B (8:13)

Well, not actively on the run, as in, I don't think there's a tail. But look, I mean, the honest answer, Mike, you know, joking aside, is that since that order, my family has faced increased threats from Trump supporters. Even if Donald Trump himself doesn't take the words treason seriously, which is a crime punishable by death in the United States, it's the highest crime our founders envisioned when they wrote the Constitution. His supporters do. And they have made sure to make me and my wife and our daughter and our family aware of that fact by making threats against us. And so, yeah, to a certain extent, we've been mobile a good bit since April, and we have faced direct threats from stalkers and harassers. And look, the thing, Mike, is after a career in the national security community, you never know which of these lunatics is just sitting in their basement, bored, hasn't walked outside in a year, and which is a mile down the road from your house, preparing to do something. And in this political environment, you have to take all of those seriously. I mean, we saw that in Minnesota with lawmakers who were on an execution list, and unfortunately, one of the most prominent Democratic politicians in the state assassinated. That's the environment that we live in. And after the president issued that executive order in April, we were on the receiving end of those types of threats.

A (9:41)

So, couple of things you say increasingly, sometimes that's just a word that's thrown around, but to remind listeners you were the author of Anonymous, you were put on, if not a hit list, then his shit list in 2016. And when we talked, or during the first administration, I should say, and when we talked, you detailed how your life had changed and the danger that you perceived. And as far as treasonous, I mean, I'll quote from this memoranda. The conduct could properly be characterized as treasonous. So this is not just a guy throwing around a word. Or maybe it is, but he's throwing it around in an official document. And this is a crime mentioned in the Constitution, and the remedy for that crime is execution. You think he knows what he's doing?

B (10:23)

Well, look, let me first say this. You don't have to agree with me about Donald Trump to be worried about an executive order like this. In fact, you could say, miles Taylor sucks. He should never have served in the first Trump administration. How dare he turn against Donald Trump and say all these things publicly about him that are very bad. And you could still say, but I also don't want a president, any president of any political party to Be able to issue criminal verdicts with the stroke of a pen and then reverse the justice process and have his team go find the evidence. And that is what the President of the United States did here. He essentially asserted that I am guilty of treason, this high crime, and then directed his agencies to go find the evidence. That is the backwards approach to the justice system and a process of justice. But it also means that a Democratic president could now follow the same pattern, could come into office and say, Donald Trump Jr. You are guilty of treason. And now I'm gonna go direct my agencies to go find the facts to fit the crime, and conserv. Conservatives would be up in arms. That's what's really terrifying about it. Do I think I committed treason? Absolutely. I do not. The president equates free speech with treason. What I am guilty of for years is consistently warning this country that if this man won reelection, he would abuse his power to get revenge against his enemies. And, of course, Mike, you can't be more on the nose and ironic than the fact that for issuing those warnings about presidential revenge, Donald Trump has come out and used his power to engage in presidential revenge against me and my family.

A (12:05)

Besides this, you call it an executive order. I think it's properly a memorandum. That they're sort of different. Right.

B (12:12)

They're different in title. They're not different in effect.

A (12:14)

Okay, okay. Because an executive order doesn't carry the force of law necessarily. It's a way for the executive to sometimes pop off about things it shouldn't be. But this is how Trump uses executive orders. Sort of like a more formal, grammatically checked truth, social. What legal jeopardy. What legal jeopardy are you in beyond the jeopardy of being labeled treasonous? Has. Have any. Have your lawyers been notified that you are under an investigation for any tangible crimes?

