Former Trump official and now vocal critic Miles Taylor warned Tuesday that President Donald Trump's intrusion into FIFA revealed a troubling trend inside the White House.
In an analysis piece for The i Paper, Taylor described how Trump's past behavior has demonstrated how the president always tries to get his way — even when it comes to the World Cup.
"None of this surprised me, because I saw how Trump dealt with 'referees' when I worked for him at the Department of Homeland Security, especially the referees of our democracy, the judges," Taylor wrote. "In his first term, the pattern was too obvious to ignore. He would intimidate them publicly on social media, work the higher-ups privately, and when the rulings still went against him, attack the legitimacy of the refs’ robes."
"I vividly remember one such Oval Office meeting," Taylor added. "The sky was dark outside as a half dozen of us sat on the couches in front of the Resolute desk, listening to Trump complain that the courts were making him look weak politically. They were striking down his orders left and right, and no one was giving him good ideas to fix the problem."
Trump pounded his fist on the desk and said, "We need to get rid of the judges," Taylor recounted.
"Despite knowing that he lacked the votes in Congress to impeach federal judges, Trump demanded that staff draft a bill to break up and rearrange the courts, especially in left-leaning regions," Taylor wrote. "When the umpires ruled against him, the president of the United States proposed getting rid of them."
Trump's behavior was a sign of what was to come, Taylor explained.
"A man who thinks that way about federal judges was never going to think differently about a FIFA disciplinary panel. FIFA simply proved easier to move than the American judiciary. This time, the referees folded," Taylor wrote.