Transcripts For CSPAN2 Miles 20240703

Donald trump will be president again, whether hes on the ballot or not precisely because trumpism overtaking the Republican Party and mount a vigorous comeback, potentially in the hands of a savvier successor. Through interviews with dozens of ex trump aides and government leaders, they predicts what could happen inside trump, 2. 0 in, quote, the white of a more competent and more formidable copy cat, an look at how our deeply divided nation is setting the stage for the next trump blowback is also a surprising emotional and selfcritical portrait of a dissenter whose own unmasking a vivid warning about what happens when we hide the truth from others. And, most importantly, ourselves. Blowback has called, quote, the most vivid and, authoritative account yet of a trump to point out would look like by Lieutenant Colonel alex vindman, the former of the White House National Security Council and author of hear right matters a complicated, courageous journey to truth through a poignant, personal and professional pass by msnbcs chris and matt dowd and. Quote, quite simply, the best and most frightening book written by an insider at the Trump White House by kurt eichenwald, the New York Times selling author of conspiracy of fools and the informant, a National Security expert who works in washington, dc miles taylor previously served as chief of staff at the Us Department of Homeland Security, where he published an anonymous essay, the New York Times blowing the whistle on president ial misconduct. He later published the Number One National bestseller, a warning revealed to be the author, and launched a campaign of officials to oppose Donald Trumps reelection. Hes worked as a viser to the George W Bush administration on capitol hill as a cnn contributor and, is the cofounder of a dc based charter school. Multiple democracy reform groups. Taylor received his mphil and International Relations from Oxford University as a marshall scholar and a b. A. From indiana university. As a harry truman, its our pleasure to have miles and allison here. Please help me. Welcome, miles taylor and dr. Allison gill. And i would just also like to be the one of the first to announce, as i found out, that blowback is now a New York Times bestseller. I just want to say, i want to balance out joes introduction because there was another review. The book i thought was really good. The office of donald trump put out a review of the book and they said, miles taylor is a loser, loser and a lying sack of ill censor it for cspan sword, his book either belongs in the discount bin of the fiction section or be repurposed as toilet paper, so just read all the bad reviews. You didnt do the voice though i was hoping every purpose i was hoping for. Its a toilet paper book. Honestly, some of the finest toilet paper now, im first of all honored to be here to speak to you about this. I think that the fact you and i sit here, we are friends and we are working toward same goal is kind of the embodiment of the purpose of blowback itself. You and i have very different political views and we could have discussions about that for hours. However, what we share in common and i think what brings people together in these polarizing times is that we have a common goal of preserving democracy, and we both kind of did it a very interesting way, being anonymous at first. Many of you know me a gee, only. To avoid violating the hatch act, but its what what our common goal that that brings us together. So i wanted to first talk to you about some those common goals in preventing a second term here. So lets lets start there with the anonymity part of it and that you say know, i know you say in your book that it is a threat anonymity is a threat to democracy. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah, i would like to address that. That irony upfront. And its something that ive been adamant about the past few weeks which is it took a long time to come to this conclusion. And in my view, anonymity in a sense really is a threat to democracy now. What do i mean by that. Ill first tell you what i dont mean by that. People who have sounded the alarm, blown the whistle on president ial misconduct and avail themselves of whistleblower protections and anonymity. They deserve those protections. Theyre enshrined in the law for the right reason the Intelligence Community whistleblower from the first impeachment investigations to this day remains anonymous and rightfully so. To protect his or her and friends. But i was sounding alarm about something very different, something broader than one discrete episode of president ial misconduct, a wider civic threat to our democracy and one that could only be remedied not by unelected bureaucrats. Me that could only be remedied by. You that could only be remedied by the voters and that require actually attaching my names my names name singular. Im still getting over the dual identities required. My name to those critiques. And ill tell you why at first i thought deprive being the president of my name would force people to focus on the message instead of the messenger. And we know donald trump is as an expert at the politics of personal destruction and distraction. And if i had published that original new york piece in my name, it would have been all about who the hell is miles taylor . And trump would have made the focus on me rather than the fact that i was disclosing that his own cabinet felt that he was unfit for office and that they had even considered the possibility that they might have to invoke the 25th amendment of the Us Constitution action to effectuate his removal. The severity of that situation me warranted a laser focus on the message and not the messenger. Now i made the declaration publicly into myself in private that. I would eventually unmask myself. But im going to be very honest, alisyn, you and the rest of this group up front. At first i was selfconfident in that determination. I was going to unmask myself once. The message had settled in and then i waited. And then i waited and. Then i waited and all the people who come up to you after you the whistle and tell you you are so brave and you are so courageous, i want them to know i was scared shitless in that period and thats i didnt unmask myself because i saw more how much this donald trump was capable doing to peoples lives. And once side left government for the first time in my life i had a job where went and was making money. I was in the tax sector. I was comfortable and i didnt want to destroy my whole life. But as i was making rounds after i left the administration and trying to recruit these cabinet secretaries and these other senior officials whod served with me to convince them, come forward against this person after person. Me, no or not, this year or later, they all declined and i couldnt figure it out at first. And the answer have hit me like a freight train, which is that if no ones stepping out there, the next person is not going to step out there. And we see this with stories about people getting attacked on the subway system here in new york city. Someone could get attacked and killed. And its never an empty subway train. Its full subway train because the next person is always expecting someones going to come forward first. But when that person does, then