As the Republican National Convention (RNC) takes place this week, a number of Republicans are announcing that they cannot in good conscience support another four years in the White House for the party’s candidate, President Donald Trump.
Miles Taylor, who previously served as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the current president, has formed a new anti-Trump group called the Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform, or REPAIR. The organization is a “broad group” of Republicans who are supporting Democratic candidate Joe Biden over Trump in this year’s race for president.
Taylor announced early last week that he was personally endorsing Biden, calling Trump “unfocused and undisciplined.” He also said that the current president was serious about trading Puerto Rico for Greenland, a notion that until last week was thought of as a joke made by Trump when he suggested it in 2018.
Discussing REPAIR on Monday night, Taylor said his group had an aspect that other anti-Trump Republican groups do not have: current officials serving in the White House who are against Trump’s reelection.
There are at least two senior officials working for Trump who are part of the group, Taylor alleged. He added that the inclusion of these officials, working with the group “anonymously at least at the outset,” would likely “irk” the president.
There’s strong evidence to back Taylor’s assumption that the president will become quite upset over this revelation. After an unknown White House official printed an op-ed in The New York Times decrying Trump’s actions as president, going under the pen name “Anonymous” and suggesting they were working to ensure his policies wouldn’t hurt the American people, Trump reportedly became “obsessed” with finding out who the individual was.
That obsession may have lasted into this year, even though the initial op-ed was written in 2018 (a subsequent book by the unknown official was published in 2019). In February this year, Victoria Coates, a former deputy national security adviser whom many Trump loyalists claimed was the op-ed writer, was transferred from the White House to the Department of Energy, a move some have said was due to the president possibly believing she might be “Anonymous.”
The identity of who the op-ed writer actually is has not yet been revealed, though it may not remain a secret for too much longer, as “Anonymous” has said they will reveal themselves sometime before Election Day. With the election just 70 days away, the identity of the author may become known very soon.
A number of other Republicans in recent days have also expressed their desire for Trump to lose the election this year, including 70 former national security officials under GOP administrations who published an open letter backing Biden and calling Trump “unfit to serve as President.” Several dozens of former lawmakers also announced the formation on Monday of a new group calling itself “Republicans for Biden.”
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