Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #36  ## Metadata - Author: [[It Could Happen Here]] - Full Title: Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #36 - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/6709630c-eee5-41d4-8f57-9cbe8fa822ea ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Shutdown Framing Is Bad Faith** - The shutdown debate is being misframed by Republicans as Democrats defending healthcare for "illegals." - Hosts explain Democrats actually seek to extend ACA subsidies and reverse Medicaid cuts, not fund care for undocumented people. Transcript: Garrison Davis And what a week it was. Yeah. Does not feel like it should be October, but who cares? I guess the government's shut down right now, so all of the dozens of anarchists around the country are rejoicing as the Senate has failed to pass a short-term funding bill. Robert Evans That's right, everyone. We did it. We defeated the state using the power of the state. The state. Many such cases. Garrison Davis As the government shut down, Trump is threatening mass layoffs, and Republicans are framing this whole shutdown as being caused by Democrats who are trying to defend health care for, Quote-unquote, illegals, which isn't real. Undocumented immigrants do not get federal health care. That's not even what the Democrats are fighting for. Would be cool if they were. It would be cool if you're in this country, you could just get health care. That sounds nice. Wouldn't that be a cool, almost utopian place to live? But that's not what's happening. And the rights confronted with this, but they just do not care. Here's a Mike Johnson, speaker of the House on CNN, having a little debate about this. Robert Evans If that counterproposal was enacted is illegal aliens would be paid for American taxpayers. Hard earned dollars would be paying for benefits for illegal aliens. Mia Wong Again, we're not doing that, but it's against federal law for people who are here illegally. Yes. Yes. Robert Evans And that's why our reforms are so important to enforce all that. What the important thing to remember is what's happening. The democratic proposal that people who are here illegally should get because they don't have the level of specification that we had in our bill. It will unwind that. And all those things that the CBO just verified will be reversed. We can't afford to do that. But you see my point that there's nuance in the argument that you're making, right? No, that is a red herring in this debate. Garrison Davis So what the Democrats are actually doing right now is they're trying to extend the current, currently enacted federal subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, which keeps millions Of people able to access health care. And Democrats are also trying to reverse some of the federal health care cuts, including to Medicaid, which happened under the one big, beautiful bill earlier this year. That is what they're actually fighting for. The White House is re-truthing and re-tweeting proposals from the Democrats that include health care for aliens, but that's legal aliens. That's like legal documented residents. And they're framing this as health care for quote unquote illegals. Mia Wong It's a bad faith representation as it always is. People can go all the way back to the episode that I made with Robert and Sophie last year about what trump might do to learn more about the public charge rule and how that pertains to people Who are not u.s citizens i don't think we really have the time nor is this the place to go over that here but there is not and there has never been a massive federal free health care plan for Undocumented people. In fact, people who are undocumented are not going to see the doctor right now because of the persistent and untrue rumor that ICE are taking people from hospitals. That is not something I'm aware of ever happening. ICE do take people who are already in their custody to hospitals and they will wait for those people while those people are treated. That is not the same as entering the hospital and grabbing people based on their immigration status. And I'm aware of several cases where people whose life was genuinely in danger were afraid to go and seek medical attention because they were afraid that they would be targeted for their Immigration status. So we'll see how long this government shutdown lasts. Garrison Davis The last one started in 2018 lasted 35 days. If this shutdown is still happening next week, I'm sure we will include some details about government services being affected. But this could resolve in a few days, a few hours, or in a few weeks. We do not know. But luckily, ([Time 0:02:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/eef3780c-a7d3-4009-9d5e-bb460900b15d)) - **War Framing Moves Domestic Policing** - The administration rebranded DoD as the "War Department" and uses wartime rhetoric for domestic policing. - That language normalizes military framing for domestic operations and signals broader authoritarian intent. Transcript: Garrison Davis This actually happened last month. On September 5th, Trump signed an executive order approving the name the Department of War as a secondary title for the Department of Defense to use in official correspondence, public Communications, ceremonial context, and non-statutory documents within the executive branch, while the administration also works on changing the name officially through Congress. Hegseth nearly immediately switched all of his accounts and his office nameplate to read Secretary of War. Yeah, you know he pushed hard for this one. Defense.gov now redirects to war.gov, and they're just referring to this in all public appearances as the War Department. Something that we've talked about on the show before, of them wanting to do, and they're going to continue to push this, and using this kind of war framing for domestic operations, not Just international deployments. Mia Wong This was its historical name, right? Like way, way before it was a DOD. Yeah, yeah. It was just to be clear for people, that doesn't mean that it's like a good reason to change it back. Garrison Davis Trump truthed last week, quote, At the request of the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, I'm directing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to provide all necessary troops to protect War-ravaged Portland and any of our ICE facilities under siege from attack by Antifa and other domestic terrorists. I'm also authorizing full force if necessary. Thank you for your attention in this matter. War-ravaged Portland. How's it hanging out there for our Portland correspondents? Robert Evans It's fine. It's