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‘Sense of Dread’: Ex-Trump DHS Official Fears He Could Stumble Into a Nuclear War
A former top Trump Department of Homeland Security official is warning that he fears the president could get the U.S. into a nuclear war for which it is not prepared — because he saw the president’s response in his first term, when fears ran high after North Korea launched a missile that could have reached the U.S.
“Few Americans realize how close the president took us to the brink of nuclear war in his first term before aides talked him down,” writes Miles Taylor, the DHS chief of staff during Trump’s first term. “What the public didn’t know at the time — and until years later — was that the president’s team was worried he might start a nuclear war.”
“Today, there’s no one prepared to stop him,” warns Taylor, who writes that Trump “has an eerie fascination with nukes.”
“My fear about this man has always been about his finger on the nuclear button. That’s usually just symbolism when we talk about the presidency. The ‘nuclear button’ is a stand-in for the concept of presidential power and the risks of instability,” says Taylor. “When we’re talking about Trump, it’s not a metaphor.”
READ MORE: ‘What Was the Plan?’: White House Faces Fury Over Claim Trump Knew Hormuz Closure Risk
During Trump’s first year in office, “the United States came closer to a nuclear conflict than most people realize,” Taylor says. He chastised the president for his “mishandling” of a confrontation with North Korea that “was so serious” that the team at DHS “was forced to do real-life, defensive planning for the possibility of a nuclear strike against the homeland — a situation DHS had never been in since its creation.”
Detailing the events that day, Taylor notes that “North Korea had launched an intercontinental ballistic missile,” its “most powerful weapon yet — the first North Korean missile capable of hitting anywhere in the world, including Washington, D.C.”
As the crisis grew, Trump called acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke.
“But Trump wasn’t calling to ask about the missile — or even whether his defensive team at DHS was ready to protect the homeland against such a strike had it been the real thing,” Taylor writes. In an “angry” phone call, Trump “wanted to talk about deportations.”
“As Elaine recounted the call to me, her eyes began to well up. A nuclear-capable missile had just ripped through the skies over the Pacific, and the president of the United States was oblivious. All he cared about was getting foreigners off his land.”
DHS had to prepare for the “genuine possibility” that Trump “might stumble us into a nuclear confrontation with North Korea.”
READ MORE: ‘Quiet Part Out Loud’: Hegseth Slammed for Lashing Out at CNN’s War Reporting
Taylor detailed Trump’s “angry tweets,” in which he “threatened North Korea with ‘fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.’ National security officials woke up to these messages on their phones. Stunned. The president almost seemed to welcome the prospect of a global conflagration.”
As the months wore on, whenever DHS “got alerts that the North Koreans were preparing a missile launch, those of us working inside the administration worried it could be the real thing,” says Taylor, “or that the president might say something so stupid that he’d manifest it… or that he would be too distracted to care.”
Now, Trump has not changed, but what has is that “everything that kept him in check” is gone.
Taylor recounts how last year, Trump took to Truth Social to declare that, “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.”
“That process will begin immediately,” Trump wrote.
“As the president barrels forward with the Iran war, I’m getting the same sense of dread that I had then,” Taylor warns.
Summing up his concerns, he says that, “Regardless of what happens with the Iran war, I want you to remember this. I want you to remember what we’ve learned about how Donald Trump sees his gravest responsibilities as commander-in-chief, how he was gamified war, and how he has flirted with nuclear catastrophe.”
“It is, perhaps, the most urgent reason for Americans to demand the other branches of government do more to keep him in check. Our president is unstable, and there are no longer sensible people around him to send up a flare if he’s ready to do something deadly.”
READ MORE: ‘Key Indicator’: Expert Warns US Could Be Planning ‘Potential Ground Operation’
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
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
