Quote:Miles Taylor served at the Department of Homeland Security from 2017 to 2019, including as chief of staff.

After serving for more than two years in the Department of Homeland Security’s leadership during the Trump administration, I can attest that the country is less secure as a direct result of the president’s actions.

Like many Americans, I had hoped that Donald Trump, once in office, would soberly accept the burdens of the presidency — foremost among them the duty to keep America safe. But he did not rise to the challenge. Instead, the president has governed by whim, political calculation and self-interest.

I wasn’t in a position to judge how his personal deficiencies affected other important matters, such as the environment or energy policy, but when it came to national security, I witnessed the damning results firsthand.

The president has tried to turn DHS, the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, into a tool used for his political benefit. He insisted on a near-total focus on issues that he said were central to his reelection — in particular building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. Though he was often talked out of bad ideas at the last moment, the president would make obviously partisan requests of DHS, including when he told us to close the California-Mexico border during a March 28, 2019, Oval Office meeting — it would be better for him politically, he said, than closing long stretches of the Texas or Arizona border — or to “dump” illegal immigrants in Democratic-leaning sanctuary cities and states to overload their authorities, as he insisted on several times.

Trump’s indiscipline was also a constant source of frustration. One day in February 2019, when congressional leaders were waiting for an answer from the White House on a pending deal to avoid a second government shutdown, the president demanded a DHS phone briefing to discuss the color of the wall. He was particularly interested in the merits of using spray paint and how the steel structure should be coated. Episodes like this occurred almost weekly.

The decision-making process was itself broken: Trump would abruptly endorse policy proposals with little or no consideration, by him or his advisers, of possible knock-on effects. That was the case in 2018 when then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced, at the White House’s urging, a “zero tolerance” policy to prosecute anyone who crossed the border illegally. The agencies involved were unprepared to implement the policy, causing a disastrous backlog of detentions that ultimately left migrant parents and their children separated.

Incredibly, after this ill-conceived operation was rightly halted, in the following months the president repeatedly exhorted DHS officials to restart it and to implement a more deliberate policy of pulling migrant families apart en masse, so that adults would be deterred from coming to the border for fear of losing their children. The president was visibly furious on multiple occasions when my boss, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, refused.

Top DHS officials were regularly diverted from dealing with genuine security threats by the chore of responding to these inappropriate and often absurd executive requests, at all hours of the day and night. One morning it might be a demand to shut off congressionally appropriated funds to a foreign ally that had angered him, and that evening it might be a request to sharpen the spikes atop the border wall so they’d be more damaging to human flesh (“How much would that cost us?”). Meanwhile, Trump showed vanishingly little interest in subjects of vital national security interest, including cybersecurity, domestic terrorism and malicious foreign interference in U.S. affairs.

How can you run a huge organization under those conditions? You can’t. At DHS, daily management of its 250,000 employees suffered because of these frequent follies, putting the safety of Americans at risk.

The president has similarly undermined U.S. security abroad. His own former national security adviser John Bolton made the case so convincingly with his recent book and public accounts that there is little to add, other than to say that Bolton got it right. Because the commander in chief has diminished America’s influence overseas, today the nation has fewer friends and stronger enemies than when Trump took office.

Trump has also damaged the country in countless ways that don’t directly involve national security but, by stoking hatred and division, make Americans profoundly less safe.

The president’s bungled response to the coronavirus pandemic is the ultimate example. In his cavalier disregard for the seriousness of the threat, Trump failed to make effective use of the federal crisis response system painstakingly built after 9/11. Years of DHS planning for a pandemic threat have been largely wasted. Meanwhile, more than 165,000 Americans have died.

It is more than a little ironic that Trump is campaigning for a second term as a law-and-order president. His first term has been dangerously chaotic. Four more years of this are unthinkable.

Alas, I’ll take the bait. Haven’t forgotten you though! I guess the only way to prove it is to tell some stories. Maybe until the election. What do you think? https://t.co/2dJhaLFNlN pic.twitter.com/m3msUsDJyZ

— Miles Taylor (@MilesTaylorUSA) August 18, 2020

This is an unprecedented ad campaign with a sitting president's former *political* staff who supported him in 2016.

And RVAT is hearing from more former Trump Admin officials who want to speak out.

? @RealDonaldTrump

Sign up: https://t.co/thWjUZLhow pic.twitter.com/km4OXsbcGs

— Republican Voters Against Trump (@RVAT2020) August 17, 2020

(08-18-2020, 02:59 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/at-homeland-security-i-saw-firsthand-how-dangerous-trump-is-for-america/2020/08/17/f10bb92e-e0a3-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html


The decision-making process was itself broken: Trump would abruptly endorse policy proposals with little or no consideration, by him or his advisers, of possible knock-on effects. That was the case in 2018 when then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced, at the White House’s urging, a “zero tolerance” policy to prosecute anyone who crossed the border illegally. The agencies involved were unprepared to implement the policy, causing a disastrous backlog of detentions that ultimately left migrant parents and their children separated.

