Trump’s Own Staff Don’t Think He’s Fit to Be President

Dissent against Donald Trump is bubbling within his administration—but people are too scared to act on it.

Some White House staffers no longer believe that Trump is fit to be president, according to Miles Taylor, who served as Department of Homeland Security chief of staff during Trump’s first term. They believe that the president is “still the same man, but worse and emboldened,” Taylor said on the Court of History podcast. He noted that staffers described Trump as “deeply impulsive, but impulsive without checks and balances around him.”

“If I was sitting with Donald Trump right now, I would say, ‘I have friends in your White House, and some of them are … [lying] very, very low, but share some of the same concerns that I had during the first Trump administration,’” Taylor said.

Taylor drew national attention in 2018 when he anonymously penned an op-ed for The New York Times claiming to be part of the internal “resistance” against Trump’s agenda, lumping himself in with a group of senior officials who did not believe Trump was fit for the nation’s highest office. He has since written several books assessing Trump’s behavior in the White House that revealed intimate insider accounts.

“The people around [Trump] aren’t trying to talk him out of doing bad things—if anything, they are demonstrating fealty at every turn to the leader, and that’s resulting in a lot of bad decisions getting made,” Taylor said.

This has proven true since the inauguration: The president has developed a real soft spot for public deference, whether it’s receiving ultra-lavish gifts from Qatar to warm trade negotiations, a $45 million military parade to jointly celebrate his birthday and the Army’s 250th anniversary, or Cabinet meeting round-robins focused on gushing about Trump’s performance.

The president’s second-term quest to nix Washington’s so-called “deep state” and replace it with an army of MAGA yes-men has so far been successful, and the result is a Trumpian loyalty more akin to a religion than a political ideology. It all became particularly evident in April, when Trump wheeled out his “Liberation Day” tariff plan using figures that nobody in his vicinity had dared to notify him were founded on bad math.

And the problem may only get worse as time goes on.

“Now, most of the folks I know are on, of course, the national security side of the [White] House, and some of them still think that they can keep their hand on the wheel. And I would prefer some of those people in the posts I’m thinking about than others who might replace them,” Taylor noted. “But I think people of conscience in this administration know that they are an endangered species.”

Donald Trump demanded “unconditional surrender” Tuesday in a series of escalating threats on Iran.

“We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured ‘stuff.’ Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.”

The Israeli military had previously announced Monday that its strikes had crippled Iran’s air defenses, allowing Israel to drop bombs directly over Tehran instead of using long-range missiles. Trump’s ominous post—which worryingly conflates Israeli forces with American—comes as a reminder that to the United States, war is first and foremost a business enterprise, which could explain his decision to completely ignore intelligence from his own government that determined Iran was not close to obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Trump then decided to up the ante by threatening Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei directly.

“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” Trump wrote in another post on Truth Social. “He is an easy target, but is safe there—We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Three U.S. officials told CBS News Sunday that Trump opposed taking out Khamenei. Recent reports from Israeli sources, however, have said that Trump has only been pretending to oppose Israel’s military operation in Iran and helped to coordinate Israeli movements behind closed doors.

So while the president’s hemming and hawing is certainly a power trip, it’s possible he is also attempting to obscure his support for Israel’s military action, which is unpopular with voters.

“UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” Trump counseled in a third post.

Hours after Donald Trump complained before the G7 that Russia had been kicked out of the global trade coalition, the Kremlin ordered air strikes on Kyiv that killed 15 people—including an American.

In the most lethal attack on Ukraine’s capital this year, Russia launched more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The barrage devastated a nine-story apartment building and injured 156 people, local officials said. Other regions of Ukraine including Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad, and Mykolaiv were also hit.

The U.S. citizen died of shrapnel wounds sustained during the attack, according to Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko. Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko told reporters that the American was 62 years old and had been killed in the Solomyanskyi district of Kyiv. They “died in a house opposite to the one where medics were providing assistance to the victims,” Klitschko said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday that the barrage had not hit civilians but had targeted “military-industrial complex facilities in the Kyiv region and Zaporizhzhia.”

The assault occurred shortly after Trump spent much of his public appearance before the G7 boasting about his cozy relationship with Putin, while lamenting that the foreign power did not have a seat at the table.

“The G7 used to be the G8,” Trump said Monday. “Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn’t want to have Russia in, and I would say that that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn’t have a war right now if you had Russia in,” he added, referring to former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The seven other members of the then G8 suspended Russia’s membership in 2014 as punishment for Moscow’s annexation of Crimea.