kind of rainy. I had a nice tapas dinner on Sunday. It was pretty good. The crows are really nice. Garrison Davis Does someone want to mention the nature of the anti-ice protests happening in one square block in the south waterfront of downtown Portland? Robert Evans Yeah, it's in the South Waterfront. McAdam is what people here call it, the neighborhood where the ICE auxiliary facility is. And there have been protests off and on pretty much since Trump took office. Usually on like a good night, you get maybe 150, 200 people. There were some nights kind of around where things blew up in LA that there were more like five or 600 people out for a couple of days. There really hasn't been any of the like what we're seeing in 2020 in terms of like the mass mass gatherings. And, you know, there has not really been much in the way of like people getting arrested or generally getting arrested for crossing a line that separates federal property from like State property, so to speak, and like step over it. And then a bunch of guys run out and grab them. Right. That's that's mostly what the arrests are for. A lot of people have had charges dropped. I mean, people get fucked up charges when they get charged, but a lot of them are not really sticking because they're not very strong, like because there's just not much going on. Right. Yeah. Garrison Davis We'll talk more about why Trump thinks there's this apocalypse now scenario happening in Portland. But yeah, so far the protests have been relatively mild. James Stout Yes. Yeah, the vibe is very much like the classic Portland thing of people holding donuts on fishing lines out in front of the cops. Robert Evans Right. It's like that, not like Molotovs. The response has been crazy. Like there's a video going around that's a bunch of federal agents, I think they're FPS, rolling in up from a van from outside of the ICE facility and arresting somebody who, again, probably Crossed a line or threw something. Generally is why people have been getting arrested. So the response has been nonsense. That video is from recently and I'm seeing it attributed to Trump's declaration of war. But like I saw stuff like that three months ago, four months ago, like it's been happening every day. Like they do roll up in their vans when they because they periodically throughout the day will have feds come in to go grab a couple of people. And this is a thing they've been doing. So they've been it's so far, at least I have not seen either an escalation on the ground, really, in terms of like what protests, what the protests are doing and the numbers of protesters Since Trump's declaration. And I also really haven't seen an escalation in what's being deployed on the ground. Garrison Davis We have not seen the Oregon National Guard presence that is being promised. ([Time 0:10:54](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f21c2473-cf63-4c79-862e-64c6582dfe6d)) - **Portland Looks Worse On Cable Than In Person** - Robert Evans describes Portland protests as mostly small, everyday actions rather than a war zone. - He notes footage from 2020 is being reused to exaggerate current events for political effect. Transcript: Robert Evans It's fine. It's kind of rainy. I had a nice tapas dinner on Sunday. It was pretty good. The crows are really nice. Garrison Davis Does someone want to mention the nature of the anti-ice protests happening in one square block in the south waterfront of downtown Portland? Robert Evans Yeah, it's in the South Waterfront. McAdam is what people here call it, the neighborhood where the ICE auxiliary facility is. And there have been protests off and on pretty much since Trump took office. Usually on like a good night, you get maybe 150, 200 people. There were some nights kind of around where things blew up in LA that there were more like five or 600 people out for a couple of days. There really hasn't been any of the like what we're seeing in 2020 in terms of like the mass mass gatherings. And, you know, there has not really been much in the way of like people getting arrested or generally getting arrested for crossing a line that separates federal property from like State property, so to speak, and like step over it. And then a bunch of guys run out and grab them. Right. That's that's mostly what the arrests are for. A lot of people have had charges dropped. I mean, people get fucked up charges when they get charged, but a lot of them are not really sticking because they're not very strong, like because there's just not much going on. Right. Yeah. Garrison Davis We'll talk more about why Trump thinks there's this apocalypse now scenario happening in Portland. But yeah, so far the protests have been relatively mild. James Stout Yes. Yeah, the vibe is very much like the classic Portland thing of people holding donuts on fishing lines out in front of the cops. Robert Evans Right. It's like that, not like Molotovs. The response has been crazy. Like there's a video going around that's a bunch of federal agents, I think they're FPS, rolling in up from a van from outside of the ICE facility and arresting somebody who, again, probably Crossed a line or threw something. Generally is why people have been getting arrested. So the response has been nonsense. That video is from recently and I'm seeing it attributed to Trump's declaration of war. But like I saw stuff like that three months ago, four months ago, like it's been happening every day. Like they do roll up in their vans when they because they periodically throughout the day will have feds come in to go grab a couple of people. And this is a thing they've been doing. So they've been it's so far, at least I have not seen either an escalation on the ground, really, in terms of like what protests, what the protests are doing and the numbers of protesters Since Trump's declaration. And I also really haven't seen an escalation in what's being deployed on the ground. Garrison Davis We have not seen the Oregon National Guard presence that is being promised. No. This has just been DHS officers. Robert Evans I can confirm just based on some some information that's come my way that there do seem to be an increased number of DHS Blackhawks flying with their transponders off. There's a couple of reasons they can do that. Some of them is for if they are transporting like high value, quote unquote, deportees, right? People who are being deported for some sort of serious crime. Some of it is if they are feel like they are under threat and are doing like emergency personnel transfers. They're not generally supposed to fly without their transponders. Although, again, you can't really trust anything to work the way