Miles Taylor Is Sick of Hearing About the Deep State
The former DHS official says there’s still good people left in the Trump administration, and we need them now more than ever
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Miles Taylor doesn’t think every Trump administration official should follow his example. In fact, he said in a phone interview this week, that it would be “fucking stupid.”
Taylor, the former chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security, became the one of the most prominent former Trump administration officials to back Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden last week. In an advertisement for the group Republican Voters Against Trump and an accompanying op-ed in the Washington Post, Taylor offered a blistering critique of the president he served for over two years. He described Trump as “actively doing damage to our national security.”
In a wide-ranging interview with GEN, Taylor shared his belief that others concerned about Trump should stay in the administration as long it was tenable, reflected on his role in controversial policies like family separation, and addressed whether he, as Trump supporters have charged, was part of the “deep state.”
GEN: What do you make about acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf getting formally nominated to be secretary?
Miles Taylor: I think given everything that’s happened in this administration, he’s going to face some extremely difficult questions if there is a confirmation hearing. And it seems to me that it’s unlikely that there’s going to be a confirmation hearing before the election, so I think it would have to be contingent upon the president being reelected.
But in any event, I wish him well as he goes through that process. I hope that people who have witnessed what I’ve witnessed in the Trump administration, when they’re asked under oath, are candid about what they witnessed for their own sake. Because when you are in front of Congress and you’re testifying under oath, you have to tell the truth. So, I do hope that any of these senior officials in the administration, whether they’re going up there for confirmation hearings or testimony, actually answer honestly about their engagement with the president, their perceptions of the…