Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security official who served in President Donald Trump's first term, asserted that the commander-in-chief was deploying the military in U.S. cities for "power and leverage."

During a Sunday appearance on MSNBC, Taylor disagreed with pundits who believe that Trump's goal was to crack down on crime and immigration.

"I would say it's even bigger than that," he explained. "And I think immigration is going to be used as the Trojan horse to make all of this happen. I mean, well, it's like a Russian doll of Trojan horses to mix a whole bunch of metaphors."

"But for Donald Trump, it's about neither of those things," he continued. "It's about power and leverage. And that sounds abstract. That sounds conspiratorial. But everything that he does by his own explication is about how do you get the leverage to do the next thing you want."

Taylor pointed out that Trump was using a common authoritarian tactic.

"You control the guys with the guns," he noted. And especially if that's in Democratic cities, then it doesn't matter whether it's immigration or whether it's federal housing law or whether it's student loans or whether it's universities."

"If he controls force in that territory," he added. "He has the leverage to go get all of those things done, to coerce those localities and states to do what he wants. That is ultimately the goal here."

Watch the video below from MSNBC or click the link here.