U.S. Officials Allegedly Worried About Nuclear War With North Korea in Early Days of Trump Administration
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“Experts walked through various scenarios of a nuclear strike on the U.S. homeland," Miles Taylor writes in his forthcoming book
In the early days of Donald Trump's administration, top U.S. officials privately worried about the possibility of a nuclear war with North Korea, a new book from a former security official alleges.
Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff to Homeland Security Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen during Trump's presidency, made the allegation in his upcoming book, Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump, which is due out July 18.
In the book, Taylor details the fallout from Trump's now infamous 2017 statement that the U.S. would use “fire and fury” against North Korea should they continue to escalate their nuclear threats.
“In the national security world, anything having to do with nuclear weapons is handled with extreme sensitivity — well planned, carefully scripted — yet we didn’t know what Trump might say at any given moment,” Taylor writes in the book, as excerpted in Politico. “One day, he threatened North Korea ‘with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.’ He almost seemed to welcome a nuclear conflict, which terrified us.”
Taylor adds that the Department of Homeland Security “convened every top leader ... to discuss the brewing crisis."
“Experts walked through various scenarios of a nuclear strike on the U.S. homeland, dusted off response plans, and outlined best-case scenarios which nevertheless sounded horrifically grim. I cannot provide the details, but I walked out of those meetings genuinely worried about the safety of the country. In my view, the department was unprepared for the type of nuclear conflict Trump might foment.”
Speaking to Politico about the allegation, Taylor said the conversations marked "the first time to my knowledge that DHS thought there was the possibility, however remote, of Trump actually starting a war and us having to prepare for the nuclear fallout in the homeland."
A spokesperson for Trump has not responded to PEOPLE's request for comment about the book.
Taylor first made headlines anonymously when, in 2018, he wrote a scathing essay for The New York Times about his time working for Trump.
In the Times op-ed, titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” the anonymous author claimed that many senior White House officials were secretly working to “thwart” the president’s “misguided impulses” and “worst inclinations” until he left office.
Writing anonymously, Taylor claimed: “Meetings with [Trump] veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back."
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Additionally, the op-ed claimed that concerned cabinet members at first considered invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office but ultimately decided against it because “no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis.”
“So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over,” the author wrote, later adding: “It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room. We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.”
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