Ex-Trump official warns president's mistakes are 'costing lives'

President Donald Trump is making mistakes as president that, according to his former Homeland Security Chief of Staff, will cost Americans their lives.

Miles Taylor, who served during Trump’s first term, told MS NOW on Wednesday that the $1.776 billion slush fund that Trump created for his political supporters and possibly himself is more expensive than the government spends on important national security projects.

"It's probably the biggest heist in American history of any kind, of any sort, that tells you a lot about the United States Congress,” Taylor said during an MS NOW appearance on Wednesday. “The Congress that spent most of its legislative time this week talking about the ballroom, trying to get ballroom funds passed instead of inflation and wars, or this heist."

Taylor also denounced Trump’s gutting of America’s scientific infrastructure, particularly when it comes to fighting pandemics.

“There are record numbers of measles cases in our country right now,” Taylor said. “They affect kids. There's a hantavirus outbreak in the world being closely monitored, and there are mounting concerns over a deadly Ebola outbreak in central Africa. And it is clear to everyone paying attention that Donald Trump has rendered the United States of America and the rest of the world less prepared and less safe by the things he has done — by shuttering foreign aid and USAID, meant to keep diseases under control, by monitoring them and understanding them, and, in the best-case scenario, keeping them far away. And he has done that because he thinks those steps were, quote, ‘radical and not aligned with American interests.’ Perhaps nothing is more aligned with American interests.”

Taylor added, “The Ebola outbreak — a rare strain, currently with no vaccine or treatment — has already killed more than 100 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It has also sickened hundreds more people, including an American doctor who has since been taken to Germany for care. Meanwhile, an international relief group says Donald Trump's cuts are partially to blame for the outbreak, forcing them to cut down their work in the now-epicenter and leading to delayed detection of the disease itself. While a group made up of now-former USAID staff says it, quote, ‘would have been there with gloves and gowns and body bags and medicine, leading door-to-door contact tracing, making sure burials are safe, stopping the spread.’ But Donald Trump shut down USAID, calling it, ‘waste and abuse.’ Turns out it kept us all alive.”

Earlier this month Taylor also pointed out that Republican lawmakers, despite publicly supporting the president, are privately “fed up” with Trump.

"So, you want to know why people self-censor?” Taylor wrote for The iPaper. “It is situations like mine. Trump and his acolytes realize they don’t need to arrest everyone, they just need to make enough public examples that everyone else decides speaking up isn’t worth the cost."

He added, "I’ve been texting with some of those elected GOP leaders over the past few weeks, urging them to follow suit, to speak out. I know they’re appalled by Trump. When he was threatening genocide, they said so – to me, in private messages. But not one of them has spoken out publicly. In some ways, I understand why, because I’ve seen what speaking out costs. But what they don’t get is that their silence is making it worse for them, not better. Intimidation is a vicious cycle. As soon as you cower, the current grows stronger. The ones doing the intimidation face less resistance, realize their tactics are working, and double down. Unfortunately, the numbers have proven this to be the case in America."

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