Former Homeland Security chief of staff Miles warned that President Donald Trump is going to invoke the Insurrection Act because he's wanted to do it for a long time, and that the U.S. Supreme Court will likely let him do it.
Speaking to MSNBC on Monday, former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann and ex-Justice Department official Mary McCord debated the legal challenges to whether or not Trump could invoke the Act and how it would be argued in court. But Taylor was the one who made it clear that his time in the Trump administration had shown him a deep desire to declare something a legal "insurrection" and invoke martial law.
Last week, NBC News reported that five people confirmed that the administration is beginning to consider "whether it makes sense to invoke the act," meaning the Insurrection Act. Trump already told Newsmax host Greg Kelly that he believed what was unfolding in Portland was "insurrection."
"We need to do what Stephen Miller is doing right now, and that is gaming this out all the way to the Supreme Court," Taylor explained, recalling his exchanges with the far-right Trump advisor during the first term.
"He has been since the first administration, when he told me it would be a 'shock and awe' blitz in the second administration, and they would try to run decisions to the high court as fast as possible so that they could be on the highest ground possible," Taylor continued.
He doesn't anticipate that the John Roberts court will stop Trump.
"Surely Donald Trump is going to invoke the act, mark my words, he's going to invoke the act," said Taylor, noting that no policy debates are happening with Trump's underlings at the White House.
"And when and if this gets to the Supreme Court ... what do you need to know about the Roberts court? The Roberts court has been deeply deferential when it comes to executive power, and has wanted to do what Andrew Weissmann says," Taylor noted. "If things have the ability to be pushed into the political sphere, say it's the political job, look as far back as Obamacare, the first really big decision the chief justice had to helm. He could have overturned it with his vote. Instead, he decided to say, 'Look, it's Congress's job to decide what happens.'"
That's what he predicts will happen in this case. Roberts will "cobble together a majority and say, you know what? I don't like the president of the United States declaring martial law. A lot of these things are scary, but it's ultimately the job of Congress to fix this," Taylor predicted.
In this case, the House and Senate, led by Republicans, have been resistant to standing up to Trump. So, Taylor assumes a "two-house Republican Congress that will say nothing and do nothing. And the president of the United States will have effectively been allowed to declare something close to martial law in this country, which could go from mild to wild very, very quickly."
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