Joining me now is former Homeland Security official under the Trump administration, Miles Taylor. His book, Blow Back: A Warning to Save Democracy from Trump's Revenge, is being rereleased in paperback on April ninth. Thanks for joining me. Miles, tomorrow could prove to be, I can't say it any other way, a nightmare day for Trump. Does it surprise you at all that it's come to this?

It doesn't surprise me, Omar, but I think you really can't overstate how much this is a nightmare for him. I mean, folks that don't know the man might say it was impeachments or it was criminal investigations by the FBI or any number of other things that he has experienced, all these other cases he's going through on classified documents or hush money. But Omar, it's his money that he cares the most about. Trump's entire identity is wrapped around this mirage of his business success. And to have that openly taken from him is something that won't just be an actual hit to his lifestyle. It will be a big political hit internally and externally. It will hit the man's ego and it will be used against him. And you're already seeing Joe Biden and his allies talk about a broke Donald Trump. It's something that really does resonate in a bad way with Donald Trump. Now look, as Zack was just saying earlier, if the appeals court denies the reduction in Trump's bond, then he really just has three the options. Either he gets that bond for $450 million, or he declares bankruptcy, or it's buy-buy for his assets.

Now, Donald Trump is having trouble getting the bond. He's really unlikely to declare bankruptcy because he doesn't like that image. And so it seems like if the appeals court doesn't offer the option and the bond doesn't come through, they are going to take these assets. Now, the last thing I would add, Omar, is if I was on the prosecutor side, I would definitely want to go for liquid assets and not as many of those physical assets and symbols that Trump could use.

That, of course, becomes the next calculus. Once that process starts, where do you start? And so, again, we'll have a lot of answers on that 24 hours from now. Now, of course, the large amount of money has raised a lot of questions about where he would actually get that money from. And some have speculated that it leaves him vulnerable to foreign interference here, a business partner or someone in the community from a foreign country in. Trump's attorney has said that is, quote, categorically, absolutely not true that Trump would seek foreign money to pay his bond. There's no Russian or Saudi money or anything like that under consideration. Would this be out of the realm of possibilities based on you working for him in the past for him to do? And how concerned are you about that particular dynamic?

Well, Omar, I am worried. I mean, when I was at the Department of Homeland Security, we would have conversations privately about why Donald Trump was spending so much time cozy up to dictators. And a lot of members of his own cabinet expressed in private their concern that the reason he was cozy up to dictators is because in the future he would want to avail himself of their funds, of their support, whether it was investment in his properties or future business deals. So this is exactly the type of case that national security officials were worried about, that in the post-presidenty, Trump might go seek favors from foreign governments. And this is certainly an amount of money that he could potentially have to rely on a large foreign government to come and back him. What does that mean, Omar? Should he win the presidency again and something like that? If he chose to take money from a foreign government, what would it mean? It would mean they potentially have leverage over the President of the United States. Now, get the president for a second. This is the type of thing that national security officials worry about when they hire line workers and folks straight out of college.

It's one of the first things that happens when you do your national security clearance is they ask you about all of your debts. Why? Because they want to make sure you don't owe someone who could use that debt as leverage to get you to spill secrets. So when it's the President of the United States, I think that's a very, very big concern. So folks will be watching closely to make sure that we understand the source of the funds if Donald Trump does indeed come up with them.

And you highlight a key dynamic here. This is happening within an election here. This is happening as people consider who they're going to vote for for the next President of the United States. You've obviously been very outspoken about your former boss here, but you're not alone. Other former administration officials have come out and spoken out against him. How critical do you think it is for former Trump administration officials to speak up ahead of this November election?

Well, Omar, I think folks feel like at this point, they know everything there is to know about Donald Trump. But the one place where I will push back against that is there still is an extraordinary wealth of information about the things Donald Trump had wanted to do in a first term, but which his team and folks like me told him and told the White House were not legal or were unconstitutional or at a minimum were unethical. And there's still a mountain of those things that were shelved that in a second term would be the policies of a Trump 2.0. It's really important for former officials to paint that picture for America because it really is a chilling picture. It's a picture of a government that's weaponized against the people themselves and against political adversaries. That's what Donald Trump wanted to do with government departments and agencies on a regular basis. And so in my mind, the people who can speak best to that, who can speak most authoritatively and who can speak without the veneer of it being partisan politics, are people from within his own party and people who had been within his own administration.

So I still know a number of them who have not spoken out, who are considering speaking out. And I really urge them this cycle to find the courage to do that because our country really could hang in the balance.

Well, we will see if your efforts actually get some of them to come out and speak. And if they do, feel free to refer them to us. We'd be happy to relay any experience they may have had here. Miles Taylor, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Thanks, Omar.

Of course.