations? Embarrassingly juvenile,” one comment reads.
“You are an extremely weird and alienating person,” another wrote flatly. Some went even further, pointing out that extra ice doesn’t make coffee colder. That same metaphor was used by another user to insult the post’s substance: “So watered down and flavorless. That tracks.”
But one user comment that stood out explicitly mocked Miller’s post with an alternate, responsive caption. “I like my ICE how I like my fascism. CRUSHED,” it read. It doesn’t matter that Miller’s intention might have been a pun. Context determines meaning. and the context was pain, protest, and serious questions about accountability.
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