it's supposed to work. But there is some evidence that they have been ramping up and they have been flying more MQ-9s over the city reaper drones um for surveillance purposes so that i can say there does seem To have been a degree of escalation but in terms of we're not seeing troops marching through the city yet and i i honestly can't it doesn't seem to me as of the moment that we're recording This that there has been an escalation in the level of force used on the ground right now that said the level of force use on the ground before Trump declared his war on Portland or whatever Was still pretty extreme. That has continued. ([Time 0:12:33](https://share.snipd.com/snip/71fc7d9d-f7d8-4ea5-a1a1-7a0c49942ad2)) - **Troop Threats Raise Constitutional Risk** - Trump urged military leaders to prepare to deploy troops to U.S. cities as a "war from within." - Hosts warn that deploying National Guard or federal troops to cities risks major constitutional and political confrontations. Transcript: Garrison Davis Yeah. Well, Trump has continued to talk about deploying, quote unquote, troops to U.S. Cities, including at a meeting of top brass on Tuesday, September 30th, where Pete Hagseth basically ranted to top generals and admirals about no more wokeness in the military. But Trump also spoke, telling top military officials to prepare to deploy military to liberal-run cities, calling it a, quote, war from within. Let's play the clip. Speaker 5 But it seems that the ones that are run by the radical left Democrats, what they've done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they very unsafe places and we're going to straighten Them out it'd be a major part for some of the people in this room that's a war too it's a war from within controlling the physical territory of our border is essential to national security Mia Wong We can't let these people in the two separate issues there that he conflated right protests in cities and people crossing the border. Garrison Davis Yeah, and that's the way Trump's been talking about this for a while. I mean, same thing with like DC, right? Combining this like crime issue with undocumented immigration and also with protests against ICE operations targeting undocumented immigrants, all kind of bundled together into Mia Wong This into this war from within yeah i mean the immigration issue right is one that gives him a much broader leeway in the powers that are constitutionally available to him as the executive Than policing with the military which is on the face of the thing that shouldn't happen in the united states it makes sense from a tactical perspective for them to conflate those two Things together, I will say, even if it's not particularly real. Garrison Davis During this televised meeting, Trump told military leaders, quote, last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil Disturbances. This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room, talking to the generals, because it's the enemy from within, and we will have to handle it before it gets out of control. It won't get out of control once you're involved, unquote. Addressing admirals and generals about them having to help form a quick reaction force to quell civil disturbance, which won't get out of control once they're involved, calling it Again, the enemy from within a line that Trump used a lot during the tail end of his presidential campaign in 2024. Yeah. James Stout Which is just, it's every single element of it is just fascist. Garrison Davis I mean, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty blanket authoritarian stuff. Like there's no like sugarcoating it here. Yeah. They don't need to like use coded phrases, right? They just say this stuff. James Stout Yeah, no, they're just, yeah, they're just, this is, this is just fascism. Like they're just trying to do it. Yeah. They're just saying the thing. Garrison Davis In the meeting, he explicitly labeled these dangerous cities as a training ground for our military national guard. Speaker 5 But I want to salute every service member who has helped us carry out this critical mission. It's really a very important mission. And I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military national guard, but military, because we're going into Chicago very soon. That's a big city with an incompetent governor, stupid governor, stupid. James Stout I think it's worth noting both the mayor of Chicago and the governor Pritzker have been very unhappy about this. Like as much as Pritzker has kind of not been doing anything about like CPD aiding ICE in raids, he is absolutely not budging at all about not putting National Guard troops in. So if they're very serious about following this through, we're going to see some kind of large-scale confrontation. And Pritzker is not the kind of knock-kneed Gavin Newsom-type governor. Mia Wong Yeah, he's not Gavin Newsom. James Stout He's not simply just going to let Trump do this. And yeah, and that's going to be a major source of confrontation, assuming this specific, like we're going to send the National Guard in to Chicago stuff like happens soon. ([Time 0:16:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/869246bd-0eff-451c-88a3-6b6dcaa06eac)) - **Brutal ICE Raids In South Shore** - James Stout recounts a brutal early-morning ICE/Federal raid in South Shore, Chicago with flashbangs and children zip-tied. - He links the raid to an escalation shifting enforcement into majority-Black neighborhoods. Transcript: James Stout Yeah, I mean, the scenes that I have seen the most frequently described as war or looking like a war this week have come out of Chicago, where on Tuesday the 30th, it was one of the most brutal Raids that we've seen from the feds yet in any city. This took place in South Shore, which is a 90% black neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, where a whole bunch of immigrants who, I don't know if people remember when Texas and a bunch Of other states in the south started busing immigrants up to cities in the North. Chicago is one of the ones where that happened a lot. A lot of these people ended up in South Shore, and there was a massive raid on an apartment complex in the South Shore. Agents showed up in a combination of moving vans, sort of unmarked vans and armored vehicles. It's still unclear exactly how many people were taken. We so don't know. Estimates at the time suggested about 40. It's very unclear. What we do know about the raid was that it was absolutely brutal. A bunch of the initial reports thought they had been shooting, but there hadn't been shooting. What there had been was that they blew into this apartment complex with flashbang