Trump 2.0: Reckoning & Revenge with Miles Taylor

0:04Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is Open Book, where I talk with some of the brightest minds out there about everything surrounding the written word, from authors and historians to figures in entertainment, neuroscientists, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Sorry, I can't resist. Before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review. We all love a review, even the bad ones. I want to hear the parts you're enjoying or how we can do better. You know, I can roll with the punches, so let me know.

0:38Anyways, let's get to it.

0:49Trumpism. That's something I hope we had seen the back of, but we now know that's far from the truth. Miles Taylor's new book, Blowback, predicts what a second Trump presidency could look like. It reads like a thriller, but the scary thing is if we don't fight back and learn from what Miles is telling us, it could become a reality. With 2024 just around the corner, we need to learn from the past, and I urge you to listen to everything in this conversation.

1:22So joining us now on Open Book is someone that I consider a friend and a patriot and a bestselling author. He's the former chief of staff for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He's a national security expert. He's written a couple of books. His recent book is called Blowback, A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump. Miles became very famous when he wasn't famous, of course, because he had written the New York Times article under the title of Anonymous. And then he wrote a book, Anonymous, which was describing to the American people from inside the Trump administration, the danger of Donald Trump.

1:58And so obviously, you know, you and I have shared that commonality. We wanted to go work for the government and help our government serve the American people and saw things that were out of control that we both felt compelled to talk about. So obviously, you know, I admire you a great deal, Miles. This new book, A Warning to Save Democracy of the Next Trump, is phenomenal. And I'm going to tell you what, Anonymous was great, but I love the fact that your name is on this book and I love the fact that you are very candid about everything, including you yourself, which I heartily recommend to people, particularly young people, to read this book because it is a real basic guidebook on what to do and how to do it and how to serve your country in a patriotic way.

2:41So thank you for writing it. It takes guts to do the things that you've done. Take us back to 2018, your anonymous New York Times article. And I've heard you say in other interviews that you sort of feel like you contributed negatively by making it anonymous in terms of people's trust in government. Explain that to us, Miles. Explain to us where you were in 2018, the thought process there and where you are today in 2023, your thought process? Anthony, it's a great question. And I'm not going to let you interview me that way without first addressing you and how awesome you have been throughout this process.

3:14I promise I'll answer your first question. But in the spirit of being real, real and just candid and not going on shows and doing talking points, you and I had a phone conversation after the election in 2020, when I was still living in this safe house that I talk about in the book, the place I basically had to escape to as things just got worse and worse. And honestly, I did not know what I was going to do next in my life because my life had blown up. And I will never forget, it was nighttime. I was sitting on the balcony of this high rise, this totally nondescript, boring ass, horrible safe house in Northern Virginia.

3:56And the Wi-Fi signal was best on the balcony. And I had my laptop positioned in the dark and we talked from sunset until it was dark. And I think just the laptop screen was the only thing lighting up my face. And I was asking you what you thought I should do next. And you were really blunt with me. And you said, just keep telling the truth. And boy, did that stick with me because writing this book, No Bullshit, was really hard to do. It was hard to every day be thinking about how grim a second Trump term could be. But I felt an obligation to try to paint that picture very lucidly and not hyperbolically, but also hard to relive some of the really traumatic pieces.

4:40So I actually don't know, Anthony, if in saying that I should tell you that I hate you or that I love you for encouraging me to do that. But I think it's the latter. And so I just, I really want to thank you. I sometimes have self-loathing. I get it because you're saying stuff and you're like, you know, there's a weird thing going on in our society now. People are punished for honesty and they're praised for conjecture and talking points. You know, like if you were a community, if you were the CEO of a publicly traded company and I was your successful communications as director, not the failed one that I was in the White House.

