In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. The 2020 race, the subject of our next book, is well underway.
An unusual aspect of the campaign is the number of high-profile Republicans attacking Trump or supporting Biden.
Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster called President Trump’s withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan a big mistake that will make America less safe. “He, in effect, is partnering with the Taliban against, in many ways, the Afghan government,” the retired three-star general told CBS in an interview that will air Sunday on “60 Minutes” ahead of the publication of his new book, “Battlegrounds,” on Tuesday. “Terrorist organizations who pose a threat to us are stronger now than they were on September 10, 2001.”
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s former chief of staff, Josh Venable, joined a group of 25 other Trump alumni on Thursday who want to see the president defeated. Former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor formed the Republican Political Alliance for Integrity & Reform, which will be known as REPAIR. Taylor told Politico that a current senior administration official is also part of the group, but he declined to name that person.
The biggest splash of the day came from Olivia Troye, who worked as Vice President Pence’s homeland security, counterterrorism and coronavirus adviser until she left the White House last month. The lifelong Republican endorsed Joe Biden, citing Trump’s lack of seriousness behind closed doors when she was a senior adviser on the coronavirus task force. “There were a lot of closed-door conversations I have had with a lot of senior people across the administration where they agree with me wholeheartedly,” Troye told The Washington Post.
She recorded this blistering video for Republican Voters Against Trump:
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