grenades yeah pretty common for people to mistake those two yeah yeah and these are just you know these Are just regular people who suddenly at one in the morning a bunch of explosions start going off there's a whole bunch of pictures that you can see in in various articles about this of Doors torn off their hinges the agents did a i mean this is a classic Chicago police tactic, but, you know, they just went through and just started grabbing everyone's stuff and tearing Through it and throwing it onto the ground. There were black cop helicopters, like, constantly circling this just random apartment complex. There was a massive FBI presence alongside Border Patrol and ICE. Yeah. It's also worth mentioning that Independent Outlet Book Club Chicago, which is one of the very sort of prominent independent local media outlets there, obtained a picture from a neighbor Who was like next to the raid that show Chicago Police Department on the scene, which they are they are expressly forbidden by state law from assisting in immigration enforcement. It is worth reading this article in order to see this quote, quote, we did not participate in or assist with any immigration enforcement, spokesperson Maggie Hyun said in a statement, Followed immediately by pictures that clearly show a CPD car on the scene of this raid. Yeah, this raid is a really significant escalation of force in a city that has, I mean, has already seen ICE literally shoot someone and kill them. But yeah, I'm going to quote this from Tribe, which is another independent news outlet in collaboration with Unraveled Press. Veronica Castro of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights at a press conference said, quote, this looked like hundreds of mass agents knocking down doors and dragging Families out in the middle of the night, holding babies that were unclothed, Castro added. Holding naked babies because people haven't had time, like they're not giving people time to like even put clothes on, something you see a lot in the accounts of this. I'm going to read some more from an account from ABC. As I got to my unit to stick my key in the door, I was grabbed by an officer and I said, what's going on? What's going on? He never actually told me. He said I was being detained, said Alicia Brooks. Neighbors like Ebony Watson say they ducked for covers. They heard several flashbangs. They was terrified. The kids was crying. People were screaming. They looked very distraught. I was out there when I seen the little girl coming around the corner because they was bringing the kids down too. Had them zip tied to each other, Watson said. That's all I kept asking. What is the morality? Where is the human one of them literally laughed he was standing right there he said fucking kids so that is what these raids are looking like now it is again also worth noting that like This is this is a very significant escalation of force they are zip tying children to each other as they drag them from their homes at one in the morning and saying, fuck them, kids. Yeah, and this also marks what seems to be a pretty large pivot away from the areas they've been targeting before, which tend to be the suburbs and the outlying areas, and into very, very Majority, the majority black parts of Chicago. And we're going to talk more about this next week with journalists who's been on the ground. Yeah, I mean, for example, a couple of hours before we recorded this episode, so there are sparse details. But there is a video that shows the feds just two hands on neck choking a black man in East Garfield Park. It's deeply unclear why this is happening, but they are just doing this now. And what we have so far, we don't know why they were doing this, but this is also something I think is very alarming. This is also reported by Tribe. There's a video from the scene where an agent is recorded saying, just so you guys know, this is not an immigration enforcement action. The agent goes on to say they were responding to a robbery in progress. All we know about is there was a car crash and they just started choking this guy. It's unclear exactly what's going on with this. There probably will be more details by the time this episode is going out. But the feds are just doing this stuff every day in Chicago. I mean, just randomly choking black people on the street and this massive hideous raid in South Shore are pretty significant escalations in places they haven't been targeting before. And it's hard to see this ending anytime soon or things getting any better from here, especially with the sort of, you know, as we were mentioning earlier, there hasn't been really any Sign of like an intensification of federal violence in Portland, but in Chicago, there absolutely has been. And it's horrible. ([Time 0:33:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/47035f46-719a-4b6e-a916-2d6533f4ba87)) - **Immigration Focus Shifts Federal Priorities** - Federal law enforcement appears reallocated toward immigration enforcement, reducing prosecutions for other major crimes. - Reuters found major federal drug prosecutions fell to decades-low levels amid focus on deportations. Transcript: Mia Wong So talking of intensification of federal activity, I guess, according to a notice posted in the Federal Register, DHS is going to use the Cultural, Environmental, and Historical Protection Waiver that we reported about that came out this spring to force through wall construction in the San Diego sector. I am guessing that in part, we will see this used to waive. One of the acts that is waived is the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. And I'm guessing in part that this will be used to waive that, right? Because Kumeyaay ancestors are in these areas. And at the tail end of the previous Trump administration, I reported on this for Sierra, which is a magazine of the Sierra Club, Kumeyaay people were using ceremonies, so they were participating In ceremony every day at construction sites in order to slow down the clock. And they also filed a lawsuit, right? But they were trying to basically run out of clock on the Trump administration in 2020. They successfully, in some areas, prevented some construction, but with the waiver of NAGPRA, it's hard to see how they will be able to do that. They also waive a bunch of other acts, the Eagle Protection Act, Environmental and Migratory Bird Treaties, a bunch of other acts. This comes on the same week as Secretary of War Pete Hedges restored medals of honor to soldiers at Wounded Knee. If people are not familiar, this is not the episode where I do a history of things that have happened at Wounded Knee Creek, but this was the largest mass