Over the years, there has certainly been no short of absolutely horrifying things Donald J. Trump has said and done — and that’s just the things that the American public actually knows about. But, it seems to never fail that every single time we think the man could not possibly get any worse, something comes to light that proves us wrong in the worst kind of way.
Former Trump-era Department of Homeland Security Chief of Staff and staunch Trump critic Miles Taylor is set to soon release his second tell-all book, Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump. While we expected this opus to be full of unsettling and disturbing revelations, as they all are, excerpts from Taylor’s new book are beginning to go public, and already, it’s worse than we ever could have prepared for.
Taylor penned a new piece in Real Clear Politics, in which he exposed and described in great detail Donald Trump’s deep-seated obsession with creating and possessing his own personal military force in the US — inspired directly by, you guessed it, Russia’s heinous, murderous dictator, and Donald’s personal idol, Vladimir Putin.
“Less well known is the ex-president’s envy of private armies, like Putin’s wayward Wagner Group,” Taylor wrote in the new piece as he gears up for the release of his second tell-all book. “The former president once sought his own mercenaries and might do so again if he wins back the White House.”
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The former Homeland Security official went on to describe his conversations with his fellow colleagues in the Trump Administration, which he said exposed a genuine fear throughout that this horrifying Trump military “force” could truly become a reality, as Donald’s power hunger spiraled out of control.
According to Taylor, the idea of a personal military group that did Trump’s bidding and Trump’s bidding only was first floated in the summer of 2017, just shortly after Donald took office. It seems the idea spawned from the then-newly-elected president’s desire to pull US military troops out of Afghanistan, completely devoid of any withdrawal plan or process to keep US troops or the country as a whole safe.
Taylor, who noted that he was still with the Department of Homeland Security at the time, described his fear that Donald was about to pull out of the Middle East far too fast, with no legitimate game plan, which would ultimately allow “terrorists to reconstitute and plot against the United States. Trump, on the other hand, seemed most worried about money. He said he was tired of spending it abroad and wanted to focus on domestic political priorities.”
Officials allegedly gave Trump a variety of options to choose from, but Donald only came up with one hand-crafted idea — privatize the entire war with a full military force belonging solely to Donald J. Trump, a move comparable to Putin’s Wagner Group, with this version being Erik Prince’s Blackwater, offering trained military troops for hire.
“I explained that this was a horrible idea for many reasons, not least of which was that a Trump-controlled mercenary group would circumvent public scrutiny, erode checks and balances around the use of force, and undermine confidence in the American military,” Taylor explains. “But it wasn’t a mere whim. News of the discussions leaked that top White House advisors had apparently consulted with Erik Prince directly.”
The former DHS official recalled Trump being handed a “thick briefing memo” that far “exceeded the man’s attention span.” This left Taylor panicked that the risk of Trump choosing to go with mercenaries had increased exponentially. Taylor was ultimately left with no choice but to condense the 50-60 page briefing book into a one or two-page report “in the president’s voice,” just so Trump could even understand the basics of it.
“So overnight in my office, I crafted a basic Wikipedia-level primer about why America was in Afghanistan and what was at stake, all in the Trumpian vernacular,” Taylor recalled. “The title of the unclassified version felt like a parody: ‘Afghanistan: How to Put America First—And Win!’ If we pulled out of the country too fast, I wrote, we would be mocked as ‘losers’ by terrorists. If we wanted to be ‘winners,’ we needed to fight smarter and harder, then cut a ‘great deal’ to hand over security to the Afghans. I made no mention of deploying a private army to finish the job.”
According to Taylor, it was Trump’s deep-seated desire to be a “winner” that ultimately convinced the then-president to agree to the condensed plan. However, that wasn’t the last they would hear of Trump’s personal militia plan. The former official says the idea resurfaced once again when Trump all but demanded a 5,000-man military team to overthrow the Venezuelan regime.
Once again, an official — this time the top adviser on the National Security Council (NSC) — was forced to concoct a condensed memo explaining why that was a terrible idea. Ultimately, Trump’s personal military plan was once again thwarted, as they were able to convince him against the “Trump Wagners.”
But even worse still than Donald’s past, is Taylor’s vehement warning of what the future will look like in another Trump regime.
Quoting an individual who is personally familiar with the “Trump Wagner” discussions of 2017 and 2018, Taylor wrote, “Next time we won’t be so lucky. We’ll have a military run by mercenaries.”
Taylor notes that Donald’s obsession with a military force run for him and by him has only grown in recent years, as Trump struggles to maintain control of his spiraling life, noting that Donald has always taken the title of “Commander in Chief” far too literally. Throughout his presidency, Taylor says Trump regularly referred to the US military as “his” military,” often referring to troops and officials as “my generals” and “my military.”
Miles Taylor’s bombshell new tell-all book, “Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump,” is set to hit shelves on July 18th.
Read his full piece in Real Clear Politics here.
Featured image via Flickr/Trump White House Archives
