The bombshell leak of damning comments made by longtime Donald Trump strategist Susie Wiles, who, among other things, said the president has an "alcoholic's personality," are a key demonstration of how powerless she and the rest of Trump's inner circle are to restrain his basest impulses, former Homeland Security staffer Miles Taylor told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace on Tuesday.
"Miles, I'm dying to know what you think," said Nicolle.
"Well, a couple of things," said Taylor, who famously wrote the New York Times op-ed describing a "resistance" within Trump's first administration. "I mean, Nicolle, when I first read this, my immediate reaction was, okay, Susie Wiles is admitting what we have long known about Donald Trump, that the guy wears his heart on his sleeve. But as you noted, she also blew his cover that he wears lawlessness as a badge of honor. I mean, she just gave that up completely and in ways that can materially affect some of the cases that they have against Trump's enemies."
In fact, Taylor argued, Wiles' outright admissions that the Trump Justice Department's criminal prosecutions of opponents like New York Attorney General Letitia James are vindictive — and "she'll give people like Letitia James and others some of the legal support they need to make a direct connection between the president's official abuses of power and the actions being taken against them."
"But piece number two, Nicolle, I really felt like comparing her to my former boss, John Kelly," said Taylor. "She seems a lot more like a bystander in the Oval Office, a lot more like a bystander. She comes off in these interviews like a nice-ish retired lady who says, 'yeah, Mr. President, that might be bad,' but doesn't really do anything to stop it. In fact, says avowedly that her agenda, even if she doesn't agree with it, is to go make the things happen, seemingly implying that the lawlessness is something she puts up with."
She then went even further, Taylor added.
"That quote you said earlier, Nicolle, that Donald Trump has a view in her words, that there is nothing he cannot do. Nothing. Zero. That's just a full admission that this man doesn't believe he can be stopped by anything. Not by the law, not by the Constitution. And her job is to make that happen. That's scary as hell. And John Kelly's view was diametrically opposite of Susie Wiles' view. His view was, 'No, I cannot and should not tell the president he can do illegal things, and I should help him create off-ramps from doing illegal things and to comply with his duties under the U.S. Constitution.'"