shooting in US history. This was just a slaughter. Yeah, hundreds of unarmed Lakota civilians were murdered by the United States military. This wasn't a battle, this was just a massacre. There were significant casualties for the U.S. Military. Most of them were caused by the U.S. Military, i.e. Friendly fire and a completely disorganized slaughter of civilians. There was a standoff at Wounded Knee later in the 1970s in which two indigenous people died, one went missing. You can read Mary Brave Bird's book about that if you want a first-hand account of that. It's a very good book. But yeah, Hegseth is doing this, I think, because Lloyd Austin had previously ordered a review of those medals because they weren't fighting. They were just killing people. Therefore, it makes sense to to strip these these medals of honor and that there was very little honor in what they did hex f has restored those very amusingly he said this is final like Another sect f couldn't just order a review like in four years and change it again cbp has also issued a request for comments here in san diego about its plans to build 7.6 miles of wall West of Tecate, as well as 1.3 miles of wall east of Tecate, more secondary barrier east of Otay Mesa, and install or maintain 51 miles of, quote, barrier system attributes, which may Include fiber optic cables, lighting poles, artificial lights, power cables, surveillance cameras, access and patrol roads, and utility shelters. What this would do, I think most people who haven't spent time at the border are not aware that there are vast gaps in the border wall. And this would close some of those. There are still gaps east of this area. When a lot of people were entering in 2023 they were coming east of here in a more mountainous area but this will close existing gaps in the wall around Tecate around Marin Valley I imagine That after that they will continue to move east the areas where there are gaps some of the areas where there are gaps further east aren't that hard to access some of them would be very hard To access with construction machinery, and therefore they'd have to spend a long time building a road before they could even begin building the wall. Reuters has conducted a review of more than 2 million court records and concluded that federal prosecution of drug cases, especially those of high-profile traffickers, have dropped To the lowest level in decades. Fell for it again, a word. Yeah, I mean, normally you would see things like racketeering, money laundering, conspiracy charges, right? But these are down 24% compared to last year. Even ongoing investigations have stalled as a federal law enforcement apparatus is focusing the vast majority of people on deporting people who have not been accused of any crime. Garrison Davis I mean, even just like the regular FBI investigative capacity has been shifted to large extents towards just immigration enforcement. So they're not they're actually just not going after as much like actual crime. Yeah, ([Time 0:39:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a73baa6e-062d-4221-a1f2-d1a8e8eed2d8)) - **Tom Homan Cash Sting Story** - Mia explains an FBI sting where undercover agents gave Tom Homan $50,000 in cash after a source suggested bribing him. - The Trump DOJ closed the investigation and officials claimed it was an FBI setup. Transcript: Mia Wong Talking of federal law enforcement, we have also learned this week about an FBI operation during the Biden administration, during which Tom Homan allegedly accepted $50,000 in cash. What? You didn't hear about the Tom Homan bag of cash? No. That's the scarcity. Robert Evans Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Mia Wong What a joy to be able to share this with you, Garrison. Now, this is going to get better. Just keep it simmer down. It was in a bag. Simmer down. Simmer down. Simmer down. So Tom Homan, for those who are not familiar, is Trump's border czar and a longtime border security official dating back to the Biden administration. Let's find out about how they got on to Tom Homan. No, no, no, no, no. Garrison Davis You just said that there was $50,000 in cash, but for what? Mia Wong Just wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Another Obama-era ICE staffer, Julian Calderas, who undercover agents had contacted as part of a separate investigation, repeatedly suggested to the agents that they may wish to Bribe Homan in order to obtain government contracts. Calderas repeatedly suggested this to the undercover agents, so much so that they diverted their investigation and set up this investigation. They gave Holman the money, but waited to see what he would do in office in order to see. I guess they felt they would have a stronger case if he came back to them and said, you know, I have these five federal contracts. Which one would you like? The Trump DOJ took no further steps to investigate and has closed the investigation, according to NBC. The Trump administration is claiming this was a setup by the FBI. But of course, the investigation occurred in September of 24, so before the election. Again, it was not an investigation that they started on. It branched off because Calderas repeatedly suggested that they should try and bribe home. The agents who did this operation were posing as businessmen, trying to get government contracts, right? This might explain... So Homan was a big-time Trump affiliate, right? Big-time Trump supporter. People were suggesting that he might be made Secretary of Homeland Security. This might be why. We'll never know for sure right this might explain why he's been given this slightly less formal uh role which i don't believe he has to pass through congress which is quote unquote border Czar this ([Time 0:45:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/829bfe17-603c-4b9c-be62-50c797457d0f)) - **Vague Indicators Enable Broad Surveillance** - NSPM-7 labels broad beliefs (anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, extremism on migration/race/gender) as indicators tied to "anti-fascism." - Hosts warn these vague indicators could justify surveillance and investigations of common political speech. Transcript: Garrison Davis All right, we are back. For our final story this episode, we're going to talk about the National Security Presidential Memorandum No. 7, titled Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence, which was signed by President Donald Trump on Thursday, September 25th. This relates in many ways to the Antifa domestic terrorism executive order from last week. But this memo is a lot more clear in outlining actual policy changes that will affect law enforcement investigations. So let's go