The Republican Party is well on track for a devastating midterm defeat in November and, “if history is any guide,” President Donald Trump is likely to “set his sights abroad” with a plan to "satiate his almost limitless appetite for power," an ex-Homeland Security official warned Friday.
“The odds are now that he loses the US House,” wrote Miles Taylor, who served in a senior role at DHS under both the Bush and Trump administrations, in an analysis published Friday in The i Paper.
“He may even lose the Senate. He will almost certainly be impeached and, after the elections, Trump will be distracted, embattled and very likely humiliated. If history is any guide, he will respond angrily and set his sights abroad.”
Taylor based his prediction on how Trump responded to Republicans’ losses in the 2018 midterm elections, where he recalled being "summoned to secret meetings” filled with “brazen and unethical” plans to obstruct Democrats’ new House majority.
“We were told to deny information requests, delay inquiries and prepare to defy subpoenas,” Taylor recalled. “The White House offered to assign auxiliary lawyers to each of our agencies to fight the coming barrage of investigations. If Democrats wanted documents in their corruption probes, they would get the middle finger.”
While Taylor ultimately resigned from his position in protest, it “became clear” to him before his departure where Trump’s attention would be focused for the remainder of his first term.
“With his hands tied at home, he put his foot down abroad,” Taylor wrote.
“Against our protestations, he harassed America’s allies, who baulked at Trump’s schemes, and cozied up to longtime US foes, who appeared to relish watching a wannabe strongman doing their work for them by chipping away at American democracy and alliances. He became, in plain language, a belligerent bully on the world stage.”
That history – combined with Trump now being term-limited and far more willing to authorize strikes abroad – led Taylor to fear the president's response to a 2026 midterm loss could be far more dangerous than before.
“I’m talking about the most powerful man in the world searching for new countries to invade, exploring fresh ways to monetize his influence, teasing genocide and nuclear strikes and toying with breaking the global order that emerged from the great wars,” Taylor wrote.
“He’s not shied away from any of this in his first year back. With more time on his hands, he’ll lay waste to what remains of the Western institutions and alliances that have kept the free world standing.”
