A new book by a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security claims that Donald Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller proposed using drones to bomb boats full of migrants, Rolling Stone reports.
Miles Taylor, who worked for DHS from 2017 to 2019, makes the allegation in Blowback: A Warning To Save Democracy From the Next Trump, scheduled for publication on July 18 by Atria. A critic for Kirkus called the book “another rousing plea to all Americans to stand against authoritarianism.”
Blowback is the second book from Taylor. In 2019, he anonymously published A Warning, based on his viral New York Times op-ed, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” He identified himself as the author in October of 2020.
Taylor reports that Miller’s suggestion came during a 2018 conversation with Paul F. Zukunft, the admiral who led the U.S. Coast Guard at the time. According to Taylor, Miller asked Zukunft whether the military had drones with missiles, and Zukunft confirmed that it did. Miller then asked if the a Predator drone could be used to “obliterate” a hypothetical boat filled with migrants in international waters on its way to the U.S.
Zukunft replied that bombing the boat would be a violation of international law.
Miller, through a spokesperson, denied that the conversation took place, calling it “complete fiction.” Zukunft told Rolling Stone he had “no recollection” of the exchange. Taylor, however, told the magazine, “The conversation happened.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