over the four sections of this very, very long memo. I've tried to condense it down as much as possible, but there is some good information in here to know. Section one asserts that there's been an increase in political violence in recent years with assassinations and quote unquote riots in Los Angeles and Portland, which have resulted In a more than 1000% increase in attacks against ICE officers since Trump's inauguration 2.0. The memo states that riots and violence aren't organic events or isolated incidents, but in fact, quote, a culmination of a sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, Radicalization, threats and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes and prevent the functioning of a democratic Society, unquote. Mia Wong We've spoken about the statistic about attacks on ICE officers before and how that's very misleading. Garrison Davis Yeah, I mean, an ICE officer is attacked when an ICE officer's fist encounters the face of a child. Mia Wong Yeah, a Latino grandmother. Yes. A Latina grandmother in that case. Garrison Davis Well, and a lot of this talking about, you know, riots as not organized events or incidents, what they describe here is this like culmination of the sophisticated campaign. This is just describing like the process of like what protesting is, right? Trying to direct or change policy outcomes, which comes up a lot in these like domestic terrorism laws, which when over-applied to just nonviolent acts of speech, just start infringing Upon very standard First Amendment activity. Mia Wong It's one of the five fundamental freedoms of the First Amendment, right? The right to assemble, the right was several of them, actually, the right to assemble, the right to speak, the right to petition the government, like these are fundamental. Garrison Davis The right to Twitch stream at a riot as a free member of the press. Yeah, definitely. That's not a right that I choose to exercise, but I guess it is one that exists. Mia Wong But you and I have, you were in Porta and I was in Los Angeles, like the idea that these cities were fundamentally like damaged by these protests is just not true. Garrison Davis Well, they're not just talking about damage from riots. They're also talking about, you know, effects on individual citizens. This memo describes how these, you know, organized campaigns start by, quote, isolating and dehumanizing specific targets to justify murder or other violent action, unquote, claiming That this process happens across, quote, anonymous chat forums, in-person meetings, social media, and even educational institutions. These campaigns then escalate to organized doxing with the explicit intent of encouraging others to harass, intimidate, or violently assault targets. Mia Wong Unquote. I mean, this is what the right has done to, like, especially migrants and trans people, right, for a very long time. Anonymous chat forums, do they mean Reddit? Garrison Davis Reddit, Telegram, maybe. Yeah. Mia Wong I know that some subreddits have been closed since the issuing of this memorandum, which I'm wondering if it is related. Garrison Davis Not explicitly, but I think this memo would be in this section, referring to things akin to Icewatch. Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. As well as standard anti-faceted action against legitimate neo-Nazis. The right is not against doxing as a practice, as we have seen the past few weeks with the state-sponsored organized doxing and harassment campaigns against people for their comments About the death of Charlie Kirk. Yeah. The memo goes on to list a collection of, quote, common recurrent motivations and indica, or indicators, that unite this pattern of violence and terroristic activities under the Umbrella of self-described anti-fascism. These movements portray foundational American principles, support for law enforcement and border control, as fascist to justify and encourage acts of a violent revolution. Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, support for the overthrow of the United States government, extremism On migration, ([Time 0:52:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/68d9b641-626e-45df-960b-6f3d7620b5f2)) - **Be Cautious With Online Speech Now** - Avoid posting violent or provocative language online right now because authorities may use it to justify prosecutions. - Keep speech measured and lawful to reduce risk of escalation or pre-emptive investigation. Transcript: Garrison Davis I think this would be more in the way of how the FBI tries to set up, like, sting operations or catch people who are planning a violent act before they actually do it. Yeah. As we've even seen the past few weeks, with people being arrested for planning retaliation attacks following the death of Charlie Kirk, this has happened. Now, the memo calls for a new national law enforcement strategy to, quote, investigate all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies and disrupt networks, entities And organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts, unquote. So that is the pre-crime aspect of this order, which they could use some of these beliefs, like extremism on migration or race or gender or anti-Americanism as justification to start Investigating groups, which then arrests could follow prior to imminent violent act as deemed by central law enforcement. Mia Wong Yeah, I mean, in theory, the role of the federal law enforcement has always been to investigate people who were planning violent or terroristic acts. The difference here is that this is being specifically framed around a certain group, and this probably will lead to more attempts by them, more surveillance on people within those Groups, right? Garrison Davis No, this is very worrying in terms of surveillance, suppressing speech, chilling speech, because what they're qualifying as violent or terroristic acts is just ordinary protest Activity, first-member protest activity, non-government organizations that support progressive or values. That's the real concern here. Mia Wong It's worth stating here that in Los Angeles, for example, a number of grand juries did not return indictments of people who were accused of quite serious crimes that the grand jury did Not think it was reasonable to indict them for. This is unusual. Most federal prosecutions do result ultimately in a guilty plea, right, because they bring very strong cases when they bring them. But it's worth noting that specifically the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles has not stuck the landing on all of its attempts to indict people for things that they did during that time of protest in June. Garrison Davis In