The Ukraine war, now in its fourth year, has been prolonged by several failed peace talks.

In the months since he took office, Trump has claimed that Russia has come ready and willing to reach a peace deal, even though many of its demands—such as staking a Russian flag in Crimea—reverse long-standing U.S. policy.

Following a deadly air strike on Kyiv last month, European leaders urged Western countries to enact sanctions on Moscow as a way to reel Putin back to the negotiating table. But Trump responded by wringing his hands, claiming that applying pressure on Russia would “hurt” a deal.

Trump’s aggression toward Ukraine (which included scolding and mocking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a livestreamed White House meeting) and his repeated concessions toward Russia’s enduring violence has been interpreted by Kremlin propagandists as a massive win for Russian President Vladimir Putin, resulting in televised laughter on Russian programs at the downfall of American power.

By Tuesday afternoon, the president had still not addressed the fact that Russia killed an American. Instead, his administration quietly disbanded an interagency working group focused on pressuring Russia to end the war. The group “lost steam” after it became apparent that Trump was not interested in “adopting a more confrontational stance toward Moscow,” U.S. officials told Reuters.

Senator Mike Lee fled from reporters asking him about his deeply disturbing X posts making a mockery of the murder of Minnesota Democratic state Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and lying about the killer being a leftist.

“Can you tell us about your conversation with Senator Smith? Do you regret your tweet? Do you stand by the post that you made on X? Have you had a productive conversation about that post?” multiple reporters asked Senator Lee as he rushed away silently.

The Senator Smith question refers to Democratic Senator Tina Smith, whose deputy chief of staff eviscerated Lee over email on Monday before confronting him in person in the halls of Congress.

“It is important for your office to know how much additional pain you’ve caused on an unspeakably horrific weekend. I am not sure what compelled you or your boss to say any of those things, which, in addition to being unconscionable, also may very well be untrue,” the email read. “Why would you use the awesome power of a United States Senate Office to compound people’s grief? Is this how your team measures success? Using the office of US Senator to post not just one but a series of jokes about an assassination—is that a successful day of work on Team Lee? Did you come into the office Monday and feel proud of the work you did over the weekend?

“You exploited the murder of a lifetime public servant and her husband to post some sick burns about Democrats,” the email continued. “Did you see this as an excellent opportunity to get likes and retweet? Have you absolutely no conscience? No decency?”

Senator Smith cornered Lee the next day, telling him he was being “brutal and cruel.”

“I wanted him to know about the consequence of his words. I went to him and I said, ‘Your message on social media showed the image of the man who killed my friend,’” Senator Smith said later on CNN. “And your message is, ‘This is what happens?’ You need to take responsibility and accountability for what you are saying out there in the social media world.’ And I wanted him to hear that from me directly.… This is not a joke.”

The shooter, Vance Boelter, has since been confirmed as a staunch Trump supporter.

Donald Trump admitted that he’s ignoring what his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard tells him about Iran—he’s just going on vibes.

The president sided with Israeli intelligence over the intel from his own government Tuesday, telling reporters that he believed Iran was “very close” to having a nuclear weapon, despite Gabbard saying otherwise, according to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

“I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having it,” Trump said.

In March, Gabbard testified the exact opposite while presenting the annual threat assessment before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “The [intelligence community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003,” she said. “The IC is closely monitoring if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program.”

U.S. intelligence suggested that Iran was three years away from obtaining its own nuclear weapon, four people familiar with the assessment told CNN in a story published Tuesday.

Gabbard, however, promptly began lying about her own threat assessment to reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday, to appear more in line with Trump’s comments.

“President Trump was saying the same thing that I said in my annual threat assessment back in March,” she said, although it was completely untrue.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Sunday that Iran had a “secret plan” to acquire a nuclear weapon and was “marching very quickly,” as justification for his sweeping military operation in Iran that began last week.

Netanyahu brushed off the differing conclusions of U.S. and Israeli intelligence when asked if there had been a change between March and last week, or if the U.S. intelligence was incorrect. “The intel we got and we shared with the United States was absolutely clear,” he said.

Trump fled the G7 summit Monday night after just one day, claiming that it had nothing to do with a potential ceasefire between Iran and Israel, and that whatever it was was “much bigger than that!” Just hours before, Trump had demanded the evacuation of Tehran, causing widespread chaos as Iranians fled their homes for safety.

Trump hit back at Tucker Carlson after the former Fox News host stated that America’s involvement in Israel’s war on Iran will result in the “end of American empire,” suggesting that the move was directly opposed to Trump’s “America First” rhetoric. 