5:18But if I was a successful one, I'd be telling you to say nothing. Go on the air. Here's your homogenized talking points. Walk off the air so that people feel you didn't say anything. Don't be offensive to anybody. Okay. But you're out there and you're explaining to people that the country is under threat. The country is under threat, not just from Donald Trump, but from a cabal of people that want to end the democracy. They don't like the rules anymore. Either the demographics changed and it became less of a white country. And so we don't want the brown and black people to be in power. So let's change the rules.

5:53Or we don't like certain parts of our culture. Or we don't like certain people that have different sexual orientations than ourselves. Or who knows, even some of that's maybe even closeted fear-based stuff that goes on. I don't know what it is, but we reward people for not telling the truth. And we hit people like you with a shotgun blast for telling the truth, Miles. So why is that, you think? First of all, do you agree with that assessment or am I off the mark? Completely. And we'll give you an answer and I'll start with an anecdote. There's a lot of fear today about being on the wrong side of your listeners or your viewers.

6:31And that doesn't just apply to a TV show host or a podcaster. I mean, like everyday Americans, your listeners or your viewers or your friends and your family and there's people around you or the people watching your Snapchats or TikToks, folks are just really terrified of getting canceled and pushed out of their tribe, whatever their tribe is. And it changes their behavior. And I'll give you an example. And I won't say who this is because I do highly respect the person. But I was on a I was on a cable news show in the past couple of days. And, you know, someone who's got a left leaning show who I think felt that they, you know, even though they had me on, I'm still a former a Republican and, you know, I served in the Trump administration.

7:07So there's still got to be a zinger in there. And they came after me on Trump's reprehensible family separation policy and said, you know, you were at the Department of Homeland Security when this happened. Do you want to apologize to the families? And I'll tell you, Anthony, that fucking sucked because the true story is I was one of the few people in the federal government trying to stop that policy. And in fact, I was the guy who co-wrote the executive order that we put in front of Trump to tell Jeff Sessions to go pound sand and that it was over. But a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth can put its pants on.

7:45In fact, the truth is probably still just totally asleep in the digital age as the as the lie laps the planet. And I give you this example, not because anyone needs sympathy for me. Obviously, you and I going into the Trump administration, you know, people are going to say, well, therefore, the fact that you were there means you must own these policies. and refuse the intellectual exercise of actually digging deeper and asking, you know, what actually did you do when that thing happened? But I think people posture because there is a fear that if they don't do what their tribe is expecting, that they themselves will get attacked.

8:18And it leads to, I think, intellectual dishonesty. But more than anything, it leads people to really misrepresent their views. So let me be more specific about this. In the book, in Blowback, I talk about how there have been recent surveys that show that everyday Americans, the moderate majority, is now self-centric, that people misrepresent their views in public and have very different views in private, especially on politics. What's scary to me is the cohort that doesn't do that are the political extremes, especially on the far right. People on the far right will tell you in public what they say in private.

8:56And so if we've got the majority that are moderate just shutting themselves up, then it really is definitionally the extremes driving the debate. And you pair that with studies that show that I think it's something like 75 % of the conversation on Twitter was being driven by the 8 % most ideological voters and social media users. The stats plus or minus a few percentage points, but Jonathan Haidt cites that in one of his books. And it literally shows is that the extreme elements are the ones driving the conversation. And it makes it harder and harder for people to speak out. I think the only way you counter that is frankly, you just refuse to shut up.

9:32I mean, so for instance, I could have curled up in this hotel room bed yesterday that is still kind of messy after that shitty cable news hit. But again, I respect the anchor. It was a good person. I think they were trying to get to a good question. But if I just let bad moments like that shut me up, well, then the other side, the MAGA guys win because then I'm not out there talking about the dangers of a second Trump administration. So I guess that's to say in this environment, you got to kind of take the crap a little bit because it makes it that much easier for the next person to come forward and less scary for them to speak out.

