“There are people who serve very close to the president who have told me verbatim that we should expect, apply, ‘shock and fear’ when the president wins a second term. You will see a flurry of executive orders. . about “The Lead.”
“And if we are less safe now because we have fewer friends and stronger enemies than before, you can expect to see that on steroids in another four years of the Trump administration,” Taylor added.
On Monday, Taylor approved Biden’s White House bid, becoming one of the Trump administration’s top senior officials to do so.
Taylor has accused Trump of using his office several times for political purposes, including directing officials to cut funding for wildfire relief to California because voters were overwhelmingly opposed to it in 2016.
A long-time Republican and political nominee at DHS from 2017 to 2019, Taylor endorsed the former vice president in a video produced by the group of Republican voters against Trump in which he also made several accusations about holding and carrying Trump. He also wrote an op-ed published in The Washington Post calling the president “dangerous” to America.
Earlier Tuesday, Trump dismissed Taylor’s role in his administration, calling him a ‘dissatisfied employee’ despite serving at a senior level.
Taylor described to Tapper several incidents he had witnessed that he says shed light on Trump’s character, including one in which the president showed support for the use of tear gas on migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I clearly remember an incident at the Southwest Border. We had a case where we had a number of migrants loading a border station. Now what normally happens is Border Patrol has to do checks for people to protect officials on the line , so limited tear gas was used to ensure that this facility was not taken into account, “he said.
“When Donald Trump saw that on TV, he actually thought what we were doing was just starting to migrate across migrants as a tactic. In fact, he immediately called the Secretary of Homeland Security to say, ‘This is great, I love it. of what you do, keep it up. ‘He thought gassing was a policy, when in that one moment it was a security measure for officers. “
“I think that tells you a lot about the character of the president,” Taylor said. “And that’s why I think this is a character choice.”
Taylor also claimed that the White House was working to ‘dig up dirt’ on him because of his notoriety of Trump.
“I just reported within the last hour that a White House liaison employee at the department has been forced to go around digging up dirt. Now, look, I’m fine with that. I can handle it.” he said.
“But here’s the point: the administration, within hours of me speaking out here, is already using taxpayer dollars for political purposes in the department. That just shows you that they can’t break out of this cycle,” Taylor added.
This story and its header have been updated with additional quotes from the interview.
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