“I am saying this because I’m really afraid that my country’s gonna be weakened by this, I think we’re gonna see the end of American empire. Obviously, nations would like to see that and this is the perfect way to scuttle the USS America on the shores of Iran. But it’s also going to end, I believe, Trump’s presidency,” Carlson said in an interview with MAGA muse Steve Bannon. “The second you get enmeshed in a real war, not a fake, ‘Lets go bomb the villagers and declare success’ … it’s a whole other question, which is, ‘How prepared is the U.S. military for real conflict?’ And the answer is totally unprepared, scary unprepared.” 

“Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that, “IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!” Trump posted on Truth Social, in direct response to Carlson’s take. 

“AMERICA FIRST means many GREAT things, including the fact that, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON,” he posted again just minutes later.  “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

Carlson isn’t the only MAGA-leaning voice speaking out against Trump’s service to Israel. “Trump attacking @TuckerCarlson for not supporting a new WORLD WAR is not something any sane person should support! This is the stuff NIGHTMARES are MADE of…” said the influential right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

“I am proud that Tucker Carlson is standing his ground against the psychotic warmongering neocons that have brought the world to the verge of thermal nuclear Armageddon,” he continued. 

“Anyone slobbering for the U.S. to become fully involved in the Israel/Iran war is not America First/MAGA. Wishing for murder of innocent people is disgusting,” MAGA Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene wrote on X. “We are sick and tired of foreign wars. All of them.” She also reposted the Carlson clip. 

This split on MAGA supporting Israel’s wars isn’t just coming from the top down. Even Trump’s own supporters are confused by how sending more American dollars, American weaponry, and potentially American soldiers fulfills the “America First” doctrine in any way. 

“America First means no more needless war. It means no more funding TO EITHER SIDE,” one Trump supporter wrote in his Truth Social replies. “It means our troops are done fighting wars that only benefit Israel, especially when our leadership can stop it in a heart-beat with critical thinking and the right incentives. @realDonaldTrump As one of your longest most diligent & fervent supporters, stop letting neocons and intelligence mechanisms dictate one more second your presidential direction.”

Breaking a long-standing presidential tradition, Donald Trump says he won’t contact Minnesota Governor Tim Walz after the assassination of Democratic state Representative Melissa Hortman. Instead, the president said that contacting Walz would be a “waste of time.”

It’s been days since Hortman and her husband were killed in what police described as a targeted attack. The suspected assassin, Vance Boelter, also allegedly shot Democratic state Senator John Hoffman and his wife that same night. The pair are still recovering in a hospital. But the horrific assault was not enough to warrant condolences or sympathy from the nation’s leader.

“I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out,” Trump told reporters Tuesday morning aboard Air Force One. “I’m not calling him.”

“Why would I call him? I could call and say, ‘Hi, how you doing?’ Uh, the guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a mess. I could be nice and call him, but why waste time?” Trump added.

Trump was mulling Sunday over whether or not he’d contact the governor, when he told ABC News that he “may” ring Walz, whom he simultaneously referred to as “grossly incompetent” and a “terrible governor.”

“Well, it’s a terrible thing. I think he’s a terrible governor. I think he’s a grossly incompetent person. But I may, I may call him, I may call other people too,” Trump said at the time.

Meanwhile, other world leaders are stepping in to fill Trump’s shoes in the wake of the attack. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, a member of Canada’s Conservative Party, was one such individual who rang Walz to “express his condolences” to the Hortman family and the “people of Minnesota,” per Walz.

“In times of tragedy, I’m heartened when people of different views and even different nations can rally together around our shared humanity,” the governor posted on X.

“All of Ontario is thinking of the Hortman family and our friends in Minnesota,” Ford wrote back.

Donald Trump was not impressed by his multimillion-dollar military parade.

The president reportedly “reamed” out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the spectacle—which was advertised as a celebration of the Army’s 250th anniversary but conveniently fell on Trump’s birthday—as well as the soldiers who took part in it, according to biographer Michael Wolff.

Speaking with The Daily Beast’s podcast Monday, Wolff revealed that Trump was “pissed off at the soldiers.” He reportedly wanted the troops to appear “menacing,” but instead they were “having a good time,” per Wolff.

“He’s accusing them of hamming it up, and by that, he seems to mean that they were having a good time, that they were waving, that they were enjoying themselves and showing a convivial face rather than a military face,” the Fire and Fury author told the podcast.