terms of like implementation, the memo says, quote, law enforcement will disband and uproot networks, entities and organizations that promote organized violence, violent intimidation, Conspiracies against rights and other efforts to disrupt the functioning of a democratic society, unquote. Networks, entities, organizations. These refer to like established organizations, like actual, like formed groups that have political activity. Now, section two outlines how the National Joint Terrorism Task Force will quote unquote coordinate and supervise a new comprehensive national strategy and orders the local Joint Terrorism Task Force around the country to, quote, investigate potential federal crimes relating to acts of recruiting or radicalizing persons for the purpose of political violence, Terrorism, conspiracy against rights, or the violent deprivation of any citizen's rights. Unquote. The GDTFs, Joint Terrorism Task Force, will also investigate institutional and individual funders, including employees of organizations which are, quote, responsible for, sponsor, Or otherwise aid and abet the principal actors engaging in the criminal conduct as previously described. That's a broad net, right? There's a lot of this stuff like the Antifa order also alluded to this. Trump's statements made in the Oval Office have alluded to this, going after funders, foreign funders, whether that's groups like the ACLU or like bail funds. They mentioned George Soros very often. Yeah. The Open Society Foundation, right? Yeah. Mia Wong I think the right has had a fascination with Soros for a long time, right? They've been looking for a reason to either exclude Soros from participation in US politics. And just to be like, obviously, I think most people realize this, but that fascination is rooted deeply in anti-Semitism. George Soros is a Holocaust survivor. And there has been like an attempt to find reasons to exclude Soros from US political activity for some time. I think it's reasonable to see this in that trend. Garrison Davis This sort of like big organizations, foreign organizations, is also mentioned in this memo. Yeah. And saying the investigation will include NGOs and American citizens with foreign ties that could be in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act or, quote, moneyering by Funding, creating, or supporting entities that engage in activities that support or encourage domestic terrorism, unquote. The memo states that the Attorney General shall issue guidance which ensures that domestic terrorism priorities include, quote, politically motivated terrorist acts such as organized Doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, damage of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder. The guide shall also include an identification of any behaviors, fact patterns, recurrent motivations, or other indica common to organizations and entities that coordinate these Acts in order to direct efforts to identify and prevent potential violent activity. This is a worrying list of things that are not domestic terrorism, that they're going to try to claim aren't domestic terrorism. Trespass. Yeah. Like trespassing is now domestic terrorism. That's not a great thing for the attorney general to be issuing guidance on. Yeah. Civil disorder is a very broad and somewhat nebulous term. Right. Like are they going to call the organized doxing campaigns that the right is doing right now domestic terrorism? No, of course not, right? These things are just taking form for explicit political prosecution for the political ends of the Trump administration. Mia Wong I think the goal here, like some of these, there isn't even a statute, right? Like I'm not aware of a broad federal doxing statute aside from, you know, certain specific instances where it might be a crime to reveal someone's address. Garrison Davis Violent intimidation of probably like federal law enforcement would be one thing that they go after. Yeah. Mia Wong Federal law enforcement, people with protective orders, that kind of thing. Right. And yeah, there are probably ways of doing that. But I think a lot of this is intended to have a chilling effect on speech and organizing. Garrison Davis Absolutely. The Treasury Secretary will work with the Attorney General to, quote, identify and disrupt financial networks that fund domestic terrorism and political activity and shall deploy Investigative tools, examine financial flows, and coordinate with partner agencies to trace illicit funding streams, unquote. Again, very obsessed with this idea that there's tons of money that is funding Antifa, which if you know anyone under the Antifa umbrella, you know that they are extremely broke. ([Time 0:58:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4dda69c2-cda3-448d-b885-08f5fe52da56)) - **Financial Tools Target Political Organizing** - The memo directs financial probes and IRS action against NGOs and tax-exempt groups suspected of supporting "domestic terrorism." - Hosts note this could be used to target liberal non-profits and chill funding for activism. Transcript: Garrison Davis Left-wing protesters are not the most financially stable bunch. There's not this illicit funding stream. This is a huge, a huge idea that the right has like latched on. Ironically, this is something that the right shares with the authoritarian left, actually. Mia Wong The idea that people can't act independently unless there is a large, well-funded actor motivating them to act is something that because the authoritarian right and the authoritarian Left agree on some things. And one of them is that people can't take the initiative to act, right? That there has to be some kind of vanguard in the case of the authoritarian left or nefarious funder in the case of the authoritarian right. And so this lines up with the way that they understand the world. I mean, yeah. Garrison Davis And I was talking specifically here in terms of like regular people on the ground attending protests. There's like big, big groups, like, you know, often like, you know, communist aligned groups that may be receiving funding possibly from foreign sources. