← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
A
Hi, Bill Kristol here. Welcome to Bullwork on Sunday. And welcome to Tom Joslin, my old friend and colleague, many years at the Weekly Standard, where Tom wrote excellent pieces on many aspects of the counterterrorism campaign and the terrorist threat. Then from the Middle east, of course, primarily, Tom is a senior fellow at Just Security and a senior advisor to Democracy Defenders and has written for the Bulwark. And we've done this, this, this Sunday pull work once or twice before, I think, right, Tom?
- [00:28]
B
Yeah, we've done a couple of these. That was so much breaking news as we do this morning.
- [00:32]
A
I mean, crazy, right? But I wanted to have Tom on because I think he's been extremely shrewd student of the Trump years. I'm going to say this partly because I think you've studied authoritarianism abroad. And some of the people who are America focused, and I'm probably a little guilty of this myself, is they think, they kind of assume things will still revert back to the American normal and then they kind of are surprised that, oh, my God, look what he's doing here. But in a way, if you've seen authoritarianism, I think, and extreme extremism abroad, maybe you're a little less surprised. I mean, you've been, you've been a good guide to this. So thank you for joining, for joining me and for joining us. Let me begin with the breaking news. We'll go a little different order than we planned, but that's, that's fine. The break news is that very grateful that our airman was rescued late last night and apparently a daring and impressive rescue operation by the U.S. military. So that's great. And he's back in good hands. So that's awfully good news. We'll learn more details, I'm sure, about everything that happened as time goes forward. And then, so that's great news. Then this morning, just a couple of hours ago, President Trump posted on Trump's Untruth Social. And here we see it Tuesday. Well, today we're speaking Sunday morning. So Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in Iran. There'll be nothing like it along. Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch Praise be to Allah. President Donald J. Trump a little bit, I noticed on the media, mainstream tv, they're treating this as, well, it was kind of an outspoken tweet or a, you know, a little energetic. I can't remember the term that someone used. It wasn't energetic. It was something like that you know, I don't know. So let's just begin with what I don't want to then. And just to put the, what we're going to discuss today is how worried should we be about the politicization and radicalization extremism in our key national security agencies, Justice Department and the FBI, Homeland Security and dod. I was going to go in that order, but I think we'll begin with dod. But anyway, let's talk about the tweet for a minute, talk about, and then we can get to talking about Pete Hegseth and what's happening at the Defense Department.
- [02:39]
B
Yeah, I guess it's more of a truth. Right. Than a tweet.
- [02:41]
A
Sorry. Yeah, right. A good correction, Tom. Thank you.
- [02:45]
B
But it's not very truthful. I mean, look, I think that that post sums up the difference between the first Trump administration and the second. Because in the first there would be responsible adults in the room that would prevent him from openly advertising war crimes. And now there are no adults in the room to prevent him from doing that. And you know what he's posting right? There is a blatant war crime. I mean, if he goes forward with it's a series of war crimes. None of that means I have any sympathy for the Iranian regime. Of course, I've written about the Iranian regime for two decades of my life. You know, one of the premier terrorist sponsoring regime on the planet. But that doesn't mean that our side, the American side, gets to give up the moral high ground. Right. We don't get to then say, hey, we're not going to abide by the laws of war and the rules that have been built up since World War II and just do whatever President Trump wants military forces to do. And that's what that post says. Basically. It's, it's now military action on the whims, war on the whims of the President as opposed to any kind of realistic constraints.
- [03:46]
A
Yeah. And also the kind of insulting, I suppose, of, of Islam and there at the, at the end of the truth. I mean, what's that about? You know, is that, I mean, who knows? I mean.
- [03:55]
B
Yeah, I mean it's just, it's just whatever comes to his mind, you know, I mean, and just scrambled. So it's, it's tough to say. But you know, I mean, look, Pete Hexith is not gonna, what he's shown is that he's not gonna say no. Right. He's not gonna, he's not gonna put on the brakes and say, hey, we can't do Something because it's wrong. And that's part of the message here over the last year.