B (12:47)

Well, look, right now, we are under the belief that the administration is carrying forward with some kind of investigation into me. And what's really bizarre about this is anyone who's been investigated for a crime typically knows what actual crime they might have committed, and they're being investigated for. And the absurdity of this is we don't know what we're actually being investigated for. And as the Wall Street Journal said, this looked like a complete political fishing expedition. In other words, Trump and his team are trying to find something. At some point in time in my life or career, I did wrong so they can come punish me for speaking out against Donald Trump. So two things to that, Mike. I mean, one is just the blacklist itself. Even if they did nothing further than Trump signing his name to that order has completely detonated our lives. And I'm happy to get into that and what that looks like, not so people can play the violin for me, but so people can understand how serious it is when the nation's chief executive starts adding people to a blacklist. Second, if they do pursue criminal charges, we are in definitionally uncharted territory, as legal scholars told me. After Trump issued this order, I got phone calls from people all around the country. They said this is the first time in American history that a president has ordered an investigation into one of his critics by name for First Amendment protected speech. That's never happened before in the 249 years of this country. So we don't really know what to expect next. And in partial answer to your question, I have more than seven legal teams now that I have to find a way to pay for because of all of the after effects of this executive order, from the stalkers and harassers we've had to take to court, from the actual lawyers, we've had to have focused on the order itself from estate attorneys, to make sure that if something, God forbid, should happen to me and my wife, that our daughter is protected for business lawyers. Because my business partners in the wake of this got very scared and, you know, dissolved the business that we had started. And on and on down the list, we have, we have whole teams of lawyers now just because he said, Miles Taylor is guilty of treason. Now, again, I say people don't have to play the violin for me, because this isn't about me. This is about the ability for the president to do this to anyone and to threaten individuals and have that threat, threat of punishment or blacklisting, result in them doing things they wouldn't otherwise do.

A (15:12)

It seems that he could hit you very easily, or the doj, which he has more control over than a typical president, can hit you very easily with an honest services fraud denial charge. I don't know if it's very proper, but it seems very easy. And then you have to defend yourself from that against the government, which has all the resources in the world.

B (15:33)

Well, I'm not familiar with the honest services charge piece, Mike. You know, I don't know how that would be applicable in my case, but what I am.

A (15:41)

Well, I don't know if it would be, but, yeah, it does seem that. I mean, it's a very capacious statute. It was written in 1988. Sometimes public servants are hit with it. Elected officials. I don't know if he's going to call you treasonous and attack someone using their First Amendment rights. It wouldn't seem outside the scope of possibility that he, he would try to get Pam Bondi to apply that to you.

B (16:03)

Well, and we think that's certainly possible. I mean, that is the wild thing here. And it's actually one of the reasons that I'm out speaking about this is most of the people who've been hit by executive orders from this administration, most of the organizations, most of the institutions have chosen to remain silent because it's scary. It's really scary when the President of the United States puts you in the crosshairs. And that's why you've seen law firms, universities, and all sorts of businesses capitulate to the White House and say, we will settle with you so that we don't have to be on this list. I know unequivocally, without any doubt, I did not commit treason against the United States. I did not leak classified information. And in fact, remarkably, that allegation is coming from a man who was under federal investigation with documented photographs of highly sensitive classified information in his compound in Mar A Lago, Florida. Mike, I know you don't know me personally terribly well, but let's just play a guessing game. Do you think right now in my attic at my house, I have highly classified documents or on my computer, do you think I was stupid enough to leave the administration and put them in my car or leave any building with a classified document? Of course I didn't do that. That's insane. It's drilled into your head from day one, when you enter the national security community, that that is a criminal act to intentionally leave with classified information. And of course, it's treasonous to that with a foreign government. Of course I didn't do that. But Donald Trump is projecting here. It's what he was investigated for. And so since I've criticized his administration, of course he's going to say, well, you must have done that, too.

A (17:37)

Yeah. Well, he would, I guess, argue that he has the power to declassify with the wave of a hand. But again, that's not a very good argument. Neither is the argument that your engagement in protected speech was treasonous. But I want to pivot to your role as an actor, analyst of what's going on, things that are happening to you, things that rhyme with what are happening to you. You raised one. The capitulation of these powerful institutions. First of all, I would say that if you were offered just from, not your duty as a citizen, but just to get out from under your personal Hell, let's say that you're living through, if you were offered the kind of deal like you could pay $16 million to make some harassment suit go away, the equivalent of $16 million to the Paramount Corporation will be $1,000. I don't know if you do it or not, but it would be a lot more tempting, you'd have to admit. It is tempting to businesses who just want to make money, right?