more people step into the fray. And when i finally unmasked myself, i realized what it did was give cover to my fellow former officials. And im very, very happy point the spotlight at them because. Jake tapper at the end of 2020 described our cohort as Largest Group of administration in American History to turn against a president who them. And i applaud for their bravery and seen like me getting attacked, getting villainized. And they said to themselves i dont care. Im going to go join that fight, too. So i applaud them what they did. Lets talk about cover that it provides. And thats sort being the underpinning idea behind why anonymity is a threat to democracy. You in your book talk you give this amazing metaphor about and demand and the price of dissent. Can you talk a little bit like share that i love it if you would share that metaphor because it really everything sort of clicked in for me then when when i sort of understood it in those terms. Yeah, this is the portion where go into the econ lesson. So if want to tap out of econ, if thats triggering now i do want to ask a question of this group. How many of you have took econ one on one in school. Okay. Just about everyone. Just out of curiosity, how many people econ 200 or 300 . Yeah, that always happens. Its a much fewer number because after econ one, two, one, you dont want to continue doing it. But at least all of us got familiar with supply and demand curves. And one thing that you learn in any marketplace is that there are two ways to lower price of something. If its too high and through quite painful experience. I realized in coming out against the president that the price dissent in this country is exceptionally high and of you have heard me say this, but i it again and again because i want to bring the reality of the situation into the public for coming out against trump directly cost me my home i had to flee my home i was fired from my job i lost a marriage that i was in at the time. I had to drain my life savings to pay for lawyers, security costs and family received Death Threats to the point siblings and our nieces were having their photos disseminated, their home addresses and the threat that their blood would be in the streets. Thats what dissent looks like today in the United States. That would not have happened to me if id quit the Bush Administration and turned against president bush. But thats what happened during the Trump Administration now to this question of supply and demand, i think anyone would say that prices pretty high. Thats a high cost to dissent in the United States. Theres only two ways economics tells us to lower the price of something. One is you can decrease the demand. If the demand, anything goes down, demand for iphone goes, they cut the price. Okay. We dont want decrease the demand for truth or dissent. Yeah, nicely. We dont want less. We dont want fewer ideas in the marketplace of ideas. So whats the only other way you can decrease the price of something . Increase. Increase the supply and single one of us is a consumer in that marketplace of ideas. So when we dissent each of us individually as a data point does contribute to what that cost is. In other words, there is strength in numbers. The more people that speak out, the easier it becomes to speak out. I saw that very vividly in 2020 when people started to turn against donald trump from within the Republican Party. My concern today, though, is that a lot of those people are going back to the tribe. Political and violence has actually incurred least since donald trump was president and that price has remained high. And the only way, in my view, to lower it is not just elites in deciding to speak out. It really is Everyday Americans making easier . Because i think everyone here realizes that that fight is not just washington. The cowards who are selfcensoring themselves. In my former party, the Republican Party are actually representative of something that were experiencing at home. And i cite data and blowback to show that the average is now selfcensor. And in fact, what worries me is the people who are most selfcensoring their opinions in our society are the moderate majority in the country. And guess who doesnt selfcensor . The people on the political extremes and especially the far right surveys show that their private opinions, they express in public. Whereas the moderate majority of americans misrepresent their true views in public out of fear of being attacked out of fear of crowdsourced intimidation. Social media getting canceled from, their jobs. That selfcensorship is happening. That is why i say is a threat to democracy. Thats what weve got to work against. Lets talk a little bit about some of the things that are both trying to prevent from happening by trying to add our voices to dissent, to lower the price of dissent and that is a second term, whether its trump or a more, you know, of a fascist. So lets a friendly fascist. Oh yeah you have the effs lets lets talk about that some of the things that we saw that you saw in the Trump Administration and how that would be on steroids so to speak in a second term. And lets start with lets start with something that both you and i something we would politically disagree on but that you know you talk about extensive early in the book and i live in my life thats the department of veterans talk a little bit about what that looked like under trump and what it would look like in a second administrator. Yeah, and and i would encourage people if you are not following alice in her podcast ecosystem there are few people in the American Republic right now that are shining more of a on this than she is. And then and that her team is the va anecdotes in this book surprised me and i will confess that it started off as a box exercise when i this book i didnt want it to be just in my voice. Miles taylor telling you how bad a second term is going be. I really wanted to speak to as many ex Trump Officials humanly possible from the cabinet level all the way down to the staff assistants who sat outside the oval to current republicans on capitol hill, who spoke to me and republicans to ask one question what will happen in a second term of donald trump or a copy cat . Just spell it out for us realistically not hyper. Bollyky and then i wanted to paint that picture. And in the course of that, as i was checking the boxes, i thought, okay, i need to talk to every department and agency i will go speak to Donald Trumps former leaders at the department of Veterans Affairs. Im probably not going to hear a lot because. I dont remember too many controversies as there were, but i dont remember too many out of the va. I was blown away. I spoke to deputy secretaries of the department, other senior officials whove asked me to their identities in the text, but a whole of people who served in the front office at the department of Veterans Affairs and the thing that most shocked me is they said the first term there was a system effort underway to, quote, detonate the veterans social net. And this was donald trump was personally invested in and in their again, he had deep animus towards americas military veterans. One of his former senior officials said president thought they were, quote, lazy malingerers and he was sick veterans getting all of this money spent on them by federal government