President Donald Trump's insistence on raising taxes because the Supreme Court told him not to is going to wreck his party, former Trump administration DHS staffer Miles Taylor told MS NOW's "The Weeknight" on Monday.
Trump has already signaled his intent to use other statutes to restore his voided global tariffs — even though analysts are skeptical he has sufficient legal footing.
"What Democrats are seeing, they are buoyed by the success that the voters are responding to their message," said anchor Symone Sanders-Townsend. "I think they're also responding to Trump and the Republicans' message, which is basically we don't give a — you know, this is a family show. So I understand, I think it is good news that there is so much energy out there that the Democrats think that they can expand the map here, and that's what they're doing."
"Well, and of course, and, and look at what Donald Trump has given them this past week," said Taylor, a longtime critic of the president he once served. "There's been a lot of bad news, but it's been the worst week for Donald Trump. And instead of reading the room, and I don't just mean the judiciary and the Supreme Court, instead of reading the room, Americans saying, 'please stop taxing me to death.' He says, 'no, you took away my tariffs. You took away my taxes. I will tax you more. I will tax you harder.' The guy is digging his own political grave here by making it a real bad midterm election."
"I had a conversation with friend of the show, Paul Begala, who — you know, Paul's forecasted a lot of elections before," said Taylor. "And we were having a chat and he said, 'You know what? This could be one of the biggest waves we've seen.' He's like, 'I don't say that to get people hyped up.' But you look at the fundamentals, the fundamentals being you have a president who is so directly saying, not only am I owning these tariffs and taxes, I am increasing them on you."
"Rarely have Democrats had such a great ability to directly tie a president to the economic harm people are seeing," he added. "Donald Trump is giving them that on a silver platter."