President Donald Trump with members of his Cabinet, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in 2025 (image from White House galleries)
Numerous Republican lawmakers are past the point of "fed up" with President Donald Trump, but according to one his most notable former officials, they have refused to do anything about it because they are "scared to speak up" — and he knows why.
Miles Taylor previously served in the first Trump administration, eventually reaching the level of chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security, but he gained widespread notoriety for an initially anonymous New York Times op-ed where he claimed to be part of a movement within the White House to resist his worst impulses. Since departing that position in 2019, he has emerged as one of the most outspoken conservative opponents of his former boss, something he said brought a flood of "crowdsourced violence" from MAGA supporters, including death threats, stalking and more.
In a piece published by The i Paper on Friday, Taylor claimed that it is this threat of mob retaliation that has made many Republicans keep quiet about their growing animosity towards Trump, which he has heard about directly from elected lawmakers.
"So, you want to know why people self-censor? It is situations like mine," Taylor explained. "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 continued: "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."
Trump's arrival in Washington, D.C., heralded an explosion in the threat of serious threats made against elected officials. According to Capitol Police data Taylor cited, the number started around 1,000 per year in 2016, and now sits around 10,000 annually. This is reinforced, he argued, by Republicans who stay quiet about Trump, a trend that signals to his followers that their intimidation gets results.
There was one point in time, above all, which Taylor argued caused the GOP to shut up about their misgivings with Trump.
"I can pinpoint the exact moment many of these Republicans really lost their nerve: January 6, 2021. Incidentally, that was the same day my car was being searched for tracking devices by former spooks," he explained. "As it was being picked apart, a mob was storming the United States Capitol. The Republicans who witnessed that day internalised a lesson: Trump not only was willing to threaten them with official revenge if they strayed from his edicts, but he was also able to dispatch violent crowds to do his bidding. So they shut themselves up."