Ex-Trump Official Quits GOP, Says Republican Party Is Now A Threat To America

A former Homeland Security official in the Trump administration who later turned into one of the former president’s critics has quit the Republican Party, saying the GOP can’t be saved.

Miles Taylor, who was the agency’s deputy chief of staff and then chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, wrote on Twitter:

I no longer believe the Republican Party can be saved. The vitriolic rhetoric is inspiring violent radicals.

I'm quitting the GOP. And I hope more do the same. — Miles Taylor (@MilesTaylorUSA) May 17, 2022

Taylor also linked to an editorial he wrote for NBC News:

“In the wake of the mass shooting in Buffalo on Saturday, it’s become glaringly obvious that my party no longer represents conservative values but in fact poses a threat to them — and to America,” he wrote.

Taylor was referring to the white supremacist who shot and killed 10 at a Buffalo grocery store and specifically targeted Black people. The alleged shooter reportedly wrote a manifesto referencing “great replacement theory,” a conspiracy theory that claims Democrats are trying to replace white Americans with people of color. That theory has been shared in Republican circles, and embraced by figures such as Fox News host ― and self-confessed liar ― Tucker Carlson.

Miles Taylor, who was Homeland Security’s deputy chief of staff and then chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, also admitted to writing the 2018 “Anonymous” op-ed in The New York Times saying there were people within the Trump administration who were working against the then-president. Alex Brandon via Associated Press

Taylor noted that a poll last year found nearly half of Republicans agreed with sentiments of the “great replacement theory.”

“The Republican Party — which branded a violent insurrection in the nation’s capital as ‘legitimate political discourse’ — is poisoning Americans’ minds and supplanting respectful disagreement with loaded-gun rhetoric,” he wrote.

Although good people remained in the party, Taylor urged them to quit, too, “until it is rehabilitated or a suitable alternative is created.”

Taylor’s time in the DHS involved Donald Trump’s infamous policy of separating migrant children from their families. Taylor later told Telemundo that he regretted not denouncing it at the time.