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Five Questions With Miles Taylor

The Chief of Staff at DHS during the 1st Trump administration, author of the anonymous NYT op-ed that informed us about resistance to Trump on the inside

Joyce Vance

Nov 14

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Tonight’s guest for Five Questions is national security expert, democracy reform advocate, and author Miles Taylor. Taylor has held top national security posts, including Chief of Staff of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Serving in that role during the first Trump administration, he was the anonymous author of the bombshell 2018 New York Times op-ed titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” later expanding that into his book, A Warning.

More recently, Taylor has taken the lead in a bipartisan group of former national security officials and elected officials to launch Defiance.org, “designed to help Americans push back peacefully, lawfully, and defiantly against presidential abuses of power.” We learn about that effort from him tonight. Miles isn’t shy. He told me, “I’m not being flippant when I say the Donald Trump I met is a creepy and corrupt man who wishes he were a tyrant.” That’s what led him to issue his initial warning. I wanted to ask him not only about Defiance, but also, what he believes we can and should be doing now. His answers are illuminating.

“Five Questions” is the one Civil Discourse column that is exclusively for paid subscribers, my way of thanking you all for your support for the newsletter. Your paid subscriptions help me devote the time and resources necessary to the newsletter. The rest of the columns that make up Civil Discourse are available to everyone—knowledge is power, and we all need as much of that as possible right now! Thank you for being here and for caring about the future of our democracy.