Elizabeth Neumann writes:

Everything we saw during the first presidential debate is indicative of how President Donald Trump behaves in the White House. His business model is chaos. He has no organization, no leadership, and sees every interaction as a contest or a battle, even when it doesn’t have to be. Chris Wallace now knows how so many administration staffers feel — and how I felt when the president got in the way of me doing my job. He is dangerous for our country.

I served as the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention, and my job was to help keep Americans safe from terrorist attacks. My time in office coincided with a dramatic rise in white nationalist violence, but my colleagues and I couldn’t get the president to help address the problem. At the debate, America saw what I saw in the administration: President Trump refuses to distance himself from white nationalists. I realized after watching the White House response to the terrorist attack in El Paso that his rhetoric was a recruitment tool for violent extremist groups. The president bears some responsibility for the deaths of Americans at the hands of these violent extremists.

As a conservative, I believe a primary purpose of the federal government is to provide for the national defense. Under the Constitution, it is a mandatory function of the federal government. After serving for three years inside the Trump administration’s national security team, I am convinced the president is failing at keeping Americans safe. [Continue reading…]