and that they were just basically welfare queens, in his view at the same time, donald trump found out that the va is the second Largest Department in the federal government by budget, with a 250 billion budget. And he was very keen to spend that money somewhere else. I watched personally go raid the pockets of dod to spend it on the border wall he to take money from Foreign Policy and spend it on domestic political priorities. But i never in my wildest dream that there would be an effort from the president on down to go raid the pockets of veterans to do this. Now the, officials that i spoke to again on the record, two of his deputy secretaries at va, said in a second term, donald trump would not care about kicking veterans out on the street. And what would the conflict once of that be . Tens of thousands them would be homeless. But just as many would likely literally die if they no longer had that safety net because they wanted to take a wrecking ball to the department. Now, many of you remember in 2020 an article from the atlantic, some fantastic reporting about how donald, while visiting normandy for the anniversary of the dday invasion, said the troops who had died. There were suckers and losers these american soldiers who gave their lives for our country and to defend our allies. And that was the attitude not just in one flippant moment from the commander in chief. Thats how he viewed veterans. Im not a psychologist, but i think an easy diagnose. This might be a man who did everything, avoid the draft, probably abhors veterans. He sees in them something that he lacks but that being translate it into Public Policy is truly terrifying. And what i was told by those officials is, was the only reason trump was not to do this in the first term wasnt because veterans would be homeless, wasnt because would die, but it was because convinced him politically it would ruin his chances of reelection. And so they decided to put it on the shelf and wait until a second term. And i have no doubt whatsoever in a second term that they would go to war with americas veterans to try to take that social safety net out from underneath them. And i find that i cant express the words. I find it remarkable, disgusting, especially as a conservative. And, you know, who had listened to my podcast early on, we knew about the shadow doctors down in florida who kind of ran the va from the scenes and it was after, you know, reading your book confirmed like any doubt was lifted of what we thought he would do to veterans is pretty pretty clear. Well, i have to add that alison a lot of a lot of material ended up on the cutting room floor. You just you know, you end up writing a book thats 200,000 words and your publisher says. Oh, no, were not going to do that. You know, they we got to cut some words. But in that section on the va there was a lot of these officials told about what they called the three amigos as there were three individuals. I wont get into their names now, but who were . Private advisers to the president on Veterans Affairs down in mar a lago and they were acting as essentially a shadow cabinet on Veterans Affairs and they would call and berate the Senior Leaders of the va and say, you need to do this and you need to do and you need to destroy the veterans social safety net. And these leaders said these are not government employees. They cant tell us what to do until the president of the states called the secretary of Veterans Affairs and said, you need to listen to these guys. These are my guys and effectively deputy to them having these shadow governments intimidating our public was one of many, many disturbing things about the way that administrators was run it. Talk about mean theres so many instances in this would you know we talk about Veterans Affairs you convinced him it would ruin his chances for a second term and thats what put it on shelf. Theres sort of these ways around as the axis of adults as you call it, would present things in a way to just stop him from doing it unconstitutional, illegal or abhorrent things. So to talk a little bit more that talk about the the one page dumbing down the of the briefings on very complex issues the things that you personally to do to ensure that the of the United States not understood the the the task in front of him or the issue in front of him. But how to do the right thing it yeah. Well open up the gullwing door on your delorean and hop in with me. Were going to go back in time. August of 2017. We are in the first real signal life or death debate inside the Trump Administration. And its about what to do next in afghanistan. And donald trump came into office, was desperate to immediately remove all u. S. Forces from the country. Now, regardless of what your view is on the war in afghan a stand, every National Security official who advised the white house said if you do an immediate pull out, people will, not just u. S. Troops, but scores of civilians will be slaughtered if we just immediately pull out. Donald trump was reluctant, convinced to give us a few months, develop a range of responsible options to do a reasonable draw down in the country over time and get it to a better place. So over those months we realized in many other briefings that if a doc human you gave the president had a stay bill in it that meant it was too long because that it meant it meant it had more than one page and some those ones im not even being facetious i was told no more than a page and. Oftentimes, if it can be a picture, no words. Much, much. Its very difficult to explain to the president complex matters of war and peace and foreign and defense policy in picture. And if you want later, i can tell you about an instance. I literally had to do that. I had to go find graphic designers to make a picture of something because he didnt want to see words. We on i get a phone call from my former boss john kelly. Hes left as secretary of Homeland Security. Hes gone to the white house as chief of staff and something has been thrown to the president s desk in the oval office. Its a 50 or 60 page memo called Something Like integrated strategy, military options, southeast asia, which was the plan on what to do next. And afghanistan to donald trump. That might as well have been wing dings font. I mean to him that was gibberish and so the chief called me and said we need to boil this down and not only does it need to be a one pager, as we go into this war cabinet at camp david to tell him what to do, i dont think hes going to listen unless its in his voice now to be. When barack obama was president , george bush, those were the documents. Look like some of those were the same National Security Council Officials whod at the white house and prepared documents in the past. But that was too much for trump i took it back. I stayed up all with one of our top counterterrorism at dhs, and we rewrote that memo. And the title was something absurd. This is very close to what it actually was called, afghanistan how to put America First and when exclamation point, 28 point font, bold. And then in the text it said, right now, the terrorists think we are, but we dont want be losers if we want to be winners, weve got to show them that were tough and to be tough. Dot, dot dot and then in bullet points the recommendations we had for not precipitously pulling our