With the midterm election just over the horizon, a former close adviser to Donald Trump recalled that in 2018, when faced with his declining popularity just weeks before the midterms, the president "seemed mentally unwell" — and then it got "weird."
Miles Taylor, who served as DHS Chief of Staff, has now revealed the disturbing extent of Trump's paranoia during his first term. Writing on his Substack, Taylor recounted how the president became increasingly obsessed with rooting out leaks, eventually proposing an extraordinary and potentially illegal solution: wiretapping members of his own staff.
As Trump's popularity waned and his frustration mounted, he grew convinced that his inner circle was undermining him. The obsession consumed him, according to Taylor, who described Trump as increasingly willing to disregard legal and constitutional constraints.
The situation reached a breaking point during a clandestine meeting Taylor attended in rural Virginia in October 2018 where he surrendered his phones as was customary. He then discovered, "Donald Trump, I was told, had queried a White House staff member about the possibility of wiretapping his own appointees."
Taylor recalled Trump felt "he was being critiqued behind his back and who was leaking bad stories about him."
"He raised the idea with the aide and, from what I know, was gently waved off — treated as if he’d said it by accident. A passing dark thought better left unacknowledged," he wrote. "Yet it didn’t take long before rattled advisers began quietly sharing the information with trusted confidants. Beware: the president wants to wiretap us."
According Taylor, after the rumor spread, White House insiders were "rattled" and paranoid that "Trump had found someone willing to break the law for him and spin up wiretaps."
The former Trump administration official stated that his experience should serve as a warning to current White House staffers in light of the fact that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and FBI Director Kash Patel "orchestrated a sprawling leak investigation at the White House last week."