A onetime appointee of Donald Trump says the former president was unstable during his White House tenure and appears to have only continued a downward descent.
Miles Taylor, Trump's former Homeland Security department chief of staff, appeared on Deadline: White House on MSNBC Thursday to share his concerns about the presumed Republican nominee's potential return to the Oval Office.
"The man that I interacted with years ago was very visibly unwell, was observably unstable, and he was the president of the United States then," Taylor told anchor Nicolle Wallace. "I can only imagine what's happened to him since."
Taylor's is far from the lone voice raising concerns about Trump's mental fitness, but as a onetime appointee he provides a unique perspective on the people the former president would put in place if reelected.
Taylor divides potential Trump appointees and hires into four categories he describes as "scary": the loyalists, the assassins, the replacements and the shadow government.
The loyalists, as Taylor describes them, would be the Cabinet members whom Trump will appoint whether or not the Senate confirms their positions.
"They're going to put them in anyway," Taylor said, "people who will execute his orders no matter how bad."
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Next come the "assassins," as they were once described by Steve Bannon, who will be core political appointees, then the replacements who will take over the roles of civil servants Trump has promised to purge.
"These are people who project tornado paths and try to protect the United States from terrorists," Taylor noted. "Political appointees being in those roles is very scary for me, it's something they didn't do in the first term, they're keen on doing in the second."
Finally, Taylor raises the alarm about a "shadow government" that will work outside of official parameters to call the shots.
"We saw this in the first term where departments like the Department of Veterans Affairs people said there were the three amigos in Mar-a-Lago that would make phone calls and tell them what to do," said Taylor.
"I worry in a second term, he'll have all of these outsiders that aren't fit to take government jobs, pulling the strings."
Ultimately what concerns Taylor the most is the mental deterioration of the man who would assemble this team should he win the 2024 presidential election.
"We've witnessed it, we all see it as an American public," Taylor said. "But I can't imagine how unstable he'll be behind that resolute desk again."
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