DHS officials 'terrified' that Trump 'seemed to welcome nuclear conflict' with North Korea: new book

Homeland Security officials feared Donald Trump might trigger a nuclear attack from North Korea, according to a new book.

Miles Taylor, a former DHS official under Trump, revealed in his new book, Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump, that agency officials took the unprecedented step of meeting to discuss the possibility and plan a response, according to excerpts published by Politico.

“We convened every top leader in DHS to discuss the brewing crisis,” Taylor wrote in the book, which is due out July 18. “Experts walked through various scenarios of a nuclear strike on the U.S. homeland, dusted off response plans, and outlined best-case scenarios which nevertheless sounded horrifically grim. I cannot provide the details, but I walked out of those meetings genuinely worried about the safety of the country. In my view, the department was unprepared for the type of nuclear conflict Trump might foment.”

Chris Krebs, a top DHS official at the time who was later fired by Trump after stating the 2020 election was historically secure, confirmed that officials believed there was a "non-zero chance" the former president would provoke a nuclear attack, and Taylor wrote that officials were concerned by his recklessness.

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“In the national security world, anything having to do with nuclear weapons is handled with extreme sensitivity — well planned, carefully scripted — yet we didn’t know what Trump might say at any given moment,” Taylor wrote. “One day, he threatened North Korea ‘with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.’ He almost seemed to welcome a nuclear conflict, which terrified us.”

Taylor said the high-level meetings were serious and unlike any others held by agency officials.

“This is the first time to my knowledge that DHS thought there was the possibility, however remote, of Trump actually starting a war and us having to prepare for the nuclear fallout in the homeland,” Taylor told Politico.