Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said Sunday that Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.) interview, in which he repeatedly hedged about whether he would accept the election results in 2024, sends a “very scary signal” ahead of the November elections.
Taylor, who worked in the Trump administration, told CNN’s Jessica Dean that he saw Scott’s interview as an informal audition to be former President Trump’s running mate in 2024. Scott is one of the few Republicans considered in the running to be the presumptive nominee. the nominee’s second choice.
“Well, the hesitation, the hesitation in his voice: it’s a test. He’s auditioning and he got a lot of questions from casting directors that he didn’t expect,” Taylor said. “And I think this is something that is sending a very scary signal.”
Taylor later added: “I’m personally disappointed in some of these members of Congress that I’ve met, like Tim Scott and Elise Stefanik, and others who are taking this line to get closer to Trump. It took something that we thought was a threat to democracy from one man and extrapolated it to the upper echelons of the entire party.”
In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” anchor Kristen Welker pressed Scott about Trump’s refusal to commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election and then asked whether Scott would commit to accepting the results.
Scott repeatedly avoided answering the question — even when pressed at least three times for “just yes or no” in accepting the election results — and said, “at the end of the day, the 47th president of the United States will be president. Donald Trump.”
Welker followed up by asking, “Wait, wait, Senator. Yes or no. Yes or no? Will you accept the 2024 election results no matter who wins?”
“That’s my statement,” Scott responded, later adding, “The American people will make the decision, and the decision will be up to President Trump.”
Taylor said he was concerned about similarities between Scott’s rhetoric and Trump’s comments before the 2020 presidential election, when Trump repeatedly hinted that he would not accept the election results if he lost.
Taylor said he was concerned that top Republican politicians appeared to be pushing similar talking points, already casting doubt on the election results.
“I’ll compare it to the last time this happened four years ago, and six months before the election, Donald Trump was doing the same thing. He was signaling that he might not accept the 2020 election results,” Taylor said.
He noted that Republican members of Congress at the time did not largely echo Trump’s sentiment.
“For the most part, you heard assurances from Republican members of Congress about how it would be a free and fair election and that there would be a transfer of power anyway, and they mostly rejected these claims that Donald Trump would try to maintain power, and they did that until the last minute,” said Taylor about 2020.
“This time is very different, because they know what Donald Trump is capable of. And they don’t want to be on his wrong side, because they want to be on his side. They want to be by his side during this journey.”
A spokesperson for Scott declined to comment for this story.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