forces from afghanistan shipped that off to the white house i sent it to mike pompeo at the cia i sent it to secretary of tillerson. I sent it across the administration. They went into the war cabinet with that document. Im relieved to say that at least in that moment, trump was convinced that he did not want to be a loser. He wanted to be winner, and he ended up making a semi responsible choice. But in the first year, realizing that the commander in chief needed to be handled definitionally like a first grader, complete reinvents your view of how youre going to try to protect these departments and agencies. And it became a very difficult and very alarming exercise day over day. But when we think were joking, when we like, when miss will come on and whos a Kindergarten Teacher and well say, i youre having some big feelings today and you to still play president but you cant know to hear the way. When i was reading book and then listening to it in the audio to hear that story. First of all, really job in being in trumps voice like that. Like thats aces like that and it had to just be feels like, so ridiculous. Well, i have to hat tip someone. Theres a gentleman named tom warrick, whos a Counter Terrorism professional, and tom nonpartisan. Hes served multiple administrations and. It was midnight, i think, on a tuesday or wednesday. And were sitting in a secure facility in the basement of this building in washington. And i come back from the white house and i tell tom this is going to sound really weird, but we basically have to write trump diatribe in his voice. And tom, to his credit, didnt even flinch and said, ive seen him enough on tv, i think i can do that. And so so we wrote that memo that incredibly well done. Well, that also terrifying and sad like. You know, a lot of a lot of this is we laugh because the alternative unquestionably terrifying. Lets talk about something. One of those unquestionably terrifying things that you did. You ran through a mock cabinet of what a second term would look like. You talk a little bit about that, about that mock cabinet and the i think the end sort of message that it would be that, yes, men would rule in this second administration. Yeah. And that was a quote from someone in the administration i mean really genuinely throughout blowback i try to quote as many people as possible that just arent telling you this story. And a lot of them spoke out for the first time in this book and commend those Public Servants for their bravery i will talk about the people who asked remain anonymous in this book a little bit later and the deep irony of who those people but you know those folks who i lost my train of thought alison where where we we were talking about the yes men rule or the s market cap. Yes. Sorry. Just so im just so mad at some of those people im going to talk to and talk about in a little bit. But when you got to your. Yeah, age of the future to the future cabinet, i, i actually wanted to get some names in there, some of those be irrelevant in the coming years. But i wanted to paint a picture of really what would that cabinet look like in a second Trump Administration. And i had an official tell me for this book served under the president , it would be a quote, nightmares slate. And then they listed i list a full prospective cabinet people who are legitimately being considered to be on the personnel rosters by the major conservative think tanks. And its folks like stephen as secretary of the of Homeland Security and grenell as the director of National Intelligence and Florida Political operative pam bondi, as the United States attorney general, its people who my personal view, kash patel, as the head of the cia, i mean, the flynn goes on and on. I mean, the list was genuinely terrifying. It wasnt my list. And in fact, that list wasnt one person. It was validated against, i think 15 or so different officials i had interviewed kept bringing up those same names what are those names have in common . Those have two things in common. One, they are largely people who, in my view lack the disposition for those jobs. But two, and significantly and more alarmingly, they were people who i never saw or heard say no to the president of the United States. And john kelly has a quote in this book where he says something to the effect, miles, we all know one third of the things the president wants to do are stupid. One third of the things he wants to do are impossible to implement. And the other third are just flat out illegal. So im talking about people who, regardless of which those thirds were, would say yes to him. Those would be the people who would dominate a second trump cabinet. But the cabinet of a maga copycat. Because, again, those institutions, washington, those conservative think tanks have always historically provided rosters for an Incoming Administration are now run by maga loyalists, no longer run by socalled bushes ex Bush Administration officials myself. Theyre run by people whove passed the maga loyalty test. All right, lets shift gears, because weve about 10 minutes left before we start taking questions and, i wanted to talk about the vulgar ability and personal stories in the book particular, particularly how you were doing around that time. And then for, you know, followed by the the sobriety and some of the and well a content warning here for suicidal ideations. I really think that the vulnerability in the book is something that really makes it stand from other typical kinds of stories ive read about things happened in the past administration and thats something that really struck me as struck a chord in me was the guardrails of democracy, the guardrails of your own self. Yeah. Well in a sense, in advertently this book ended up being kind of a trojan horse. So i have the delight of being able to tell my publishers tonight that totally duped them into, thinking that i was only writing a book about the second Trump Administration and the dangers. And really, i at the same time a much more personal story in the midst of that. But but the real answer is i had incredible editors and an Incredible Team who asked me to keep expanding upon those personal elements to to pull back the curtain of what that experience was like. And this is the first time ive said this, but actually, in my view, this isnt just a book about second Trump Administration. This a book about suicidal as an individual and as a and how to overcome it. Because in my circumstance as all of those things i listed off happened in the wake of my disclosures any one of those losing a marriage a job is enough to push you at least into low level depression. Mine was a little bit more low level depression. I was in a very dark place. I found myself on Election Night 2020 under armed in a dingy state safe house in Northern Virginia alone with a pistol under my pillow, drunk and. Pretty sure i didnt want to do it anymore. Part of that was because the social media vitriol that i never imagined would get under my skin. I always thought of myself as a very thick skinned, the vitriol was deeply corrosive to my Mental Health. And theres a phenomenon in human psychology. And alison and i were talking about this earlier when nice things happen feels good in the time. You tend not to remember them. You tend to remember the bad things. People say. So when i came