Lou Dobbs Was a ‘Shadow Chief of Staff,’ Former Trump Insider Says

Lou Dobbs Was a ‘Shadow Chief of Staff,’ Former Trump Insider Says

Former Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor made another damning claim about President Trump’s behavior, this time concerning his television watching habits.

Taylor, who has gone public recently about what he witnessed while in his post, has not portrayed Trump as a competent commander in chief. This case marks yet another instance of Trump looking to Fox News hosts for guidance rather than those in his own administration.

“The president would call us and he would say — and pardon my language — he would say, ‘Why the hell didn’t you watch Lou Dobbs last night? You need to listen to Lou. What Lou says is what I want to do.’ So if Lou Dobbs peddled a conspiracy theory on late-night television or made an erroneous claim about what should be done either at the border or with some law enforcement operation, the president wanted us to be tuning in every night,” said Taylor, who has endorsed Democratic nominee Joe Biden.


“My response to that was I don’t have any time to watch Lou Dobbs in the evening. You’ve got us running a 250,000-person department and we’re trying to guard against some of the most severe threats to this country. We can’t be watching Lou Dobbs and taking our orders from him, but this happened on a regular basis.”

Dobbs has frequently made news for saying some over-the-top things in support of Trump and his allies. Just last week, he accused “the deep state” of sending agents of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to arrest former Trump campaign manager-turned-adviser Steve Bannon for alleged wire fraud and money laundering.

Watch the video above, via CNN.

William Vaillancourt

William Vaillancourt is a writer and editor from New Hampshire whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Progressive, Slate and Areo Magazine, among other places. He holds a BA in Political Science and History from Boston University.

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