Former Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor recalled a recent conversation on his Substack with a reporter in which Taylor was called out for "getting paid big bucks to stand up to Trump."
Taylor said that for a long time, something like this would have hit a nerve for him because Trump frequently used this idea to attack his critics.
According to Taylor, "The word Trump uses, and the word his whole movement adopted with the reflexivity of pull-string dolls, is 'grifter.'"
The reality is something very different, he explained, joking about his big "wealth-building secrets."
The first step, he said, was getting fired, and the second was filling out welfare benefits.
"All the best con men are on unemployment while they make their big bet," Taylor wrote.
"Step three, and this is where the scheme really accelerates: give away the majority of proceeds from your book, hundreds of thousands of dollars, at the very moment you’re struggling to figure out how to pay your own bills," Taylor said.
Taylor also refused a financial advance for his book, A Warning, the New York Times reported.
His next step, he said, was to blow whatever money he had on security guards and lawyers to help protect his family.
"Every penny you drop on concealed weapons and lawyers will eventually make you richer. Trust me," Taylor said, tongue-in-cheek.
Next, he suggested a big money maker was to "get placed under federal investigation by a vengeful president, then sit at the kitchen table with your wife and price out what it would mean to sell your house to cover what’s coming. Also, consider getting even more lawyers."
The final step, he said, is to fight back "and then hold your wife as she cries after the startup you built together, and the friendships that have mattered most to you, crumble before your eyes."
Taylor has now formed a different good government group, DEFIANCE.org, which aims to help people mobilize around presidential overreach.
Hd noted that despite his appearances on television, he's not making money off of the thousands of views that his interviews get.
While he's being sarcastic about his "wealth," he promised he's "doing just fine," but said that if his goal was to make money, taking "the road not taken" would not have been the way to do it.
"Before Trump returned to office, I was on the path to building a multimillion-dollar business. Keeping my mouth shut was the lucrative option. It always was. The real profits in American life these days are earned by sitting comfortably on the sidelines. Yet it comes at a terrible price, which — at this point in my life, with what’s happening in our country — I decided was not a price worth paying," Taylor explained.
One of the realizations he had came after meeting up with a close friend at a conference, when the person explained they'd have to distance themselves from him amid the new Trump administration.
"Was I just trying to get attention?" the friend asked.
"Then, he explained in hand-wringing detail that he would need to step back from our friendship, lest he and his own business interests get caught in the crossfire. Ah, I thought, now I understand what’s happening here. He laid out the logic of disassociation," wrote Taylor, saying that his friend claimed he had to put on his oxygen mask first.
He closed by confessing that it took him a long time to let go of his anger about being called a "grifter" while his family was struggling. After the encounter with his friend, Taylor said he felt "pity."