forward and, you know, ben stiller was saying things about me and Jennifer Aniston and mark hamill, lukes skywalker himself, you know, my childhood were thanking me and i forgot about it like that because the hate that came in dominated by psyche from anonymous people. Yeah and from people fighting behind pseudonyms. Yeah but underscore maga mega maga bob. And it and it got to me it got to me and i was in a dark place and. I talk about that in this book because the parallels as i was writing it became obvious to the reason i got to that is over time. I ignored my own guardrails. The things that are supposed to protect you from getting to that point. Friends and family who warn you in avoiding Substance Abuse and better outlets and just you go through that list of things and it was striking to me how much those individual things that should be personal guardrails paralleled democratic guardrails that weve seen only ignored in recent years. And i will put it this way, i think at the moment our country has ignored its guardrails and is in gauging in civic suicidal ideation. We are considering or a an element of our republic is considering getting rid of the american experiment and putting it out of its misery. And and thats where were at right now. And its very scary. But theres lessons to be learned from whove been in that dark of a place about how to get back out of it. But i felt like that was important to talk about, not just for the political parallels, but also just in general. I dont see a lot of people in washington about Mental Health struggles, and im buoyed by the fact that another industry is were seeing it. Were seeing in people in talk about burnout, were seeing people in hollywood talk about burnout. I will tell you from 20 years in washington, the biggest Mental Health crisis in any locality in this country is in the nations capital. And thats not a heuristic assessment. Give you the data points to show at washington dc per capita in some studies is the highest binge drinking city america. It also is the fittest city in america per capital and has the highest rate of workaholics. So but paint that picture in your mind. Its people who go to work. Theyre burning themselves. They get wasted in the evening they dont tell people about it. They get up, they try to exercise it off and go do it again. Anyone whos been in the job like that a lot of people have, it leads to burnout. But talking about people whove got their fingers on Nuclear Button or close to it, who are ending up in those scenarios, theres a Mental Health crisis in washington and that top of the Political Polarization we, i think, is something we need a national about agreed and parallels of ourselves and the citizenry. I think hard to ignore i often compare it to us even flirting with the idea, as you say, of having a term or even considering hes a candidate for president is akin to battered spouse who cant leave or, you know, and i also talk to you about like becoming claiming your name and not being anonymous and people thinking its easy, but its also, you know, like or it should be easy us to leave the idea of having a second term here. But that would be like saying to somebody in a Domestic Violence situation like what you did, why didnt you just leave . Sometimes its not that simple. So i commend you for talking about those personal issues because there so they parallel whats going on in the in our country right now so perfectly. We have i think, time for one more topic to talk before we start taking questions on some index cards. But i really wanted to ask you about your discussion with Adam Kinzinger, because i thought that this was really hit home. And but before i hand it off to you to talk kinzinger and Jerry Seinfeld, the last 5 minutes, i want to once again encourage everybody to read this book. Hes he does call he talks about page desk in the beginning and how its a front row to democracy in the well the house and how that very same was used to block doors during january 6th and became a bulwark of protecting democracy that the call backs we call them dipsy doodles and comedy are theres so many of them and they almost called the book doodle by simon and schuster rejected that come on and schuster but i its aside from having all the incredible parallel between your personal life whats going on in democracy, the Amazing Stories from behind the scenes how we can Work Together to prevent that. Its just really well written aside from that. And i just wanted to point that out, i really encourage everybody if you get a chance to also listen to the audio. I do both. I like to have the physical book because john waters said if you go to someones and they dont have books, dont ask them. So i always like to have the physical of the book thats thats not what im trying to get out of this book. Just to be clear to my wife back home. So but i do love to have the physical, but i also like to listen and you narrate the book so well so i really encourage that. And all of those different elements come into play. But i talk to me and talk to us about the discussion with Adam Kinzinger, because i think that really wraps everything up in a beautiful bow. Yeah, im going to get to adam in a second and im going to ask you to indulge me on this lead in. Im also going to give just one more trigger warning, especially for cspan will have to go back and bleep out some portions of what im about to say. Theres a question every single one in this room has asked themselves and has asked family and friends which is why so Many Republican leaders know better and Say Something in public than they do in private. Its probably the worst kept secret in this country that most of the leaders of the Republican Party loathe donald trump, fear the populist movement thats overtaken the party. And yet they go on the sunday shows and they laud these people and they legitimize these people. And why is that happening . And im going to get to that in a second and tell you what my answer was and what Adam Kinzinger the answer was. But first, i want to give you an example, and im going to tell this story in three acts. All right. This is a three act story and act one is what im going to call the of adults. Now, i probably the biggest of this thesis inside the donald j. Trump administration. There was a socalled axis of adults that was keeping country safe and that is dangerous as he was. We could rely on those people to, protect us. So act one axis of adults after i unmasked myself against, donald trump and, i began campaigning against him. I received a slew of messages from former administer nation officials thanking me for doing it. Im going to read you three short messages from people who were cabinet level officials under trump in the immediate wake of my unmasking. And then im going to ask you about them a minute. So think about who these people might be. And then im going to ask you who, they were the first one, said miles, you are awesome. That was wonderful i am in. You are my teacher and my inspiration. Another cabinet official haha sorry about the phone call. They battled me on accident. Still say well done. I remain a huge geek fan of your writing you from general to specific was so interesting and all of us wanting more more. And then a third cabinet level official who wrote you said what many people wish