Insider exposes the single Trump mindset driving global chaos

Before Miles Taylor became an outspoken Never Trump conservative, he was a high-ranking official in President Donald Trump's first administration — where he served as chief of staff for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Taylor, in an article for the UK-based i Paper, remembers Trump describing his core philosophy on dealing with others. And that mindset, Taylor warns, is leading to "one catastrophe after another" during Trump's second presidency.

"One spring afternoon in 2019," Taylor recalls in his i Paper article, "I sat on a couch in the Oval Office as Donald Trump raged about the southern border and demanded we seal it entirely. His son-in-law Jared Kushner gently explained that closing a port of entry wouldn't stop migrant crossings — people would simply go around it — and that the only real casualties would be American businesses. 'Jared, I don't care,' the U.S. president snapped. 'That's not the point! The point is, it will make Mexico hurt.'"

The ex-Trump official continues, "Trump has a theory about leverage. His leadership philosophy — in a nutshell — is that threats are worthless and that you must damage someone else first if you want to get them to come to the negotiating table. Whether the damage accomplishes anything is irrelevant. Whether the target is an enemy or a neighbor is irrelevant. The pain is the point."

Trump, Taylor warns, "has brought all of the aggression of a hothead negotiator onto the world stage, secured nothing, and put the costs onto billions of innocent people while doing irreparable damage to his own side."

Trump's "philosophy" of "leverage," according to Taylor, is creating problems worldwide — from threatening longtime ally Canada with steep tariffs to going to war against Iran.

"Trump's settlement logic assumes his opponents have no alternatives," the former DHS chief of staff explains. "Once again, perhaps that was the case when he was building casinos. But countries do have alternatives…. Trump once explained to me and several other aides sitting in the Oval Office the lesson that he said had made him rich. In fact, he said it was the most important lesson he'd learned in business. 'When you threaten to sue somebody, they don't do anything,' he told us. 'They say: Pshhhh!' He waved a hand in the air, dismissively. 'And they keep doing what they want. But when you sue them, they go Ooooh, and they settle. It's as easy as that.'"

Taylor continues, "Maybe it worked in the real estate business. But right now, in U.S. foreign policy, the approach is leading to one catastrophe after another."