A former top Trump official has torched a new Department of Homeland Security promo video—describing it as “creepy,” “stupid,” and “wildly irresponsible.”
The new Department of Homeland Security post—brandishing a Theodore Roosevelt line about crushing “nullification, secession, or rebellion”—rolled out Monday.
It features an orchestral bombast and cut-ups of an army of ICE officials in riot gear and gas masks battling protestors amid a sea of tear gas.
In its X post, the department wrote Roosevelt’s 1887 quote, “The United States has the same right to protect itself… as a man has to protect himself from death by assassination,” atop footage of ranks of ICE officers flooding out of a compound.
They can then be seen battling and pushing back crowds, intercut with black and white footage of a violinist playing them on, before heading back into the compound looking smug.
Within hours, Miles Taylor, who served as DHS chief of staff under Trump, lit into his former employer. “I used to help run this Department,” he posted. “This is the creepiest, stupidest, and most wildly irresponsible video it’s ever released.”
Taylor, 38, is the ex–Trump DHS insider who authored the 2018 “Anonymous” op-ed and later the book A Warning before revealing his identity in 2020.
This year, the White House moved to suspend any active clearances he held and labeled him an “egregious leaker,” claims he has denied while campaigning against Trump’s agenda.
Roosevelt’s quote, from the biography of Missouri Sen. Thomas Hart Benton, sought to dismiss the 19th-century doctrine of nullification—the claim that a state could void a federal law it disliked.
Roosevelt, the 26th president, argued that the national government has the same right to defend its own survival against nullification, secession, or outright rebellion as an individual has to defend himself against an assassin.
The use of the quotes suggests DHS is seeking to frame its current heavy-handed action as one where domestic resistance to federal enforcement—in this case, what it says is protesters trying to block operations—is similar to nullification, and is a threat to national integrity that warrants a strong federal response.
Miles’ blowback lands as DHS’s media operation faces a rolling credibility crisis over hard-edged propaganda stunts.
Late last month, the department failed to get permission to splice Pokémon imagery and the franchise’s theme into an ICE highlight reel, with mock “cards” created for arrestees, tagged: “Gotta catch ‘em all.”
DHS has also used footage from a Chicago apartment-tower raid—where witnesses said kids were hauled naked into Budget vans and seniors zip-tied—in a chest-thumping promo boasting “OVER 900 ARRESTS” in “Operation Midway Blitz.”
The agency’s video didn’t mention residents’ allegations of traumatic tactics or wrongful detentions.
The department has been spending big to sell Trump’s enforcement push to the public and potential recruits. In August, it was reported that the administration was preparing to “blow millions” on a “Stronger Border” PR blitz to prop up DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s agenda.
The Daily Beast has contacted DHS for comment.
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