10:09I agree. There's going to be a however, though, there is a group of people, no matter what you say or how honest you are. There's just a group of people because you work for Donald Trump, they're just going to negate you. That's part of their virtue signal. They have to, you work for Trump, you're definitionally bad, even though you were a force for good inside the administration, even though you were attempting to protect the American people. General Kelly is a personal friend of mine and a personal friend of yours. We both know why our friend General Kelly left, which I'd like to go into if you don't mind, but also take our listeners behind closed doors with Donald Trump and why he's not the representative of the GOP, but yet you have these jellyfish that could have put him right through the ropes after January 6th.

10:59But rather than do that, they flew down to Mar-a-Lago to do photo ops with him. What is it about his personality that scares these people? And tell us a little about General Kelly, your experience with Pompeo or Kevin McCarthy. Yeah, well, and I'll answer that by explaining actually why I went into the administration. And hopefully this merges your first question with the second question. And that is, I was really opposed to Trump early in 2015 and 2016 when he emerged onto the presidential scene. He just didn't seem like a conservative to me, didn't seem like a Republican. And, you know, I didn't want to see him be president.

11:35And in the last days of the election, I sort of frantically tried to get members of Congress that I was working with in the House of Representatives. I was a staffer at the time, tried to get them to rescind their endorsements. And I started to see inklings of the answer to your question in the responses I got. As members of Congress sort of blew me off or made jokes. And none of the ones I tried to get to rescind their endorsements did, even though after the Access Hollywood tape, it seemed like there was abundant reason to distance themselves from the guy. And I couldn't figure it out. I thought, you know, at a minimum, it's going to be politically beneficial for these people to say they stood on the right side of history when Donald Trump inevitably loses.

12:12But even if he had lost, I don't think those people would have regretted not rescinding their endorsements. Why? Because they didn't want to break from the tribe. And rescinding their endorsement from Trump would have made it look like they weren't a team player in the Republican Party. And they would have been chided for that. And these guys value their tribal affiliation more than anything in their lives. I mean, I sincerely think in some cases they care more about their tribal affiliation with the GOP than they do the livelihoods or the welfare of their families. And I say that because when John Kelly came onto the scene, I saw a very different attitude.

12:49And he got nominated by Trump to be Secretary of Homeland Security. I'd loosely known him in his time at U.S. Southern Command because he'd come up and testified on Capitol Hill. We'd engaged with him. And I had immense respect for him. And in those early conversations with Kelly and his transition team, it was clear he was going into the administration with a very different perspective, not trying to suck up to Donald Trump and endorse him, but frankly, from a position of grave concern about whether this man was capable of being commander in chief. And at that point, I'd actually been offered several jobs in the White House.

13:20And, you know, that would have been a dream to, you know, I think back to 10 year old Miles Taylor. He would have said, what the hell are you thinking? You're not going to take a job in the White House. This is your dream. But I knew it would be career suicide to be that close to that guy. And it was obvious to everyone. He was a pretty bad man. And so I didn't take the job in the White House. But when I spoke to Kelly, I thought, OK, this is a guy who legitimately wants to come in and keep the wheels on the wagon. And maybe there's a shot to do that if I'm working for him and not working for the big guy.

13:54And so I did say yes to that and went in and joined him. And like you maintain immense respect for John Kelly. You know, I rarely go through social media comments because people are such jackasses. But, you know, occasionally I do. And I don't know, not too long ago, I posted something John Kelly said. And, you know, there were people out there. How can you like General Kelly? And he enabled this guy that that that that that I'm going to tell folks right now, I don't care what your opinion is. I know the man. He's one of the most moral people I've ever met in Washington. And he threw his whole body and his career on a grenade and troll comments like that actually justify what I just said, because he knew he would be villainized by people who would never understand why he stayed in that administration.

14:35But I sincerely think we could have gotten into a nuclear war when Donald Trump was president. That was a nonzero possibility. And people like Kelly being around prevented that. Now, at the end of the day, I'll be very self-critical. I think we were deluded in thinking we could keep him in check. And we ended up failing at the end of the day because he just simply replaced the people who tried to keep him in check. And I was highly responsible for spreading that fantasy that unelected bureaucrats could protect us from Trump. I'm guilty as charged of that. But till my dying day, I will say people don't know the full extent of what John Kelly did to protect this country.

