AMNA NAWAZ: Those suspensions at FEMA are just the latest example of the Trump administration targeting critics of the president or his perceived political enemies.

The last week has seen an FBI search of the home and office of Trump's former national security adviser and an attempt to remove a member of the Federal Reserve Board.

Being the focus of Trump's ire is something that Miles Taylor knows all too well.

While serving in the Department of Homeland Security during President Trump's first administration, he anonymously published a book criticizing the president.

He's been dealing with the fallout ever since, including investigations launched after Trump reentered the White House.

And Miles Taylor joins us now.

Miles, good to see you again.

MILES TAYLOR, Former Department of Homeland Security Chief of Staff: Great to be with you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Let's just start with what we have seen over the last week-plus.

When you saw the John Bolton raids, the attempt to fire the Fed governor Lisa Cook, the two dozen FEMA employees or so who were placed on leave, what did you think?

What went through your head?

MILES TAYLOR: It's happening.

It's all happening, the things that many of us have forecast for years would happen in a second Trump administration if he was not surrounded by people who said, Mr. President, this is illegal or Mr. President, this is unconstitutional.

Well, then we would see the fruition of the thing that many of us saw behind the scenes with the president.

I mean, look, I wanted Donald Trump to be successful in the first Trump administration.

I did not know the man.

When I came into that administration, though, and I saw with what regularity the president cooked up ideas that were so obviously illegal on their face, that made me and a lot of other people very, very worried.

And we felt like we needed to go out and tell folks that that was the case.

Unfortunately he's come back into office, and a lot of those things he wanted to do that lawyers did not think were lawful, he is carrying out.

And many of those are focused on revenge against his enemies.

AMNA NAWAZ: You talked last time when we spoke, you said how people warned you against speaking out and fighting back because they thought it might bring more attention on you and potentially more pressure, more targeting of you and your family.

A lot of people don't see what that targeting looks like, the personal toll, the financial toll.

And, as you said before, you think people are scared to speak out because it -- what it would mean.

What is it like when the president comes after you?

MILES TAYLOR: Yes, it changes your entire life.

And I tell people this not so they have sympathy for me, but so they understand what happens if the president of the United States creates this kind of blacklist and the ripple effects it can have.

I mean, for us, socially, it's caused friends and family to go different directions than us.

It's also resulted in big security threats against my wife, against my daughter.

I mean, we have had people make violent threats against our family members.

We have had to increase our security.

We have an army of lawyers for different things, but it's also meant, financially, it's been very hard for us.

The business that I built effectively had to be dissolved because my business partners no longer wanted to have that association, because they too were scared Trump would come after them if we stayed in business together.

It affects every aspect of your life.

AMNA NAWAZ: And since we last spoke, things have changed dramatically.

We have seen the president deploy federal military troops in an American community and threaten to send them into more communities across the country.

Here's what he had to say about that yesterday.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: The line is that I'm a dictator, but I stop crime.

So a lot of people say, if that's the case, I'd rather have a dictator.

But I'm not a dictator.

I just know how to stop crime.

I don't love -- not that I don't have -- I have the right to do anything I want to do.

I'm the president of the United States.

AMNA NAWAZ: Miles, you know this president.

You have worked for him.

What do you take away from his comments there?

MILES TAYLOR: Well, I will be honest with you.

It is not about crime.

Donald Trump is not trying to counter crime with these military deployments.

He is mounting a counterinsurgency against domestic political enemies.

That sounds dramatic, but look no further than what Stephen Miller just said the other day about one of the two major political parties in the United States.

He called the Democratic Party a domestic extremist organization.

That's the language that we used to use in the counterterrorism community to describe terrorist groups that we were going after.

That's how we described groups as extremist organizations in Iraq when we mounted a counterinsurgency campaign.

And now the president of the United States is deploying troops into what he says are Democratic cities, and his top adviser is calling the Democratic Party a domestic extremist organization.

That's really, really scary language.

And we're increasingly seeing those other counterterrorism and national security tools of the federal government turned against political adversaries.

And that has me worried about where this could go.

AMNA NAWAZ: Garrett Graff, who's on the show quite frequently, had a good piece pulling back on this and how he sees this moment in American history.

At the deployment of the forces, he wrote this: "I think many Americans wrongly believe there would be one clear, unambiguous moment where we go from democracy to authoritarianism.

Instead, this is exactly how it happens, a blurring here, a norm destroyed there, a presidential diktat unchallenged.

You wake up one morning and our country is different."

Miles, he says something is materially different in our country this week than last.

Do you agree?

MILES TAYLOR: Absolutely.

And there's never going to be that perfect, bright line.

I actually think Garrett's piece is one of the most important things that's been written in weeks or months about the moment that we are in.

It's lucid.

It's a fantastic piece.

People should read it.

And it really shows that, all along, we should have taken Trump seriously and literally with what he said.

He said he was going to be America's retribution.

He said he was going to lock people up.

He said he was going to deploy the troops.

He said he was going to go after his political enemies.

And all along, people in my former party, the Republican Party, people in national security circles said he's joking, it's an exaggeration.

His own people went to the microphones and said he's joking.

He's not joking.

He's moving forward with these plans.

These plans are autocratic in nature, and we really need America to wake up to that, because whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, we don't want this precedent to be set for how presidential power is used in the future.

AMNA NAWAZ: Miles Taylor, thank you for being here again.

Good to speak with you.

MILES TAYLOR: Thank you.