they could or had said so going to put a pin in act one. Act two, some of you have before im going to call the rise of the radical ls and in this act its what happened after i unmasked and im just going to give you a little sampling and again some of you have heard this before, but i want you to just have a flavor of the phone calls and the messages i was receiving in the wake of that unmasking. Which was given to President Trump is disgusting. You are disgusting people. Youre and youre going to go down. You my friend, are a piece of. You are a traitor. Youre pushing for antitrump, you dumb. We will squash you tina,. If you dont, you dont either. Dig in die while were going to talk to you, youre not going to be able to walk down the street. Your insides are leaving the country. Youre not welcome here anymore. Youre antiamerican. You hate your country, you know, because you deserve the wrath of hell. And i think get whats coming to you. Not really miles taylor what are you thinking going against trump your your cronies really dont appreciate you putting priorities. Do you want to be watching out for nation character etc. Etc. But now everybodys on their and on. You. It went on. Some of them got more vile. We saw a lot of Death Threats in that period. So thats act to the rise of the radicals act three is the people who had my back and i want to go back to those cabinet who were ready to join me in fight and i want you to guess who they were you dont have to attach it to the specific messages, but give me some names. Who do you think . One of those cabinet members was . Who was it . Romney. Romney okay. Not in his cabinet. Nikki haley was one. Lets see. Betsy devos said education, give me a third trump cabinet official. Elaine chao, john kelly. I will tell you each of those individuals is, anonymous. None of them came forward. None of them came forward to have our backs. But theres an epilog to this three act story and epilog is as alluded to earlier, a slew of people who were not household names ended up joining the fight. People john mitnick and Elizabeth Newman and olivia troye and josh venable and i could go down those that list those people werent known to the American People but they were chiefs of staff and assistant secretaries and people appointed by the trump administra ation who turned against them. Now, why did they it . I go back to the earlier piece that i said theres strength in numbers people stepped forward when it was clear they wouldnt be alone it leads me into this conversation with Adam Kinzinger and then i do want to go your questions, which is adam, i had this conversation that you all have had, weve all had before, which is why arent more of these people speaking out . And i posited to adam were down in South Carolina on a retreat, a group of people trying to figure out how do we fix the gop. And i said to adam, you know, i think the reason in this situation is because youre republican colleagues who tell us in private they hate trump and they wont say it in public. They saw what happened. You and i. They saw the threats. They heard the phone calls. We published. And theyre scared. Theyre scared for the safety of their families. And its fear. And adam said, you know, i think youre close to right, but theres something theres theyre more scared of. I said, theres something. Theyre more scared of than their kids getting killed or their spouses being threatened or their livelihood, you know, their lives being in danger. And he said, yeah, theyre more to get kicked of the tribe than they are of death. And we talked that for a little bit longer. And adam said theyve built careers. Theyve built their lives, they have built their human identities around. This tribe and it matters more them than anything because their reason for existing and it made me think of a joke that Jerry Seinfeld used to tell some of you probably remember this 30 years ago when seinfeld would open sets he would say a survey has been released that show the top ten fears of american and americans. Number one, fear is speaking and their number two fear is death. So your average american would rather be in the casket at a funeral than delivering the eulogy and. Ive actually never heard a better explanation for todays Republican Party than that Jerry Seinfeld joke, because Republican Leaders i used to work closely with would rather be dead than, be seen speaking out against the tribe. Thats the threat were up against. And i think if we are to survive the century as, a republic, weve got to focus on that thing that we started, the converse ation with lowering that price descent. And as much as you may love or hate those senior republican members of congress or other maga people that you know, youve got to make it easy for them, give them that off ramp to be able to say what many them know to be true in private. Id love to take your questions. Thank you. All right. It says impossible question. Thats why do americans who are loyal republicans stay loyal, despite all of this information, for example, today we found out in a court filing, Rudy Giuliani admitted that he lied about Election Fraud and lied about. Shamus and ruby freeman. But we could take that to our members, our maga family or members of our family who are maga and it still would fall on deaf ears. So why do americans who still loyal to republicans stay loyal despite this info . And i think we kind of went into i think we kind of went into it, but the only other topper that i would add to that is there is element of this that its not evil, that people feel this way. I mean, i have a lot of friends who are would consider maga voters i really do largely theyre are people who maybe dont know a ton about politics the really frustrated with the system they feel like theyre left behind in our economy and just want someone to say im going to fix it and thats what tends to happen genuinely. Autocracies when you go study history in the rise of strong men, it tends to happen because a wellmade population is so frustrated, so scared about the future that they will to the person who most confit gently tells them i will protect you, i will fight for you. I am your retribution. Donald trump recently said, is how autocracies come to be . And they come out of nowhere. Germany by the way, was a very healthy democracy in the 1920s that probably would have been on the list of the last countries in the world at the time to fall to an autocratic leader. And it happened so but the biological element of this and im going to credit this to jonathan haidt, if you havent read him before, hes phenomenal. Hes in new york city based at nyu. He wrote a book called the righteous mind ten years ago that forecast of this moment were in and and im going to butcher this, but largely this polarization and this denial as sort of an evolutionary trait is that we we end up in tribes for selfprotection. And we have since the beginning of time, tribes for self protection. But what ends up happening is, you to value the fact that you were in a tribe far more than whatever the admission created area were for the tribe. So as a republican, i thought, the admission criteria was limited government and free minds and free market and free people. And you know, these things that made me, in my view, a conservative. But as donald trump came onto the scene, he