Former Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor wrote a new book that sounds the alarm on how Donald Trump will weaponize the government against Americans if he wins in 2024. His examples are based on things he and others witnessed Trump explore during his first term.
In his book, "Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump," Taylor explains that among the people he worked with, many were miserable and frustrated, but thought they had to stay to protect the country from Trump's worst ideas.
"I want to be clear, I think a second term of Donald Trump would be the end of the American republic as we know it," Taylor said, without hyperbole. "That sounds like an extreme thing to say, but after two years of interviewing people about what would happen in a second Trump term, it's the only conclusion I could come to. After talking to official after official that served under Trump, leading his departments and agencies, the conclusion I came to is they are building a roadmap for revenge."
Former FBI assistant director for counter-intelligence Frank Figliuzzi agreed, noting that it's all happening in the open, with the Heritage Foundation's new 2025 plan reported in the New York Times.
"Trump, true to form, has gone out and made that very clear publicly," Taylor continued. "He intends on retaking office, if he does, to weaponize powers of the federal government to go after his political rivals. The details of how they want to do that are disturbing and hopefully enough to shock the conscience of Republicans who still know he's a dangerous man. Just to give you a sample, Nicolle, I had ex-Trump officials, many of them, telling me, most of them on the record, saying in his second term he'll want to weaponize to spy on political rivals. He tried to wiretap staff in the first term in the White House. He will press Congress to try to pass secret laws by sneaking things into intelligence authorization bills. That he will appoint special counsels to go after political rivals. One DOJ official said the watchwords will be, 'Sue the blue,' to sue Democratic politicians and organizations and blue states. And that others in the defense world said he wanted to create his own military forces, mercenary forces like Vladimir Putin had with the Wagner group in his country. One official commented that in his eyes, that was a junior Gestapo. By the way, the person who said that was Trump's lead counterterrorism official for the Department of Homeland Security."
He went on to call it a "very dangerous situation."
Figliuzzi explained the time to vet Trump has come and gone and that more Americans must know the truth.
"The more the word gets out and the more light of day that people like Miles expose of the plan — we're not making this up," he said emphatically. "This is the plan. We've got the Heritage Foundation working on a plan. We've already seen evidence of what he would do with career employees."
He recalled the times he swore in FBI agents, who take an oath to the Constitution as many elected officials do. "Imagine if we have to insert a signed pledge, please sign here that you'll be loyal to the president or you're going to be fired. That's exactly what we're hearing from Trump's circle."
Raw Story has further coverage of Taylor's book "Blowback" here.
See the full conversation below or at the link.