The former chief of staff of the Homeland Security department claims in a political ad released Monday that President Trump sought to withhold funding for disasters for the wildfire of California because voters in the state opposed him politically.
“He told us to stop giving money to people whose homes were burnt down by a wildfire because he was so deceitful that people in the state of California did not support him and that politics was not a basis for him,” Miles Taylor, who left the Trump administration in 2019, claims in the ad.
“A lot of the time, the things he wanted to do were not only impossible, but, in many cases, illegal,” Taylor said, reminding him how Trump “did not want” to hear informants help that his policy would not stand up to legal challenges.
“These were his words: He knew he had ‘magical authorities,'” Taylor said, recalling a sentence he said Trump used to ask questions from helpers.
The Homeland Security Department oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Taylor does not say what wildfirfir he is referring to, but the group running the ad confirmed it was the Campfire of 2018, and Trump toured that year in Paradise.
No evidence has emerged to show that federal aid was withheld, despite public threats from Trump at the time, who said he would withhold money because he rejected the state’s forest management practices.
Taylor took a job at Google after leaving the Trump administration and is on leave, according to his Twitter profile.
The two-minute ad, promoted by a group called Republican voters against Trump, follows sharp criticism from several former White House top aides and others, including former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who have questioned Trump’s fitness to serve a second term.
The ad was released on the first day of the Democratic National Convention, which will nominate former Vice President Joe Biden to run against the interior.
In the video, Taylor describes his 2 years in the Trump administration as “terrible” and says that although he does not agree with Biden on many issues, he is “sure that Joe Biden will protect the country. I I’m sure he’s not making the same mistakes as this president. “
The White House shot back quickly.
“This individual is another creature from the DC swamp who has never understood the importance of the president’s agenda, or why the American people chose him and clearly just want money,” Judd said. Deere, a White House spokesman.
A senior administration official asked why Taylor served as long as he had such concerns about Trump. The official also pointed to Trump’s public threats to withhold money and the fact that the money was not ultimately withheld.
Gavin Newsom declined to comment.
The claim that Trump tried to stop California from getting FEMA assistance serves as the most emotional attack on Trump’s leadership in the testimony. But there are others.
‘We would go in to talk to him about an urgent national security issue – a cyber-attack, a threat of terrorism – he was not interested in those things. For him, they were not priorities, “Taylor said of Trump.
Taylor recalls how Trump “wanted to continue” with his family divorce policy to send a stronger message of disgust to asylum seekers fleeing Central American countries to the United States.
“I came fully convinced, based on first-hand experience, that the president was ill-equipped and would not be equipped to do his job effectively,” Taylor said, explaining his decision to support Biden despite continuing to identify him as Republican. “And what’s less – was active damage to our safety.”
Taylor worked under Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Elaine Duke, who kept the job short in 2017, after former generation John Kelly left the post for the White House and before the First Chamber confirmed Kirstjen Nielsen, the last non-acting head of the third largest federal department.
Taylor was Nielsen’s Deputy Chief of Staff, who oversees the implementation of the Migrant Administration’s Family Divorce Policy at the border.
Staff writers John Myers in Sacramento and Molly O’Toole in Washington contributed to this article.