was antithetical to every single one of those pillars of conservatism. Yet most the tribe stayed with him. Why . Because they wanted the protection of the tribe, leaving the republican. Im sorry. Democrats. Theres not a welcome mat for republican. You know, especially libertarians like in the democratic party. And i have a lot of friends now. So those people know theyre in a tribe of the tribe lists if they leave. And thats a scary proposition i have always said we have to show grace and make room for those who want to leave that tribe and come into the big ten of the democratic party. We cant scream for them to change. And then give them no path to do so. Miles can, you two, im talking about you like youre not even here. So this guy. No. Miles, can you talk about how you organized the book as its a structure and how got there . This is from jeff. Jeff, im sorry if i made it inaccessible. I hope. I hope on second reading, maybe it feels a little a little less of an arcane format, but but im going to have to look into it to say i have given it. Its got several main chapters and. Then each chapter has a prolog, a couple of parts to it. Yeah, ive organized it by chapters with topic sentences. You see theres a table of contents, sort of oblique names, the chapters. Im not going to go through them all the faction, the deputy, the judge, the assembly. Ive organized book by what i think are the priority or rather the chronological of our democracy see. So imagine an autocrat is intending to rise in the American Republic. Whats the first roadblock like . He or she wouldnt . Then once that goes down, whats the second, the third . The fourth. All the way to whats the very last one . And i go through each of those and one, i go back in time to what my experience was and how those guardrails were or how they atrophied, in the first Trump Administration and then i project forward in what will happen to them in a second term and every single one of those projections you will find that a lot of the top operatives in the maga wing of the Republican Party do not see them as democratic guardrails. They do see them as impede and that is a fundamentally different view than our founders. They view these things as the things standing between them and their vision of america. Thats what makes the second term so dangerous. Again, as in the first term, they found out that they were bumping into these things and so they had to weaken those guardrails. In a second term, theyll have how to leap over those. I think the the organization of the book is something that really drew me to it but made it made a lot of sense to me. So i appreciate it. David wants to know when was that you came out as anonymous to. Yeah, so i published the opinion piece in the new york in september of 2018. There was a lot of things that could have made me snap during the Trump Administration, a lot of better things. And we all tried to get to where to. We were like, says lodestar, a lot. You googling that i remember ill never forget the a lot of people thought it was pence and hes a fellow hoosier and i guess we use the word lodestar a lot there. Im happy to get into that story. People want to. But there was a particular moment that really rocked me and and i got up one night and wrote what was intended only be a private journal entry about. Just how horrific i thought this situation i had gotten myself into was and the administration and the president s defects that i was witnessing up close and with very little sleep. I thought maybe i should send this to someone, maybe i should publish this and. Fired it off to the New York Times and and they went forward with it. In 2019, the following year, i quit the administration after. Another particularly horrific and i just said ive had enough. And what i actually tried to do and im not even sure i talk about this that much in the book. I went on a road show to all these former cabinet secretaries who i knew had left the administration felt the same way as me and who i pretty confident would join me in turning against the president and one by one, over coffees and lunches and phone. They told me no, or most them said, come back to me in 2020. Yeah, im im getting consulting jobs right now. Its not a good time for me to speak out. And i got really frustrated that i couldnt get any one of them. I actually had a outlined that i wanted to one of them and it wasnt a full written book, but said, heres what any one of you could and should go say. None of them would do it. And so i said, okay, i was going to unmask myself. But maybe this is the moment. The moment. Trot anonymous back and just go publish this as anonymous and any one of those cabinet secretaries that people mentioned in this crowd could have written that book and stood by those words, at least in private. Thats they told me. And so i published that book. But then a peculiar thing happened in the months after that is it didnt just seem political anymore. People started dying. The covid crisis erupted. I lost a Family Member amidst the crisis and it became really clear to me that even wasnt getting former republicans from the administration to turn against him and i had an internal reckoning and felt like i really had to do something more about it. So then in 2020, in the latter half of the year, we got close to the republican convention, i figured that would be a very powerful time to come against trump, just as he was receiving what his team called his coronation, that that would be a time to try to grab public attention and be more specific about my allegations. All right have i think time for maybe one or two more lets go here first of all im a huge fan. Second, youve said you think should run on a unity ticket in 2024 by dropping Kamala Harris and taking an independent or republican as vp, does the data suggest that the votes he would pick up from independents and republicans would be greater, the votes hed lose from progressives who held their nose in 2020 by the way and depressed turnout from the base. I dont know the to that question ive made that suggestion its the type of thing that needs to be poll tested were it to be viable. But heres my concern. The moment i know lot of the people who are involved in the no labels movement, if youve been following about this organization that intends to run a Third Party Ticket for the presidency, i will say and ill be a contrarian here, i will say i know lot of the people involved in that and know most them are not secret trumpers. They genuinely arent. A lot of them are people who are horrified. The prospect of a trump presidency, but they have a view that im not sure is validated by the a view that if they ran a unity, it would not give donald trump a fast pass to the white house. I am very concerned that it would, and i will tell you this is not an electoral fantasy. I would assess with very high confidence that the no labels team move forward with deploying a unity ticket and in mind that leaves the fate of our basically to a toss. And im not comfortable with those odds. So before we get to that point, i am urging that maybe Creative Conversations happen because this group love or hate them will be a force in our politics. And ill tell you why. Because percent of americans for the first time in modern history consider themselves political independents. Now, most