“He kind of reamed out Hegseth for this,” the Trump biographer said. “Apparently, there was a phone call, and he said to Hegseth, The tone was all wrong. Why was the tone wrong? Who staged this? There was the tone problem.”

The parade was projected to cost up to $45 million and was not in the original pitch to celebrate the Army’s anniversary, as outlined in a press release in February. Meanwhile, the parade—which barely managed to fill the stands—was easily overshadowed by a nationwide “No Kings Day” protest opposing Trump’s agenda that some organizers said drew upward of five million people.

“It didn’t send the message that he apparently wanted, which is that he was the commander in chief of this menacing enterprise,” Wolff said of the lavish Army anniversary.

The White House did not respond well to Wolff’s account of the festivities, instead opting to publicly slander Wolff as a fraudster and a “lying sack of shit.”

“He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain,” White House communications director Steven Cheung told the Beast.

Trump was also disturbed by the American soldiers’ marching pattern, which went viral in the wake of the parade due to the troops’ asynchronous steps.

Charlotte Clymer, a U.S. Army veteran and former member of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, also known as “The Old Guard,” told Buzzfeed that she didn’t believe rumors that the “poor quality of the marching” was because some units weren’t used to marching.

“Every soldier learns how to march during basic training, and it’s not hard. It’s remarkably easy,” Clymer told the digital publication, emphasizing that the troops would have had a dress rehearsal days prior.

“I don’t think this was a protest against Trump, or anything adjacent to anti-fascism or concern with how the government is operating,” she continued. “I don’t think it had anything to do with that. I think this is just because they were treated very poorly and they didn’t care. I think the soldiers who were misstepping during the parade—there were a lot of them—were just tired, annoyed, probably to some extent angry, and they just did not give enough of a shit to march to a high standard of excellence.”

That could be because of poor lodging, bad food, rough wake-up calls, or possibly a perception that the parade was “completely unnecessary.”

“Everyone is aware that this parade was done in service of Donald Trump—even the soldiers who likely voted for him know it was done in service to his ego,” Clymer told Buzzfeed. “And I don’t know about you, but I would never want to participate in the parade so that a lone individual could feel good about themselves.”

The Department of Homeland Security is reversing guidance sparing farms, hotels, and restaurants from immigration raids, less than a week after Donald Trump admitted just how destructive his sweeping deportation efforts were to those industries.

DHS officials gave the new guidance to resume worksite enforcement during a call to 30 ICE field offices across the country Monday morning, The Washington Post reported.

This new directive comes just days after Trump publicly acknowledged that his raids were ripping away some “very good, longtime workers,” and that because those workers might be replaced by criminals, “we must protect our farmers.”

An official at DHS then instructed agents to “hold on all worksite enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels.”

But it seems that economic policy isn’t the only area where Trump is liable to flip, and the raids will resume less than a week later.

It appears that the White House—namely deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who has demanded 3,000 immigration arrests a day—wasn’t totally behind the hold on worksite enforcement.

Two people familiar with Miller’s anti-immigration efforts told the Post that he’d opposed the pause, and ICE and Homeland Security Investigations field office supervisors had heard that the policy would likely be reversed Sunday because the White House didn’t support it, according to one person with knowledge of the reversal.

In a statement Monday, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that there would be “no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine ICE’s efforts.”

President Trump made a dramatic early exit from the G7 summit, seemingly to help Israel continue to bombard Iran and its nuclear facilities.

“Iran should have signed the ‘deal’ I told them to sign. What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”

Trump has supported Israel in its attacks, explaining that he gave Iran “60 days” to make a so-called “deal,” meaning Iran has to stop working on nuclear power and weapons. French President Emmanuel Macron suggested Trump was leaving to try to craft a ceasefire. But Trump didn’t rush out of the G7 to make peace, he left to plan for war.

“I have not reached out to Iran for ‘Peace Talks’ in any way, shape, or form. This is just more HIGHLY FABRICATED, FAKE NEWS! If they want to talk, they know how to reach me,” he wrote again on Truth Social. “They should have taken the deal that was on the table—Would have saved a lot of lives!!!”

While the G7 leaders did sign a resolution pledging that Iran can never obtain nuclear weapons and publicly mentioned a ceasefire, Trump has further isolated the U.S. by seemingly declaring Israel’s war for them.

“Publicity seeking President Emmanuel Macron, of France, mistakenly said that I left the G7 Summit, in Canada, to go back to D.C. to work on a ‘cease fire’ between Israel and Iran. Wrong!” Trump wrote again. “He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that. Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong. Stay Tuned!”

His exit means he will miss meetings with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.