Incredibly, after this ill-conceived operation was rightly halted, in the following months the president repeatedly exhorted DHS officials to restart it and to implement a more deliberate policy of pulling migrant families apart en masse, so that adults would be deterred from coming to the border for fear of losing their children. The president was visibly furious on multiple occasions when my boss, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, refused.

(08-18-2020, 03:48 PM)Dill Wrote: The problem with this country is not really Trump but the millions who continue to share his lack of empathy for others' suffering and contempt for democratic norms and evidence-based arguments. That, and not any special skill on his part, is why he can be voted into office and mount a credible challenge to a decent and competent candidate. 

(08-18-2020, 03:48 PM)Dill Wrote: The problem with this country is not really Trump but the millions who continue to share his lack of empathy for others' suffering and contempt for democratic norms and evidence-based arguments. That, and not any special skill on his part, is why he can be voted into office and mount a credible challenge to a decent and competent candidate. 

(08-19-2020, 12:31 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Ahh, the "my opponents are stupid" position.  I wonder if you know how much this type of attitude actually fuels what you purport to lament.

(08-19-2020, 12:31 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Ahh, the "my opponents are stupid" position.  I wonder if you know how much this type of attitude actually fuels what you purport to lament.

(08-19-2020, 12:52 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: I don't think he suggested that. You can't credibly claim that droves of Trump supporters do not dismiss facts for the lies he tells. 

An AP poll found that 40% of Republicans have a "great deal of trust" in his words, the same percentage of Republicans who believe scientists if they state something as fact. 72% of Democrats believe scientists in those situations. 

It's a sad state of affairs when we have to treat outright fabrications as reasonable opinions because it might "fuel" the continued spread of falsehoods, especially now that we're going to be seeing some QAnon proponents, endorsed by Trump, enter Congress after winning their primaries in strong red districts.

(08-19-2020, 01:00 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Well, former crack addict and MyPillow CEO is advising Trump on an unproven Covid 19 cure (he coincidentally stands to profit from) so . . .

(08-19-2020, 01:03 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I don't disagree with this assessment, and I certainly lament the lack of reliance on science (although I will say the same lack of reliance on science is on display in the anti-vaxer and other movements).  What I am pointing out is that you convince no one and you win over zero people by labeling them as clueless rubes as certain posters here consistently do.  In fact, such tactics almost always solidify these positions for those who feel they are under attack and make them even more rigid.

(08-19-2020, 01:03 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I don't disagree with this assessment, and I certainly lament the lack of reliance on science (although I will say the same lack of reliance on science is on display in the anti-vaxer and other movements).  What I am pointing out is that you convince no one and you win over zero people by labeling them as clueless rubes as certain posters here consistently do.  In fact, such tactics almost always solidify these positions for those who feel they are under attack and make them even more rigid.

(08-19-2020, 01:21 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: I assumed the nearly 30% of Democrats fell into the anti-vaxxer related umbrella. 

I don't think Dill is directly speaking to any of the 40% who trust Trump, but you are right that speaking down will cause them to be more entrenched. As a species, we're more likely to select "facts" to confirm our world view than shift the world view. We can hope to educate the next generation of people. 

(08-19-2020, 01:37 AM)Dill Wrote: Who labeled anyone a "clueless rube"? Or called anyone "stupid"? As certainly posters here consistently do indeed.

Quote:I'd say you "convince no one and win over zero people" by inserting your brand of personal attack language into a description which deliberately eschews such. 

Quote:What I am pointing out is that you cannot address "lack of reliance on science" and contempt for democratic norms unless you can also identify and discuss them. 

Quote:Substituting "stupid" and "clueless" for my language just disrupts that discussion without identifying/pointing out anything.

(08-19-2020, 01:00 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Well, former crack addict and MyPillow CEO is advising Trump on an unproven Covid 19 cure (he coincidentally stands to profit from) so . . .

(08-19-2020, 02:13 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I'd say you do, consistently.  You just don't see it.
I certainly don't convince you, for reasons already stated.  But you're not indicative of most people from my experience.
No, you point these out to your personal standard of proof, which is hopelessly biased.
It doesn't, except for you.  You can obfuscate as much as you like.  Unfortunately for you said tactics only prove my point.  But you've once again made this about you, which it is not.

(08-19-2020, 02:38 AM)Dill Wrote: Lol NO ONE can see it. 

That's why you have to substitute your words for mine,
then complain about my bias towards proof,  

and then say I made it about me.

Maybe get back to the DHS official's critique of Trump now?

(08-19-2020, 02:56 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Why, after I point out that this has become a personal back a forth, against the terms of service, would you continue to persist?  Stop with your "lol" responses (pure cringe btw) and just cease, as requested.

(08-19-2020, 02:38 AM)Dill Wrote: That's why you have to substitute your words for mine,
then complain about my bias towards proof,  
and then say I made it about me.

Maybe get back to the DHS official's critique of Trump now?