Miles Taylor, the prominent former Trump Department of Homeland Security chief of staff, is warning that his former agency has never been less prepared for a terror attack on U.S. soil.

“I oversaw counterterrorism at DHS for two years in the first Trump administration,” Taylor writes. “I’ve never seen DHS less prepared to defend the U.S. against a terrorist attack. And Trump took us to war five days ago — with a country that is hellbent on retaliating.”

Taylor says that “the Trump administration has left us vulnerable to an Iran-backed terrorist attack,” and he warns that “the way I’ve watched the White House and DHS fumble the preparation for war is beyond a dereliction of duty. It’s borderline criminal.”

On Substack, Taylor outlines five reasons — and “foolish mistakes” — he says have left America vulnerable to a terrorist attack “that could get Americans killed.”

“The administration appears to have done no ‘defensive’ prep for war,” he says. “And it’s spent a year shifting counterterrorism personnel to domestic immigration enforcement.”

READ MORE: House Epstein Investigators ‘Working With’ Trump: Comer

“Anyone who has partial cognition knows that a U.S. war with Iran — whether airstrikes, naval confrontations, or targeted assassinations of its leadership — carries an immediate and predictable consequence,” Taylor says. “You hit someone, they hit back. In this case, we should be expecting Iranian-directed or Iranian-inspired attacks on American soil.”

Serving up a “serious warning,” Taylor says: “Wars do not stay overseas. They come back to haunt you at home. And if you’re not ready, then you’re tempting fate to take the lives of your own people.”

He also says it appears DHS was not even consulted before Trump ordered U.S. Armed Forces to attack Iran.

“There is no public evidence of any meaningful interagency preparations. No indication that DHS, the FBI, or the intelligence community were brought in to war-game the domestic security consequences of military escalation,” he writes. “What’s worse, the people whose job it is to answer the question ‘what happens here at home if we do this?’ were apparently not in the room at all when the bombs started flying.”

Another reason America is not prepared, Taylor says, is that Trump has moved thousands of counterterrorism agents, experts, and officials to “immigration” enforcement — “and away from other missions, including foreign terror threats.”

For example, “Border Patrol Tactical Units (BORTAC) — the elite DHS counterterrorism teams — have been conspicuous on U.S. city streets going after citizens, rather than hunting down Iranian operatives.”

READ MORE: ‘Dereliction of Duty’: Trump Officials Slammed Over Failure to ‘Keep Americans Safe’

All the time these counterterrorism agents spend away from their core duties is time they cannot spend chasing down tips or “locating and removing potential assassins, bombers, and plotters here within our borders.”

Another reason the U.S. is unprepared for a terror attack is that the Trump administration claims the top terror threat to America is Antifa.

“DHS Secretary Noem and an FBI leader testified under oath in front of the House Homeland Security Committee that their biggest terrorist worry inside the U.S. Homeland was ‘Antifa.’ That’s right. Not Iranian IRGC operatives. Not ISIS or al Qaeda agents infiltrating the country. But left-leaning Americans they’ve deemed to be ‘Antifa,’ even though Trump’s lieutenants couldn’t even figure out how to describe the danger when they were pressed.”

Also, the Trump administration has been firing FBI agents who were specifically tasked with monitoring Iranian threats — reportedly because they also had been involved in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Trump’s alleged removal, retention, and refusal to return classified documents that were stored at Mar-a-Lago.

And the final reason the U.S. is unprepared for a terror attack: Trump took America to war before getting DHS funded.

“Perhaps most damning of all is that the president of the United States launched a war before making sure his Department of Homeland Security was back up and running.”

He says that “if Trump knew he was going to launch strikes against Iran, he should have made damn sure he found a way to cut a deal on Capitol Hill to get DHS funded.”

Taylor laments that “that clearly wasn’t a priority.”

READ MORE: Intel Expert Calls Out Trump Defense Secretary for ‘Criminal Incompetence’

Image via Reuters

After former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave depositions in the House Oversight Committee’s Epstein investigation, calls have been growing for President Donald Trump to also testify, but Chairman James Comer says that he’s already cooperating.

The New York Times reported that the Clintons were questioned for a total of roughly nine hours “about their relationships with the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019, and Ghislaine Maxwell, his longtime associate.”

Both Clintons “said repeatedly that they had no knowledge of any sex trafficking or sexual abuse by Mr. Epstein or Ms. Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking.”

CNN reported last week that the Clintons’ testimony could end up backfiring on President Trump. The news outlet asked, “isn’t there a double standard if Trump, who was mentioned in the files numerous times, is not also put under oath?”

READ MORE: ‘Dereliction of Duty’: Trump Officials Slammed Over Failure to ‘Keep Americans Safe’

“Some observers might wonder whether first lady Melania Trump might have similar insight” as Hillary Clinton’s “about the times her husband and Epstein moved in similar orbits before and after their marriage in 2005. While there would surely be a mighty constitutional fight over an attempt to compel testimony from a sitting president, the first lady has no formal constitutional role, and there appear to be no legal barriers to such a summons.”