B (18:32)

Yeah, I think it is. I think it is. And I, and I think that's why intimidation works, is, you know, folks don't want to suffer the consequences. And so if there's a deal, even if it flies in the face of their morals and their values, the number one thing that people want to do survive, right. It's the one core foundational drive of almost every living human being, is to persist. And if something gets in the way of your survival, you're often willing to throw everything to the side, including morals, values. And we've seen a lot of organizations do that. Now, we have seen a handful of stand up, a handful of universities, a handful of the law firms, and they've been vindicated in that the law firms, for instance, that stood up said, no, this is unconstitutional. It's the equivalent of what they did to me as an individual, but to them as organizations. And they went to court and the courts ruled that yes, indeed, this was unconstitutional for the President to do so. They've been vindicated. And in the long run of history, if you go back and look at McCarthyism, we saw that with the people who stood up, the ones who capitulated at the time, which was the majority of folks who were in the crosshairs of McCarthyism in the long run, looked very, very bad for having done so. But I do think people very often make those short term trade offs. And I will be honest with you, Mike, I'm not going to try to paint myself as some super brave hero here because for two months after this order dropped, you didn't hear shit from me. Why? Because my wife and I were in a multi week conversation about what should we do here. We were running a very profitable business in Washington, D.C. we had had our heads down, we had had a daughter, we were moving on with our lives from Trump. And we didn't want to be out there publicly fighting back against this and inviting more attacks, more criticism, and more persecution from the administration. But ultimately, it's as simple as this. It literally came down to my wife laying in bed one night and looking over at me and saying, if we just Stay quiet. Isn't that just wrong? Like, I know it's going to probably put all of these things in our life in jeopardy, but isn't that just wrong? And we'll have to tell our daughter one day that, here's how we handled it. We just shut up like everyone else, and we took it and we made it easier for the next person to. To get hit. And I looked at her and I just said, yeah, it's wrong. And that's what we shouldn't do, is stay quiet. And so we've been speaking out since then, and it has had consequences. I mean, I mentioned our business, you know, the thing that is our livelihood. I'm the sole income earner for our household. My wife is a stay at home mom. My business blew up in the wake of going out and fighting back.

A (21:06)

What kind of business was it? Consulting? Yeah.

B (21:09)

I was running a government relations firm in Washington, D.C. that works with emerging tech companies and helps them engage with the national security community. So think the coolest tech out there, AI, quantum computing, robotics, space systems. We help those companies use those emerging tech tools for America's benefit. And it became impossible in the wake of fighting back against Trump's order to run that business anymore in Washington. Completely blacklisted, destroyed. And that meant my family's financial security.

A (21:39)

You had, you had rivals. A company doing due diligence would say, do you want to go in with the guy who's named as treasonous on an executive order or one of his rivals who might be 4% worse, but isn't of that status? I get it.

B (21:51)

Well, even, even worse than that, Mike. I mean, before that happened, because I'm, I'm fortunate that almost every single one of our clients after this happened, reached out to me. In fact, every single client reached out and said, we're with you. We'll stay with you through this. Now, whether they would have in the long term, I don't know. But it was actually the people I went into business with that were very afraid that they by association would get brought into this and forced the dissolution of the company. That is a hard hit to take. Again, no one really gives a shit what happened to Miles Taylor's business. But my point here isn't just me. The hits I've taken from business partners and family and friends who've run for the hills after this happened. It's that this is happening to hundreds and hundreds of people right now whose organizations are in the crosshairs of Trump, who are being threatened by Trump. I mean, just a few days Ago, Mike Axios revealed that the administration now has a loyalty scorecard for US Companies. And they were boasting about this to Axios, that they are scoring American companies based on whether they've said good things about the President's agenda or not. And then based on that scorecard, they will decide whether those businesses get favorable treatment for from the United States government. That is very naked, very clear. Blacklisting and intimidation meant to scare those companies into compliance. And it's exactly what they're trying to do. To individuals who speak out. Donald Trump is equating free speech with treason. And to me, that level of censorship, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, is not something we want to continue in this country.

