A former Homeland Security official has shed light on an allegedly ludicrous proposal made by Donald Trump regarding the U.S.-Mexico border wall in a new book titled “Blowback: A Warning To Save Democracy From the Next Trump.” The official, Miles Taylor, claimed that during a meeting in March 2019, Trump suggested a plan involving ranchers, their cattle, and ladders that was so “incandescently stupid” that Taylor couldn’t even laugh.
According to Taylor, when informed that reports of ranchers in Texas using doors in the wall to let their cattle graze near the Rio Grande were false, Trump remained undeterred. Instead, he instructed officials to purchase the land and proposed providing ladders to the ranchers, believing that they could use them to get to the other side. He even suggested using small fire trucks with ladders from local fire stations to assist them, seemingly overlooking the issue of how the cattle would follow the ranchers.
In Taylor’s upcoming book, he emphasizes that with Trump, the truth was often more absurd than fiction. He stated that Trump devoted more time to brainstorming impractical ideas at the border than focusing on his actual responsibilities. Taylor served as the chief of staff at the agency from 2017 to 2019 and describes Trump’s border proposals as sometimes stupid, sometimes illegal, and frequently both.
It is worth noting that Miles Taylor previously revealed himself as the anonymous author of a 2018 op-ed in The New York Times titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” He has since become an outspoken critic of the former president and publicly supported President Joe Biden during the 2020 election. Taylor renounced his affiliation with the Republican Party in 2020, citing the party’s inability to be salvaged and expressing concerns about the vitriolic rhetoric inspiring violent radicals.
BOOK BLURB
Donald Trump will be president again, whether he is on the ballot or not. That is because Trumpism is overtaking the Republican Party and will mount a vigorous comeback, potentially in the hands of a savvier successor—The Next Trump.
This prophecy will come true, according to Miles Taylor, if we do not learn the lessons of the recent past.
With the 2024 election approaching, the formerly “Anonymous” official is back with bombshell revelations and a sobering national forecast. Through interviews with dozens of ex-Trump aides and government leaders, Taylor predicts what could happen inside “Trump 2.0,” the White House of a more competent and more formidable copycat.
What sounds like a political thriller—from shadowy presidential powers and CIA betrayals to angry henchmen and assassination plots—is instead America’s political reality, as Taylor uses untold stories to shed light on the ex-President’s unfulfilled plans, the dark forces haunting our civic lives, and how we can thwart the rise of extremism in the United States.
Blowback is also a surprisingly emotional and self-critical portrait of a dissenter, whose own unmasking provides a vivid warning about what happens when we hide the truth from others and, most importantly, ourselves.