- [04:16]
A
No, that's really an important point. And of course, they pardoned people who've been convicted of war crimes back in earlier days in Afghanistan and Iraq. And that's access. But a consistent, you know, we're moving these terrible rules of engagement, some of which are, I mean, there are rules of engagement, and some of them may or may not be wise. Every instance, people I know didn't think they were particularly restrictive in the last 20 years, but whatever. But rules of engagement can become another word, as you say, for war crimes and for really bad behavior and behavior that the military doesn't want to do, but that some of them are being encouraged to do, I think. And that's a bad thing. Hegseth on Thursday, this is really dramatic, and I think we're talking about. So he fired, as you say, he doesn't stop Trump from doing anything, but quite the contrary, he goes ahead and fires everyone who he thinks, presumably Trump thinks might get in the way. Right. And that's what's really ominous for me about the Hegseth thing. It's one thing to have a weak cabinet secretary who just sucks up to Trump. That was certainly true of a lot of most of them. Right. And one assumes, okay, but then if they let the people in their agencies sort of do their job, okay. So it's just embarrassing, but it's not too pernicious. It's still bad. But. But having the secretary of defense, especially with kind of an important position, not just sucking up to Trump, but going ahead and trying to fire anyone who he thinks wouldn't be loyal to Trump or he thinks doesn't suit Trump because of race or gender. And it's not just one or two, but I mean, at the very beginning, when he fired people, including the chairman of Detroit chiefs, highly respected former chief of staff of the Air Force, I believe he and then chairman of the chiefs, he, you know, he, that he had no reason to do so. There was no evidence that he was balking at whatever transformation of the military Hexath or Trump thought they were doing. It was just a symbol that I can fire who I want. Trump will back me up in doing so, or Trump will order me to do so quietly and everyone else better get in line. And having, I don't know, how worried are you about that kind of real politicization of the military at the, I guess both at the top ranks in the sense that you're not going to get promoted if you're not to general officer or within the two three star to four star kind of thing, unless you're a Trump loyalist and even sycophant. And then how about the politicization down in the ranks too, with all the rhetoric they're using for the, you know, for the ordinary, so to speak, soldiers and marines and air airmen and sailors.
- [06:41]
B
I mean, I'm very concerned about it. I mean, the first reason why is that Trump, despite all of his wreck that he ran on from 2015 onward, turned out to be quite a warmonger, right? Trump is a warmonger. I mean, he's launched military operations and bombed seven or eight different countries. Now he struck these boats in the Caribbean. Very dubious intelligence surrounding them. Now there's a joint operation in Ecuador. I mean, this is a guy who's using military force, you know, quite frequently and across much of the globe. And Pete Hegseth, as you said, he's the cheerleader for it. He's the one saying more and more and more. So I'm very worried about the politicization because that means that you're not going to have the brakes to say, hey, when something's wrong, we shouldn't do it. And that's part of the problem. And we've already seen that the brakes have come off. Some of the strikes we've seen around the globe, the types of normal sort of lawyerly caveats you would see in place are now gone. And that's part of the reason why politicization matters. And when it comes to Hegseth, for example, you know, I often struggle whether to think of him as a frat boy with a Christian nationalist streak or a Christian nationalist with a frat boy streak. Not really sure what he is these days, you know, but he's both of those things. And his sort of attitude kind of conveys that, you know, you can see that that's sort of that cavalier, you know, I know better than all of you because I worship Jesus and my version of Jesus is what everybody should worship. And therefore we're going to go out in the world. And, you know, he's been, you know, portraying this war with Iran as if it's part of the Christian project. And, you know, openly using the Pentagon to preach the message that Jesus is on our side in the war and that kind of thing. I mean, this is really going way beyond any of the sort of guardrails and the norms that we had had in the past. And when you see that coming from the secretary of defense, someone who does not respect the separation of church and state in the least or any of the norms that have been built up, and invites a Christian nationalist preacher, his own preacher, to come lead a prayer service at the Pentagon. This is really far gone from the past. And that's to your point of what you're saying. When I study authoritarian regimes prior to versus what America has been, things can disintegrate very quickly. There are a lot of people who want freedom, real freedom, individual freedom, and there are a lot of people who don't, you know, and how you channel that energy is what I'm worried about.
- [08:48]
A
No, that's well said. I mean, General Randy George, the Army chief of staff who was fired Thursday, I mean, some of the coverage has been a little bit misleading, but maybe alarmist. And how could this happen in the middle of a war? Well, the truth is, I mean, the CENTCOM commander, the, is the battlefield commander. The line of authority for the war fighting goes through from the secretary of defense, through him. So in a funny way, I mean, you could say, obviously Randy George is very important as chief of staff of the army, in charge of training and arming and equipping and getting the troops there and all the things that the chief of staff does. But it's not as. I mean, if he were genuinely a bad chief of staff, you could fire him in the middle of a war, just like fire him any other time, I suppose, but. And he would be replaced by someone else, but in this case, highly respected. I've talked on the phone the last 48 hours with several people, Defense Department veterans, people who have no active duty military, but people who form a military, people who talk to a lot of people in and around the military. I've not heard a bad word about him. People think he was both very impressive in the way his movement up in his career, but also that he was really transforming the Army. I mean, he was quite an. He wasn't one of these stick in the mud. Everything we've done in the past is right. He wants to go to a lighter, more mobile Army. He's been pushing hard on the kind of transformation agenda, if you want to call it that, for the Army. So particularly not a case where you can say, well, this guy maybe kind of wasn't the right person for the 21st century or mid-2026 army. And in fact, it seems that why he was fired, the precipitating events were his standing up to Hegseth when Hegseth had wanted to a few months ago prevent a black woman from becoming the D.C. military commander, the general in charge of D.C. district. And there was a report that Higset's chief of staff says, well, Trump doesn't want her standing next to him, someone like that, looking like that standing next to him at all these ceremonies at Arlington and places like that. And then recently, this long fight over the promotions to the one star from the colonels to the one star where Hegseth personally seems to have blocked at least two blacks and two women who were judged by their peers. Very competitive. You know, this promotion is the most competitive level to get into the general office of Corps and judged worthy and where not just the general, but, but, but Dan Driscoll, the Secretary of the army, thought they should go ahead and approve this. And indeed, as I understand it, Congress, to prevent this kind of thing, has said that the Defense Secretary can reject the entire list, but he can't supposedly pick individuals. I assume Hex that's just ignoring this and saying that would be an unconstitutional constraint on the president's power or something. But you're not supposed to be able to sort of cherry pick the ones you like as Sec.