A (23:23)

So on the continuum of companies or institutions that have either knuckled under or stood up, I pointed to the paramount acquisition acquiescence, which was a relative pittance that they gave to Greece, a potential deal with Skydance. They did so by selling out one of their storied journalistic institutions. Somewhat shameful, but as a business decision, I don't think it was that hard for them. Then you talked about some law firms, some of which probably regret what they did since their rival or peer law firms decided to take a different tact. And so far the courts are backing them up. Then you have the colleges, the universities. What would you do if you were Brown was asked to settle for 50 million and they decided to do so, which is relatively small compared to the size of their endowment. And as a result, the gushers of hundreds of millions of dollars of funding came in. Or Penn, who had to pay more money. And it seems like the main thing they had to do was to say that one swimmer who swam for us a couple of years ago, we shouldn' let her swim. So aren't these, or do you think these are tougher choices than some of the black and white ones you've been talking about?

B (24:37)

I think they're very tough choices, but I think they are still black and white because feeding the alligator is always feeding the alligator. And the price goes up as you go along. And we saw this with the law firms, right? The first law firms to capitulate, you know, had to pledge, I don't know, maybe it was 30 or 40 million in in kind services for causes the president cares about. And that price kept going up as more and more capitulated. That is reality. That's what happens as more and more organizations settle in the face of the administration's intimidation. It gets harder for everyone else and it gets scarier for Everyone else. And this really does come down to whether you want your analogy to be feeding the alligator or settling with the bully in the schoolyard. And that is appropriate to figure out what to do in this moral dilemma. If you settle with the bully on the schoolyard, you know, you're just living. You're leaving that bully to go punch someone else another day. If you feed the alligator, eventually the thing is going to eat you. And we are seeing that classic game theory, moral choice play out on the world's biggest stage right now. There's another comparison I would make to it, Mike, that I think is instructive for folks that are trying to figure out what to do in these circumstances. And this is hard because, look, when you're faced with intimidation, of course you can make the short term decision to be relieved of the threat, but that ignores the long term consequences. And there's a classic scenario that people know of called the bystander phenomenon. It's the stories that you hear in New York about someone getting beaten up on the subway or lit on fire on the subway and killed. And it's a packed subway. And we read those news stories and we say, how come no one did anything? It was absolutely packed. And the honest answer is psychologists look at that. And most of the time it's because everyone else is anticipating someone will go first, because the one who goes first is most likely to suffer the consequences. They're going to get punched in the face by the person or they will also catch fire. But once that first person goes, it makes it easier for a second and a third and a fourth. And so you could put that another way, that even though cowardice is contagious and people stand there watching and they don't want to be the one, courage is also contagious. The people who step forward to stop a bad thing can reduce the price and the cost for everyone else. And we're sort of seeing that play out in these different industries. The law firms that decided not to capitulate made it easier for others to stand up. And that's what I think we're in the midst of right now. And you mentioned the media ecosystem. We're seeing that in the media ecosystem right now as some of these big networks are having to make the decision. Or are we going to editorially censor ourselves and relieve ourselves of White House pressure? Or are we gonna keep reporting and acting the way we would normally do and potentially face what Paramount faced or cbs, which now has a FCC appointed ombudsman, a monitor that reports directly to the president who's monitoring CBS News to make sure that they're reporting the way the president likes. That's crazy to me that I'm saying that in the United States of America.

A (27:39)