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For real. But I do not believe that is what this order is. At least this section is actually wanting to go after. That might be what they in the end actually end up targeting. They end up sweeping up. Because it's the only thing that actually has like, you know, foreign funding. But Capital A and TIFA, teenagers with umbrellas showing up in front of an ICE building, are not receiving money from Iran, China, or Russia. Yeah. Mia Wong As you say, it might be large, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU, the Open Society Foundation, Bill Gates. Network for Strong Communities. Yeah, like some of these organizations might be what they're trying to drag a net over here. Or non-profits. Garrison Davis The next section instructs the IRS to, quote, take action to ensure that no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism, unquote, And calls for the IRS to refer suspect organizations and their employees to the Department of Justice for investigation and possible prosecution. It's probably worth noting the context here that there was, this is after a 2010 congressional investigation that found out that the IRS had gone after some Tea Party groups, right? Mia Wong Do you remember the Tea Party, Gareth, when you were seven at that time i i remember i remember the tea party yeah yeah so the uh the feeling here biden if you remember garrison also hired A number of new irs agents uh there was a conspiracy theory that these were to provide some kind of armed massive armed element to the irs that was going around in the biden administration Uh i'm sure the irs had an armed element right There is not a federal investigative agency that doesn't. The Postal Service has cops and probably a SWAT team. But there was a feeling on the right that Biden mobilized the IRS against right-wing individuals. And I can see this being the old pendulum swinging back in the the direction a little bit. Garrison Davis One of the more interesting sections that I've highlighted of the memo instructs investigators to, quote, question and interrogate individuals engaged in political violence or Lawlessness regarding the entity or individual organizing such actions and any related financial sponsorship prior to adjudication or initiation of a plea agreement. Other unquote, that's directing like the interrogations of people arrested at protests to like specifically go after who's funding them to be a protest. I'm sure some very fruitful information will come out of. Yeah. Referring back to our discussion of like, you know, the common motivators are indica, including things, you know, like anti-capitalism, anti-Americanism, and how those beliefs In and of themselves, I do not think will be sufficient for declaring someone a terrorist and like locking them up is because later in this memo, the memo directs investigations to, Quote, prioritize crimes such as the following, assaulting federal officers or employees, conspiracy against rights, conspiracy to commit offense, solicitation to commit a crime Of violence, money laundering, funding of terrorist acts, or otherwise facilitating terrorism, arson, violations of the RICO Act, and major fraud against the United States, unquote. So, could the government use these indicators to then find groups to target, to stick some of these crimes onto groups or organizations? Absolutely. That's probably what they're going to do. But these are the things to be aware of. And they're going to try to, you know, slap these on people who are just arrested at protests, people who work for NGOs, people who work for legal support networks, maybe migrant assistance Networks. Like that's that's going to be the target for a lot of these things. And we've seen some of these like conspiracy charges in San Diego with their with their Antifa prosecution case. We've seen similar stuff in Atlanta, with Stop Cop City, right? There is precedent for this. We've seen the state try to, and to a degree of success and failure, actually push these charges forward. Mia Wong Yeah, the panic that those two cases created, and we're still pre-trial in the Atlanta case, right? Trials in progress. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, pre, I guess, the conclusion of that trial. Garrison Davis But the current indication is that most of these RICO charters are not going to stick. Yes. And most of the conspiracy charges in San Diego did not, right? Mia Wong And most of those people ended up not being convicted of all the things they were accused of. I do see the major fraud against the United States, and I think that's probably going to use against NGOs. I do also wonder, they have spoken before about the payroll protection plan and looking at PPP fraud. Yeah, I mean, financial crimes are always really scary, right? Yeah, yeah. Like a lot of non-profits you know like people undoubtedly given the scale of the ppp people abused it i think non-profits would be a lot more buttoned up than almost anyone else in that Regard you know these especially these big liberal non-profits but uh like that is an area which i'm sure that the Trump IRS will be looking at. ([Time 1:05:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/dfa0c914-f815-4d6e-a7d8-79509ed390c3)) - **NGOs Should Strengthen Compliance Now** - Legal support groups and NGOs should document finances and compliance to withstand scrutiny under new directives. - Prepare for inquiries by keeping clear records and legal counsel ready to counter broad accusations. Transcript: Garrison Davis All of these branches, like the DHS, Justice Department, federal police, are going to be following the guidelines and outlines established in this memo to then try to enforce the laws That we have, some of which they will probably find ways to do it, and sometimes they won't. Mia Wong Yeah, we have a very broad range of statutes criminalizing a very large range of things, and someone will find some way in there to criminalize someone for something that might seem On the face of it to be not nefarious but that doesn't mean that we have executive legislative fusion we don't write we serve two branches of the government and that is important to remember Garrison Davis Too no no laws have been changed criminalizing anti-americanism right yeah that is that is an important thing to keep in mind. That does not mean that this order is not going to chill speech, suppress free speech, or be used to criminally target people. Yeah. Criminal prosecutions can ruin the lives of people for years and years, regardless of the actual outcome, right? Even if they get off on the charges. And we want to be clear that we're not minimizing the effects of this, but we do want to actually break down what like the threat model is specifically for like NGOs, legal organizations That help protesters or migrants, LGBTQ organizations, right? These are probably going to be the first targets of a lot of like the conspiracy fraud sections of this order, besides, you know, protesters that get rounded up and get put into this, Like, political war game that they're playing. ([Time 1:15:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cb65e848-64eb-47d7-a4cc-a4396a4e7ae2))