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 NationalSecurity 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