trying to go defeat Maga candidates and again swing the pendulum back to the center and I'll say after two years of working in that space we lost and we lost miserably because the Maga wing of the party really took over not just at the federal level but all the way down to the state level and the state parties but it at the same time if you look at the data we saw the base itself really transform and this is why I worry about the next trump and someone trying to

be a copycat is because they will have to cater to the GOP base and it's a GOP base that's become more reactionary than it used to be. The Maga movement has sort of grown beyond Donald Trump's control and taken over the party and I think the conditions are right for a savvier success or to take over that movement and potentially cause greater damage in office.

It is my pleasure to welcome back to the podcast the author of the brand new book Blowback awarding to save democracy from the next trump you may know him as the former anonymous I feel like this is warning the sequel.

Miles Taylor welcome Miles Andrew good to be with you brother good to be back on the program so you are if someone's watching this on video you're in an airport in the Midwest it seems like one of the smaller ones out

trawling the country listening to Americans promoting the book where are we catching you you are finding me at a tiny little airport in Michigan right now so if you happen to hear a flight announcement or people boarding a plane

that's that's what she got and you hear good Midwestern accent on those announcements too so you know I just figure while talking about this book and the dangers of a second trump term I need to go into the heartland and have conversations with folks that are persuadable.

So most people are there's the announcement right on cue there it is so most people know of your background miles but let's give it to people who may not know you pen the world famous warning op-ed New York Times while you were a trump official you then left the administration came out as anonymous braved a lot of very significant threats

and dangers campaigned openly against trump in 2020 which was a very courageous act can you give people a little and now that I'm saying this some people like oh yeah I remember that if you're an avid listener the podcast and you remember miles coming on a number of months ago when we teamed up to form forward but you want to give people a little bit of your background and national security and the and the rest of it much of which is super relevant to the book.

Yeah I mean you know look I I never wanted to be in politics and you know as I said to you before Andrew I actually hate politics I'm a public policy guy and I went into government to work on national security after 9-11 and that took me from the Pentagon the Department of Homeland Security to Capitol Hill and then back into the executive branch as chief of staff the Department of Homeland Security and you know I look I'm a lifelong Republican until I left the party.

And I think all of us were clear I'd about who Donald Trump was but there was a cohort of people like John Kelly and Jim Mattis and Rex Tillerson cabinet secretaries who went into the Trump administration who didn't know him but wanted to try to be guardrails try to help him govern responsibly because there was a fear he would be reckless I was persuaded to come in as part of that team and to work for the so called access of adults and for a period of time I was.

And I even have been thinking that yeah we could keep this guy in check but day to day experience with him whether it was in the Oval Office or the situation room or on Air Force one showed me that not only was he undisciplined but that he was incredibly reckless with decisions involving American security and American lives in that position and so I penned an op-ed from within the administration anonymously in the New York Times saying that the president's own cabinet felt like he was dangerously under the law.

I'm thinking I'm going to have a great time and I think it's a great way to fit for office and we're working to thwart his more dangerous impulses and then eventually in 2020 I unmasked myself and went out to campaign against him.

You know I'm glad to say a lot of people joined me.

You know Jake Tapper at CNN called it the largest group of ex-efficials in American history to turn against a president who had appointed them and we just barely defeated him.

He is filled with harrowing accounts of your time in the administration of former president Trump's disposition, behaviors, attitudes, sometimes ignored calls to action and it did make one grateful that there were folks there who frankly would ignore some of the things that he wanted to do or say some people listening to this would say okay Trump was a terrible president in various ways.

Certainly you might not have the right character but we made it through the time okay and your book paints a very different picture.

I'd say that and I joked at the opening that it's like warning the sequel whereas the first time was like hey guys the stuff's really not looking so good from the inside.

Now now I got to say this book scared the shit out of me in terms of what would happen if he were to win again.

Was that one of the mean purposes of the book?

Yeah right on point Andrew I mean the goal here was to try to paint a very very clear eyed picture of what a Donald Trump or a maga copycat would do if they retook the White House.

And again if people don't want to believe me based on my experience I went and I spent two years effectively interviewing boards of former senior officials from the Trump administration.

People are who are still his confidants members of the Republican Party in Congress and in the Senate to try to ask them if he had won a second term what did he plan to do and what would he do if he came back again and to try to tell people who are still his confidants.

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