of them when you drill in lean either to the right or the left, but thats the highest that number has ever. They will have millions and millions of americans who desire to support that ticket the implications are very difficult to project. So before we get into that coin flips of i dont know does it help biden or hurt biden or put trump in the white house . I would urge the leaders of that movement to have a conversation with the white house about ways to form a coalition and Work Together. Because if they are true to their word, that the last thing they to see is the return of donald to the oval office, then they at least should go talk to joe bidens team about ways they might be able to Work Together. And maybe its not necessarily replacing the Vice President on the ticket. And thats no knock against, Kamala Harris. But its perhaps the possibility of a second Biden Administration having more officials from across the aisle in the administration i actually genuinely think biden in his heart of hearts wanted to have an administration that was close, 5050 democrats and republican. Its something he and Joe Lieberman and others from their cohort for years have been talking about. And i think the inertia of politics led against that. Biden did appoint some wonderful republicans to top people like cindy mccain as an ambassador overseas, a number of others. But i think there is a scenario where we might be able to arrest this development, a potential spoiler candidacy, and have a coalition that unites against donald trump. Ill amend that by saying, in the long view of american politics, looking out at the rest of the century, i do think its very important we introduce more choice and more competition. Thats a multiparty democracy. Its factions within the parties. Our democracy has gotten very, very stagnant. But now i dont think is the moment to go run untested. Third Party Candidate when we know for sure that one of the people that could benefit is someone who probably will do irreparable damage to the fabric of our republic republic. Yeah this is your book talks. Im not even going to talk about what i think any of that. We had a great conversation, got really strong views. I had a Good Coalition of independents. We have an amazing coalition of independents, democrats and some republicans. It was it was 2020 for sure. Trump okay, one more. And then then we got to get out of here. So this is the final here. Trump displaced the clintonian adage its the economy, but how much was economics a part of the trump story . And what is economics . How so . Yeah, thats a great question. How does that look in a second term, right . Yeah, we have to be those of us who consider in the prodemocracy movement and we are a diverse Political Coalition need to recognize donald trump also together a very and very unusual Political Coalition i think without precedent in recent times which is hes managed to and you know these people youve met them there are people whove said that they were bernie supporters and trump supporters. Remember the first time i heard a friend, a close friend say that i thought, what was its influence . These are two totally different people. But i understood what both of those candidates done is theyve reached out to a disaffected cohort in america, especially Blue Collar Workers who really feel like theyre getting left behind. And the Republican Party has talked for a long time about becoming a big tent party. Donald trump built a big tent, but in a really different way. He and brought in to the party a number of people in other parts of we think of politics often as a far left, far right. Its much more of a circle. And youve got these maga maybe, a horseshoe, youve got maga folks down here on end of the horseshoe and you actually have some supporters, not all of them on the other end of the and a lot of them have found cause hes put together a very interesting coalition and largely that coalition is unified around economic issues. And one of the messages that resonates with those cohorts is the offshoring u. S. Jobs workforce, displacement. And its why trump something that for me as a conservative, was very frightening is he became a protection ist. I believe firmly in market economics, free trade agreements overseas, working closely with our allies to trade and we can go into another economics lesson im sure you would dissuade from doing that. But and largely the party well before and after Ronald Reagan was a party viewed free trade agreements favorably. Donald trump was the ultimate protection and wanted to reassure all aspects of american industry. And that allowed him to form this coalition a different sort of economic coalition. I think his message will be more powerful in 2024, in regard than it was in 16 or 20 because of what were seeing with technology there was just a report that came out the other day that that artificial intelligence, the coming years will lead to 20 workforce, displacing and in the United States, a change in one in five jobs in this country. That is seismic. That is great level seismic change that will cause people to be scared and cause them to feel inclined to run into the arms of a socalled strong man who says that he can protect them. Again, we know from history thats about the most dangerous way to zombie into an autocracy. And i think that thats the situation that were in. But ill leave you with a note of optimism, because its not its not all dark. And in the longer run, i am genuinely excited and optimistic about some of the things we are seeing in the democracy reform movement. My diagnosis in this book of what ails our democracy is really the structural the lack of structural reform its become and less competitive our country all the statistics show it blew zip codes are becoming bluer red districts are becoming redder and congress is getting less competitive right now, 15 of americans approve of the job. Congress is doing. So think of any other marketplace. Thats about the shittiest review of a product you could ever have is to go to the store and say, 15 of us like the soap on the shelf. Well, what percentage do you think keep buying that soap . 95 of members of congress win. Their reelections. So . So one likes the products and all keep buying the product. Why . Because 10 of americans, roughly determine with the rest of us. The other percent vote on in the november ballot. It tends to be ideological voters that show up at the primaries. And in many states, the primary process is closed. So if youre not in that club, youre not in that party, you dont get to vote in it. So naturally you get more ideological. Candidates ended up on the general election ballot. Thats just one aspect i wont get into others, but in the long term reforms like open primaries, like ranked choice voting, tend to moderates because they force to put together more just a coalition of their most ideological supporters. If they dont appeal to the moderate majority, they cant win that race. As we make those reforms, i think it will ameliorate the polarization in this country. But its generational challenge. It will take us probably a few decades to implement those types of reforms, but were starting down that path. So but let me just say thank you to all of you for coming and for those of you who are in this prodemocracy fight. Im