US Beauty Queen Slams Trump After 20 Years of Support, Says 'I Don't Recognise Him Anymore'

Carrie Prejean Boller, the former Miss California who stood beside Donald Trump at a New York press conference in 2009, has publicly broken with him in an open letter, telling the president she has supported him for two decades but that she 'now, I don't even recognise you.'

The 38-year-old published her letter on Thursday after Trump's office formally confirmed her dismissal from the Justice Department's Religious Liberty Commission, a role she had held since being appointed last year. The communication came from Mary Sprowls, a representative of the Presidential Personnel Office, who wrote: 'On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as a member of the Religious Liberty Commission is terminated effective immediately.' Prejean Boller said she received no phone call from Trump himself—a slight she did not let pass unremarked.

'The MAGA I Knew Would Never Allow This'

In the letter, Prejean Boller drew a direct line from her earliest association with Trump to her firing, reminding him that it was he who once defended her right to speak freely. At 21, she had ignited a national controversy at the 2009 Miss USA pageant when she declared that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Trump, who owned the pageant at the time, stood by her publicly and allowed her to keep her crown.

'I have not changed one bit since the day you stood beside me in 2009. That is why it is so shocking to now be removed from a Religious Liberty Commission for doing the very same thing you once defended,' Prejean Boller wrote. She accused Trump of retreating from his non-interventionist principles and warned that American troops were being sent to the Middle East to serve foreign interests. 'The MAGA I knew would never allow American troops to die for a foreign government,' she wrote, referring to the Israel-backed war in Iran, which has killed seven US service members since it began two weeks ago. 'America's sons and daughters are being sent to the Middle East to be sacrificed at the altar of heresy and false prophecy.'

She also accused Trump of surrounding himself with 'heretics' who placed Israel above America, and singled out his evangelical spiritual adviser Paula White, claiming White had launched a 'witch hunt' against her and had attempted to ban her from posting on social media about Israel and Gaza.

The Hearing That Triggered Her Removal

The path to Prejean Boller's dismissal began on 9 February, when the commission held a public hearing at Washington's Museum of the Bible on the rise of antisemitism following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. During the hearing, she wore a pin depicting the American and Palestinian flags, argued that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, and said her Catholic faith — to which she converted in April 2025 — prohibits her from supporting Israel.

She engaged in tense exchanges with Jewish witnesses, including rabbis and students giving evidence about abuse they had suffered following the Hamas attacks. Commission chair and Texas Lt Gov Dan Patrick moved swiftly. 'No member of the Commission has the right to hijack a hearing for their own personal and political agenda on any issue,' Patrick wrote on X. 'This is clearly, without question, what happened Monday in our hearing on antisemitism in America. This was my decision.'

Prejean Boller pushed back against that characterisation. 'I did exactly what commissioners are supposed to do. I asked questions,' she wrote in her open letter. 'I thought MAGA was putting America first, not Israel. Today, I struggle to recognise the movement you started. It appears to have been hijacked by a foreign government and religious zealots attempting to fulfil their heretical end times fantasy.'

Resignation in Solidarity

The fallout extended beyond Prejean Boller herself. Sameerah Munshi, an adviser on the commission, has since resigned in protest over both the war in Iran and Prejean Boller's removal. Munshi confirmed her departure on X, citing the federal government's actions in Iran and Prejean Boller's treatment.

Prejean Boller closed her letter on a pointed religious note, saying she would pray for Trump's salvation: 'Your eternal legacy is dependent on you entering the Kingdom of heaven, and I sure hope that one day, I will see you there.'

The public rupture points to growing fractures within the MAGA coalition, particularly among Catholic conservatives who take issue with US military action in the Middle East. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found only one in four Americans supports the strikes on Iran—a context that gives Prejean Boller's criticism a broader resonance beyond her own dismissal. Her letter is among the most pointed attacks on Trump to emerge from within his own support base since operations in Iran began.