Now, NewsNation reports that Chairman Comer says Trump is “turning over documents” and has answered “hundreds if not thousands” of questions regarding his committee’s probe into Jeffrey Epstein.

Comer did not appear to offer any insight into the methods by which Trump has been answering questions, nor how or what documents he has turned over.

“I’m very appreciative of the cooperation with the Trump administration,” Comer told NewsNation. “And President Trump’s answered hundreds, if not thousands, of questions about Epstein.”

Comer also said that the rich and powerful were not exempt from his committee’s investigation.

“It was always our plan to bring in rich and powerful people, anyone that had spent a lot of time with Epstein, anyone that was on the island or in the airplane just to try to learn about how Epstein was able to pull this off, any close associate,” he said.

READ MORE: Intel Expert Calls Out Trump Defense Secretary for ‘Criminal Incompetence’

He did not say that Trump would be brought in, but he was asked about “the knowledge that President Trump knows.”

Noting that “former presidents are now clearly on the table,” the NewsNation host asked, “so when he leaves office, will you ask the same of him?”

“We’re working with the president,” Comer said.

Appearing to sidestep the question, Comer replied that Democrats are “going to go after President Trump whether or not this Epstein investigation ever happened.”

NEWSNATION: Former presidents are now clearly on the table, so when Trump leaves office will you ask him to testify?

COMER: Democrats are going to go after President Trump

NEWSNATION: But will you ask him to testify?

COMER: We’re working with the president. He’s answered… pic.twitter.com/m5oK7UiNdC

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 4, 2026

READ MORE: FBI Agents Probing Iranian Threats Fired Over Mar-a-Lago Investigation Ties

Image via Reuters 

Trump administration officials are facing mounting criticism from Democratic lawmakers and national security experts who accuse them of failing to protect U.S. service members and civilians in the Middle East.

At issue are the six service members who were killed by an Iranian drone strike in Kuwait. The military members were in what CBS News called a makeshift office space that had fortified walls but lacked a fortified roof and drone-identification capabilities.

Also at issue are the thousands of Americans in the Middle East who were told to evacuate after President Donald Trump launched his war with Israel against Iran. Online critics charge that the U.S. State Department offered them little assistance, and say that only after repeated urging did they begin to put a plan in place.

On Monday, Assistant Secretary of State Mora Namdar via a social media post urged Americans to exit several countries, despite reports of few commercial flights available. The U.S. State Department on Tuesday announced that embassies in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Kuwait would be closed indefinitely, as Politico reported.

“U.S. diplomats, as well as Democratic lawmakers, questioned why embassy closures and travel alerts for American citizens hadn’t been issued sooner, especially considering the U.S. spent weeks building up its military forces in the region,” Politico added. “Some Democrats cautioned that the conflict could turn into yet another ‘forever war,’ siphoning American resources to the Middle East indefinitely.”

U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) blasted the Trump administration on Tuesday.

“The last few days have made clear just how little thought President Trump and his administration put into keeping American service members, diplomats, their families, and civilians safe, despite moving one third of our Navy into the region in advance and allegedly preparing for war with Iran for months,” he said in a statement.

Senator Coons cited the six service members killed. He also noted that three U.S. embassies and one U.S. consulate “have been attacked, and our longtime partners in the region are running dangerously low on air defense munitions.”

“Thousands of American citizens and embassy personnel have been ordered to immediately leave the region and have been left largely on their own to do so. A core function of our foreign policy is to keep Americans safe. This administration’s failure to protect our soldiers, diplomats, and civilians in the region is a disgraceful dereliction of duty. Thus far, the president’s response to this reckless incompetence has simply been ‘that’s the way it is.’”

Responding to remarks U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made on Tuesday afternoon, urging Americans to evacuate, U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) said: “The Administration made no secret of amassing military forces and equipment near Iran for weeks and weeks and weeks. Why didn’t you ask Americans to register with the @StateDept during that time?”

“Massive dereliction of duty,” Congressman Lieu charged. “Unacceptable lack of planning.”

Other critics blasted the administration as well.

National security expert Marc Polymeropoulos pointed to a report stating the U.S. embassy in Iraq ordered non-emergency government employees to evacuate.

“It’s stunning to me, having worked in embassies for years, how late this order has come,” he wrote. “Absolute negligence by Rubio, lack of planning and assessment by State. Nothing like previous conflicts. A first grader could have told u the embassy would be under significant threat from the immediate onset of hostilities.”

“True,” responded Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). “These orders should have been given before the attack that everyone in the world knew was coming.”

“And the Trump should have been scrambling everything to get Americans out across the region before the bombs started dropping. This is a huge strategic planning failure. And risks the lives of countless civilians and American troops. The scope and scale of attacks and American casualties in next few weeks could make the 2021 fall of Kabul look small in comparison.”

Image via Reuters