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‘Borderline Criminal’: Ex-Trump Official Says DHS Least Ready Yet for Terror Attack
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.”
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“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
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
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