A former high-ranking official in the Department of Homeland Security under President Donald Trump has come out against his reelection and said she’ll be voting for Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Elizabeth Neumann, who served in the department until April of this year, cited the rise of white supremacy under Trump as well as the president’s failures in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’m sorry, Mr. President, you were hired to handle America’s worst day,” Neumann said in a video from Republican Voters Against Trump. “And you’ve absolutely failed.”
In the video, Neumann said the department had identified white supremacy as a growing threat and Trump’s rhetoric was not only feeding the movement, it was making her job more difficult.
“The president’s actions and his language are, in fact, racist,” she said. She added: “Things like, ‘There are good people on both sides,’ or ‘send them back from where they came from,’ those words gave permission to white supremacists to think that what they were doing was permissible. And I do think that the president’s divisive language is indirectly tied to some of the attacks that we have seen in the last two years.”
Neumann also said in an interview with MSNBC, above, that she believes there are people within the Trump administration who “hold a white nationalist viewpoint.”
Neumann, who voted for Trump in 2016, now believes the nation can’t afford another term.
“We are less safe today because of his leadership,” she said. “And we will continue to be less safe under his control.”
Earlier this month, Miles Taylor ― the former chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security under Trump ― also came out against the president and endorsed Biden in a video for Republican Voters Against Trump.
Neumann and Taylor have formed the Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform, or REPAIR, and are working to recruit other former Trump officials into coming out against him.
Politico reported that the group is backed by Bill Kristol, the former Weekly Standard editor who is also behind Republican Voters Against Trump.