15:13And I just admire it immensely. Yeah. And listen, he fired me. OK, that was like his first official act was to fire me. OK. And I, you know, I was a little sore at him in the beginning. We were both a little sore. But I think once we got each other's vibe, we became very close friends. And I think that that's that's the important thing if you're committed and you're a patriot. And what I would say about you and John Kelly, you guys are patriots first, partisans second, or maybe even partisans deep last, but you're patriots, you know, through the whole alphabet, if you will, down to the letter Z.

15:45Well, can I say, can I interject, Anthony, to throw that right back at you? But I'll say to listeners, just so they don't think I'm blowing smoke up your ass, that, you know, my opinions of you were influenced by the chief, you know, at first. And I remember the day that we swore him in, in the Oval Office, and you were in there and, and Kellyanne and Jared and others. And, and I'm pretty sure that the, in fact, this is, this is how I remember you tell me if you remember it differently. We went into the Roosevelt room to celebrate after Trump swore him in, which was sort of funny because it was more, I describe it in the book, like a funeral wake and not a celebration because we were so upset at DHS to lose him.

16:23And we also knew it was going to be, you know, he was not looking forward to being the chief of staff to the president, to put it lightly, but he didn't come into the Roosevelt room. And I was like, well, where the hell is he? And I'm pretty sure one of the first things he did was after he walked out of the Oval, you and him, you know, had a pull aside conversation where I think it was discussed that you would be leaving. And, you know, when that became public that you'd left the administration, I thought, oh, you know, here he is cleaning house of these Trumpers that are in there. And since that time, you know this, I've come to have just the most, the highest opinion of you possible.

16:58You're just an exceptional patriot, a family man. You're so generous, incredibly even to your critics. It's amazing. I've learned so much from you. But that's because there was a willingness to, you know, open the door back up and have conversations, which people don't do anymore. They don't re-engage someone that they had a character of. And I think you were the one to reach out to me several years ago. And I was just floored by it. So anyway, that was all a way of saying that I fired you immensely. It's nice to say, I mean, you know, you see, you are a nice person. That's not actually what happened.

17:33He called me into his office and said, you're fired. And he said, I'm cleaning house and I need my own comms director. You're not going to be it. and he gave me my marching papers. Okay. I got up and I shook his hand. I said, I totally respect that. You're the chief. He then admitted to me, which was, I have to tell you, I had a lot of respect for. He said, the minute that Trump said that I was reporting directly to him, there's no way that you can have the comms director report directly to the president and not through the chief of staff. And he said, even though you're willing to do that, that wouldn't work.

18:11You would just the idea that that was in the memo. And, you know, listen, obviously the thing I said about Bannon, which, you know, I think it's one of the best things I've ever said in my life. Actually, I have no problem with it. You know, we don't have to go over it. This is not an R-rated podcast, but I think it was literally one of the more legendary comments. And by the way, as General Kelly now admits to me, you know, I was right. You know, Bannon was one of the more malevolent cretins in our society. And so the thing I would say about Bannon Miles is that he understands and can articulate Trump's worldview because he's a student of history.

18:48But what I also say to my atheist friends out there, if you don't believe in God, you should. And let me provide evidence why there is a God, because Bannon is smart, he's charismatic, he's well-read, he has a malevolent worldview that Trump shares. but God made Steve so ugly. Okay. He's made him so ugly that we don't take him seriously. Thank God. Right. You know, he looks like, you know, he's, he's, he's got the rosacea of an alcoholic and he dresses in contemporary hobo. Okay. Thank God. You know, so you have to thank God. I think it's hobo chic. Yeah. Hobo chic. You have to thank God for that.

