A former official from Donald Trump’s administration is concerned that the former president’s corruption and chaos will be much more organized should he win another term.
“In the first term, what Trump wanted to do ended up being very scattershot,” Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff, told MSNBC in an interview on Wednesday. “And not to be too reductionist about it ― it was a little bit like a cat with a ball of yarn when he walked into the Oval Office. Constantly distracted, not a lot of focus.”
“He knew he wanted to take a wrecking ball to the government, but by no means did he have a clear agenda,” Taylor continued. “What’s worrying about a second term ― and official after official that served in the Trump administration told me ― is now the plans are systematic.”
Taylor spoke of an “extensive effort” in recent years by Trump’s closest allies to “lay the groundwork from day one for what they call a shock and awe blitz on the federal government.”
“That means a department-by-department effort to weaponize the powers of the government against the political opposition,” he said.
Taylor is currently promoting his new book, “Blowback: A Warning To Save Democracy From the Next Trump,” which contains alarming details from his time working in the Trump administration.
Taylor left the Republican Party last year, accusing it of poisoning Americans’ minds and “going after the foundations of democracy itself.”
He admitted in 2020 that he was the author of an anonymous 2018 opinion piece for The New York Times titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.”
He’s become an outspoken critic of the former president, and supported President Joe Biden in 2020.
Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination in the 2024 race, is under investigation by the Justice Department and a Georgia prosecutor for efforts to reverse his 2020 election defeat. He already has been indicted for mishandling classified government documents after leaving office and for a hush-money scheme prior to the 2016 election.
Watch Taylor’s interview on MSNBC below.