President Donald Trump was irate following the GOP's failures in the 2018 midterms, according to a prominent leaker from his first term, and in the face of this year's blue wave, he will almost certainly become "angrier" and as "unhinged" as ever.
Miles Taylor worked at the Department of Homeland Security during Trump's first term, eventually becoming chief of staff for the agency before leaving in 2019. Prior to that, he first emerged on the scene in secret, with an anonymous op-ed he penned for The New York Times claiming to be part of an internal White House resistance to Trump's worst impulses. Since then, he has emerged as a vocal critic of his former boss and frequently offers insights he gained from firsthand experience in the administration.
In his latest piece for The i Paper on Election Day, he recounted the reaction he saw from Trump after the bruising losses the GOP took in 2018, costing them the House and stalling his agenda significantly.
"On election night 2018, Democrats flipped 40 House seats, their biggest gain since the Watergate era in the 1970s," Taylor detailed. "I was with the president the following day, and his demeanour validated my expectations about whatever post-election 'poise' White House staff were hoping for from the boss. In private, he was a grievance machine, venting about the investigations he knew were coming. Then he marched into the East Room for a press conference and warned that if the new majority used its subpoena power against him, he’d adopt a 'war-like posture.'"
He added: "The press conference lasted an hour and a half. It was like watching a drunk man waving around his steak knife at a dinner party. Staff cringed and averted their eyes as the spectacle lurched from threats to gaffes and back again. Eventually Trump got into a shouting match with reporters. He railed against the political opposition. By that afternoon, he had forced out his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and by evening the White House had revoked the press pass of CNN’s Jim Acosta, who’d asked tough questions."
Fast forward to 2026 and the Democrats are, by most predictive metrics, poised for an even bigger blowout win, easily carrying the House and with very sound odds of taking the Senate. Taylor explained that what kept Trump restrained, even a little bit, back in 2018 were advisers willing to tell him "No" and the prospect of a reelection campaign two years later. Now, neither of those factors are in play.
"Trump cannot run again. The people around him were chosen for loyalty," Taylor wrote. "And Democrats are preparing to investigate far more than his collusion with Russia. They’re signalling far-reaching probes into the Trump family, his pardons of the wealthy elite, the prosecutions of his critics, his taxpayer-funded vanity projects, questionable foreign deals and more. Trump appears rightfully worried about spending the rest of his life under subpoena and watching his legacy taken apart."
He added: "So I expect him first to do whatever he can to deny, delay or disrupt a handover in Congress. That includes contesting close counts, pressuring state officials over certification, and pointing his Justice Department to take action in districts he claims were stolen. Much of that may fail. If it does, he’ll get angrier and seek more drastic remedies... Once the midterms are done and the investigations are opened, the conversation in Washington will turn to 2028 and a taboo question: Will Trump leave voluntarily? Either way, it will not be quietly."