19:24But go to these guys in your book, go to McCarthy, Pompeo, go to the Republicans in the book. What has you twerked up or not torqued up about those guys? It's not personal for me anymore. It was for a period. There was a period of time where I felt deeply personally let down by these people. Again, the McCarthy's and the Pompeo's who I witnessed in private express very candidly their views of the former president, their very negative views of the former president, the things that we all know to be true. I mean, I don't even need to catalog what they thought because they just thought what we all thought.

20:02He's an observably stupid, unhinged person. And anyone who can't see that is clearly trying to get something and has some kind of agenda. I mean, genuinely, I've yet to meet the person that's in our political system in the Republican Party who really authentically admires Donald Trump. I don't know who that is. And there is no actual mega maga. There's just mega climbers and and the people who, you know, keep their opinions to themselves and hope they won't draw his ire. And so it was a lot of personal disappointment and folks like that that I looked up to. And now it's just I feel like I've got to find the people who are willing to be flipped because they are so, so valuable.

20:48I do think that I'll give you an example. Another person who I didn't used to be friends with and now I just think the world of is Stephanie Grisham. You know, Stephanie made my life a living hell when she was press secretary and coming out against me when I was criticizing the president and all that stuff. She went after me. She went after me, too. Yeah. But you know what? When she turned on Trump, I thought this is such a gift because she's such a credible messenger. She was in the MAGA movement. She was at least a true believer in the populism. She may not have been a true believer that Donald Trump was a man of character.

21:22And now she's really seen the ugly underbelly of it. And she can go message to those communities. And I think people like Stephanie helped folks break away from the tribe and are useful messengers. So that's where my focus is now, is trying to find those Republicans who I know have an opinion in private that they might be willing to express in public and try to lower that cost for them. Some of those people you mentioned, you know, I don't think Kevin McCarthy, I don't think it'll ever happen, sadly. Yeah. I you know, I saw some inklings of it with Pompeo recently. And and it's sad to me because I personally had just I got to tell you, I mean, at one point I told Mike Pompeo that I thought he should be president of the United States before Donald Trump was elected.

22:01I mean, yeah, it's a gifted guy. I was like, you are like the Tony Soprano of politics, but with a moral code. I just freaking loved Pompeo. And, you know, he was a sophomore congressman and I was a junior staffer. And I was just like, you are the guy. Like, let's get you there. And wanted to help him angle into good chairmanships and future in the party. But then to watch him as secretary of state know these same things that I knew and be in a more important position, a vastly more important position than me and have a microphone and not then use that to tell people the truth about the danger in the Oval Office.

22:37That was a deeply disappointing thing. And I continue to be disappointed, but I'm not taking it so personally anymore. I'm more focused on, OK, who can who can we get to actually speak the truth and how do we make it easier for them to speak the truth? And we agree. And I like Mike a lot, but he falls into the category of many of them. So what do you think of this current crop of presidential candidates and the 2024 primary season? And if you don't mind, make a prediction for us. Um, it actually is mixed because I am starting to see more criticism of Trump than I expected. I had a pretty grim view going in.

23:14I didn't think there would be any candidates outside of, you know, people who don't have a shot that would be criticizing Trump. But Chris Christie may not have a shot, but we've seen the Christie's thankfully just go full bore against Trump. And Christie, like a lot of us, is not undeserving of criticism. I mean, he really, really lent legitimacy to Donald Trump from the get go and all the way through. But you know what? It's never too late to do the right thing. And I firmly believe in redemption. And by God, you know, day by day, Christie is slowly redeeming himself in my eyes by going out there and being really blunt about Trump.

23:50And I actually will say it's more courageous than folks realize because Christie is going in front of these audiences that are really conservative. You know, he's going and standing in front of these folks that really, really love Trump. And he's telling them that Donald Trump is a psychopath. And that takes some guts. But we need more people doing that. So, look, if I had to make a prediction about the field and I'm going to paint a pessimistic picture right now, I think Donald Trump, despite another indictment that is imminent, will be the GOP nominee. I think he will be the GOP nominee. I don't think anything's going to change with Biden being on the ticket.