And we'll be back with the second part of our interview with Miles Taylor, author of Blowback Tomorrow. And now the spiel. Immigration is a vexing problem the world over. It has toppled governments, it upsets the populace in places like Germany. It has turned liberal democracies into much more illiberal democracies. There is excellent research that indicates that above a threshold level, 15 to 20% of the population becoming non native born, there are dislocations and popular discontent. The United States, by the way, is currently at 14% of the population foreign born, which is an all time high. Yes, that even includes the massive waves of immigration at the beginning of the 1900s. A lot of our feelings about immigration is understandable. On the one hand, people the world over believe in borders. On the other hand, there absolutely is a fundamental human distrust of outsiders. The word for this is xenophobia. But there is also the less pernicious belief that a people define themselves as who they are, not as an embrace of people they aren't. Or aren't yet. Immigration's a major issue and to a plurality of Americans, a major problem. Donald Trump, like all good politicians, correctly identified the problem. In fact, compared to his Republican rivals in 2016, he was the only one putting his finger on the mood of, at first the Republican voter and eventually much of, if not under, the Electoral College, the majority of Americans. Cut to today, where Donald Trump and his administration are actually following through on the agenda and the implementation of the policies that they promised. True, courts have struck down some of the more outrageous and clearly unconstitutional quote, unquote solutions. You can't just put people, especially children, on planes after a court tells you they have not had due process. Alligator Alcatraz clearly violated environmental rules, but by and large, the Trump immigration policies are actually what he was elected to pursue. And I have to say, from being totally fair, not if I'm being totally moral, not if I'm acting within the utmost definition of justice or Christian values. But if I'm being fair, Donald Trump's immigration policies, as harsh as they may be, are working. Immigration border crossings are down. Some people will tell you that they're not working. However, these are almost all people who are against the policies. A lot of these people will also tell you that they are not just unfair and immoral, but they'll go so far as to assert that they are unpopular. Here is one of those people, Mehdi Hassan, talking to Jon Stewart. Look at the polls he's crated on immigration. New York Times Siena poll a couple of months ago found that his most unpopular issue, the single most unpopular issue for Trump in his first hundred days was his handling of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and the deportation to El Salvador. We were told by Republicans that's an 8020 issue. Democrats are on the wrong side of it. Nobody wants to be on the side of MS.13. In fact, no. The American public said no. We don't want to people being deported who haven't committed any crimes. We don't want judges being ignored. We don't want people being sent to a gulag in El Salvador. We don't want our American Latino citizens being picked up outside of Home Depot just because they're brown. He's hugely unpopular on the immigration issue. So Hasan gets the big picture wrong there. True, Americans don't like the specific treatment of Abrego Garcia, but immigration is Trump's most popular position. Nate Silver doesn't look at one poll, he looks at several. And the average of many polls weighted for quality bears out that Trump is underwater more disapproval than approval on almost all the issues. His handling of the economy is minus 13. Inflation is minus 22. But on immigration, he's pretty close to even. In fact, he was more approved of than disapproved of as recently as June. He's slightly three points underwater now. In fact, let's go back to that very New York Times Sienna poll in which Hasan said immigration was Trump's least favored policy. That is, I don't want to say, a lie. That is the opposite of the truth. It was his most favored policy. I'll read to you the polling on different issues. Immigration, 47% approve, 51 disapprove. So he was minus 4. Here is every other issue that you asked about. Managing the federal government. Minus 8, the economy. Minus 12. Trade with other countries. Minus 11, foreign conflicts. Minus 14, the war between Russia and Ukraine. Minus 21. And there at the end, the case involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia also -21, for which Hasan inaccurately and quite knowingly extrapolated the inaccurate point that I played for you. I want to state for the record that I oppose nearly all aspects of how Trump is executing his policy. He's doing it with bluster, bombast, and not just an indifference to humane treatment, but a strategy of leaning into the headline generating shock of mistreating migrants. It's quite awful, as are clearly unconstitutional aspects which courts have inveighed against. But if I were reporting this as a straight news story, which I endeavor to do right here, I would attempt not to convey my views of horror and immorality. I would also note that the policy is what the people voted for, which is something to consider if we want to be a democracy and a constitutional democracy and a constitutional democracy that does not violate the voter's will. I would also try to get at the fact that some of the shock and awe is a rational strategy for dissuading the world's would be migrants from coming to our shores. Now, I'm not certain that Trump or the architects of his policy like Stephen Miller are first and foremost emphasizing the strategy. They may well be taking glee in the cruelty and also telling themselves that plays well with the base, because it does. But to be totally factual about what's going on, the administration is in fact pursuing a popular policy in a way that achieves a popular or relatively popular result, let's just say the most popular result that Donald Trump is achieving. Again, so I'm not misunderstood. The times where it's excessive or unconstitutional absolutely need to be forefronted. And again, so as not to be misunderstood, if I were president, I would have approximately none of Trump's specific procedures for detention and deportation. But there are great examples out there of Trump doing the thing he's accused of acting like a quasi autocrat, violating the will of the people, betraying his own voters. Take tariffs and prices. Immigration is not such a case. Now this brings me to a CNN report I heard about Lionel Chavez, a migrant from he was living in Connecticut, originally from Mexico. He was detained and deported along with his brother by immigration officials. This became an international cause celeb. The president of Mexico even commented on the harsh circumstances of his deportation. The CNN report was entirely in sympathy with Chavez and I too sympathize. But see if we could pick up a few of the reporting ticks and tactics that don't adhere to my ideal of plainly stating facts so that listeners and viewers can decide. Here the reporter Maria Sanchez gives context for Chavez's migration to the U.S. leonel.

