Election 2020: Ex-Trump Senior Official Endorses Biden, Confident He Will 'Protect The Country'

Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), endorsed Joe Biden on Monday while condemning President Donald Trump as "dangerous" for the U.S.

Taylor blasted Trump in dramatic fashion for "actively doing damage to our national security" by making decisions that foster his re-election bid. He assailed Trump in a scathing op-ed published Monday in The Washington Post . He also attacked Trump in a video released by the Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT) political group the same day.

A political appointee and ardent Republican, Taylor served at the DHS from 2017 to 2019 as chief-of-staff to former secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. In the RVAT video, Taylor claimed Trump's decision-making priorities were to advance his own political and personal interests, and not those of the U.S. Taylor said he was disenchanted Taylor enough to declare his vote for Biden in November.

"What we saw week in and week out, for me, after two and a half years in that administration, was terrifying," he said in the video. "We would go in to try to talk to him about a pressing national security issue -- cyberattack, terrorism threat -- he wasn't interested in those things. To him, they weren't priorities."

"Given what I have experienced in the administration, I have to support Joe Biden for president and even though I am not a Democrat, even though I disagree on key issues, I'm confident that Joe Biden will protect the country and I'm confident that he won't make the same mistakes as this president."

Taylor revealed Trump directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to withhold disaster funding to California following horrific wildfires because California voters didn't vote for him in 2016.

"He told us to stop giving money to people whose houses had burned down from a wildfire because he was so rageful that people in the state of California didn't support him and that politically it wasn't a base for him," said Taylor.

Trump has no love lost for immigrants. Taylor accused Trump of wanting to inflict the "zero-tolerance" immigration policy separating migrant children from their families in a harsher fashion to deter illegal immigration.

In his op-ed, Taylor called Trump as "dangerous" for America, saying his "decision-making process was itself broken." He noted Trump "would abruptly endorse policy proposals with little or no consideration, by him or his advisers, of possible knock-on effects."

Taylor said Trump doesn't take cybersecurity, domestic terrorism or foreign interference in U.S. politics seriously. On the other hand, Trump demands the DHS implement policies that help his re-election.

Taylor also said Trump has damaged the U.S. "in countless ways that don’t directly involve national security but, by stoking hatred and division, make Americans profoundly less safe."

He cited Trump's response to the COVID-19 pandemic as the ultimate example. Because of his cavalier disregard for the seriousness of the pandemic threat, "Trump failed to make effective use of the federal crisis response system painstakingly built after 9/11. Years of DHS planning for a pandemic threat have been largely wasted. Meanwhile, more than 165,000 Americans have died."

Taylor said Trump's first term "has been dangerously chaotic. Four more years of this are unthinkable."