Miles Taylor has, since the first Trump Administration, been a consistent anti-Trump voice. He wrote an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times, and later a book, calling himself “the resistance inside the Trump Administration,” although he later came forward under his real name. He had worked during the first Trump Administration as deputy chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security.
This week, Taylor shared some details about how he quit the government during Trump’s first term.
“The day that I decided to speak out from the Trump administration, to quit that administration, was the day when a mentor of mine from Capitol Hill had died. His name was John McCain. The flags were at half staff around the country, and the president was trying to call us in Australia on the other side of the world, to say, not put out a statement in honor of John McCain, but to say, raise the flags back up,” Taylor said this week in an appearance on CNN.
Taylor: The day that I decided to quit that administration was the day when a mentor of mine from Capitol Hill had died. His name was John McCain. The flags were at half staff around the country, and the president was trying to call us in Australia on the other side of the world,… pic.twitter.com/Me6REBYn1p
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 24, 2026
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Trump and McCain had feuded so bitterly that McCain made it clear that he did not want Trump at his funeral in 2018, even though two of McCain’s other longtime opponents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, were invited to deliver eulogies.
Taylor brought this up in the context of Trump responding callously to the passing of Robert Mueller.
“I don’t care if you agreed with John McCain or disagreed. It didn’t matter like Bob Mueller, he served this country in uniform. He was a sitting United States senator. He deserved to be honored with the flags at half-staff—for the president of the United States to be so petty, so small and petty, to tell us to raise the flags back up in an act of active dishonor, tells you everything you need to know about that man and his lack of integrity and character,” Taylor said.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