B (35:04)

Says he was just 17 years old.

A (35:06)

When he moved to the U.S. he started his own masonry business, married an.

B (35:11)

American citizen, and has three US born children. He says he has worked with an.

A (35:16)

Attorney over the years to file for legal status, but was never able to get his papers. We then see video of Chavez's brother Ricardo being shocked by tasers as he runs from authorities it is graphic, it is violent. This was the picture of the Tasing that aroused the world's sympathy. And I was sympathetic too. However, I could not find how the detention, the capture, the deportation was contrary to US law, or even the Trump stated procedures of prioritizing the detention of illegal migrants who had broken the law in ways other than their migration status. It turns out Chavez had criminal convictions.

B (35:53)

Court documents show Leonel has several decades old misdemeanor convictions. Mistakes, he says were made in his.

A (36:01)

Youth, but that's in my past, like.

B (36:03)

My teenagers, you know, after maybe 25, I do everything right and try to.

A (36:08)

Be a better person, which is how time works. Your past deeds are in your past. No one is anticipatorily being deported for future pre cog crimes. Of course I was sympathetic to the children he leaves behind. I was sympathetic that he leaves behind a wife. Although when you marry an American citizen, that usually provides a pathway to citizenship yourself. It is harder if you came to the country illegally and it is harder still if you had criminal convictions, which was the case with Leonel Chavez. But these are complications that are constant under all administrations, Democrat and Republican. Republican. CNN didn't report this. I assume CNN thought most of its audience was interested in the injustice in the pictures of the Tasing, not the thorny issues of what is the definition of justice in this case. They tag their story with this. He now longs for the day he is reunited with his family in the.

B (37:05)

Only place he's ever called home.

A (37:08)

What are you talking about? The story started with the fact that he came here. And at 17, immigration could be seen as a story of an unvirtuous administration. And sometimes it is, but it's actually more often a story that's of competing virtues, a story that gets to the core of how we decide and what we decide as a people. It's quite tempting to default to characterizing all deportations as motivated by racism. And maybe the better ratings lay along that path. But what's the authoritarian stance on immigration? Let's say what we want to do as the media is hold up a mirror to authoritarianism. Okay, what would the authoritarian do about immigration? Would the authoritarian always deport? I mean, authoritarians do vilify others. They valorize the native born. But isn't it also authoritarian to simply violate the popular will? The actual popular demonstrated voted for at the polls that popular will? Isn't it authoritarian to ignore the law based on one's own definition of what's right? Or to give in to the whims of supporter to gain their favor, even when doing so ignores the law. It's a near impossibility. It's a conundrum for any government to balance, and this current government has no real interest in balance. Even so, it is a hard story to tell truly, which is probably why so few are trying to tell it. And that's it for today's show. Corey Warr is the producer of the Gist. Ashley Cott is the production coordinator. Asher Green is our social media coordinator. Leo Baum he wanted to come to the meeting today and I said, no, Leo, you just relax, relax. Kathleen Sykes writes the Gist list. Philip SW Good chips in on that. Michelle Pesca oversees so much of the goings on here at the Gist, including our very controversial redesign, Peru. Do Peru. And thanks for listening.

B (39:21)

Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to Libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.