- [11:35]
B
Def.
- [11:35]
A
They kind of worried about this kind of thing and this. And as I say, the Secretary of Defense can send back the entire list for a rethink, but he's not supposed to do what he's done, as I understand it. But anyway, I mean, what do you make of that? And just again, how. I don't know, I find that really he also fired at the same time the, the general officers in charge of the Chaplain Corps and another general officer who'd been put in charge, also well respected of the transformation agenda, I guess. And now it looks as if this General George will be succeeded by the person who was Hegseth's personal military aide last year, someone who seems to have gone out of his way to arrange some video conference when he was at, I guess general over in Korea to congratulate Trump personally on winning the election or becoming president again. So anyway, talk a little bit about all that. You've worked with the Pentagon. You've followed the Pentagon quite closely over the years.
- [12:29]
B
Pentagon for years. I mean, I mean, this is what's striking for me is that if you follow my work over the last 25 years now, or whatever it is, I've often criticized the military chain of command. I've criticized their actions in war, criticized their handling of the Afghanistan war. I mean, I think that reform was definitely needed in a number of different ways. The issue is how you reform and what you're Placed with this isn't real reform. You know, both Hegseth and Trump ran on an anti establishment sort of posture. You know, Hegseth in the media, Trump as a politician, that's sort of where they were coming from, is like the insurgent, anti establishment type or character, you know. But then what do you do when you get there and how do you actually begin to reform it? It's not by firing the Randy Georges of the world. Right. Those aren't the people that are really getting late based on everything I've heard, you know, and it's not holding up black women because they're black women from promotion. Right. I mean, an awful lot of white men have failed, by the way, in the chain of command, including people I've criticized. You know, so, you know, it doesn't really make any sense. The thing is, we're not seeing any kind of the criteria that are being used to transform the Pentagon. And the chain of command are not the criteria you or I or any rational actor would use. It's not based really on performance or following the rule of law or actually executing the mission to a high degree of, with a high degree of success. It's different criteria altogether. Right. It's the culture war stuff that Hegseth has really immersed himself in. He's. He's absolutely a culture warrior first, as some people have written just recently. Totally true. You can see that in his books. And everything he wrote about his criticisms of the Pentagon in the past were driven by the sort of that far right culture war against the establishment. It's also the sycophancy for Trump trying to please Trump and make sure that Trump gets what he wants and make sure he has people there that will do what he wants. That's very. That's married with the culture war stuff. Right. It's all part of the same package. And that, that's why it's troubling.
- [14:14]
A
Right.
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B
I mean, you've already seen a number of actions across just over year, a number of military strikes, I think that would have been shot down by the old establishment. Pentagon would have been said, hey, we're not going to do that, because it doesn't. It violates the rules of war and the rule of law. And now you see them doing that sort of thing. So I think there's a lot of reasons to be worried about it.
- [14:34]
A
Yeah. And the other final point I may be on the Pentagon, which I was struck Trump at midnight when he announced the rescue of the airman, said pay tribute to the military, as he should, and should have. And then he's going to give a speech, I think, later today, which he'll, I'm sure, repeat that again. But of course, just to make an obvious point, all these people he's praising, both enlisted and officers, certainly any of the senior officers are people who were trained, were shaped by this terrible woke military that Hexa spends all his time denouncing. Who exactly?
- [15:08]
B
Great point. Yeah, great point.
- [15:09]
A
Who exactly did this rescue? There weren't people who joined the military. Maybe there one or two who joined in the last year. I know, don't, I don't mean to minimize if some kid was part of it, but on the whole, these are people who've been in the military for quite a while, the special forces guys and obviously the pilots and so forth. The colonel, I think he was, who managed to evade the Iranians for a couple of days and courageously, it sounds like, yeah, really incredible. That colonel was a product, I take it, of this military that Hexa spends all his time denouncing. Right. I mean, anyway, it's, it's.
- [15:40]
B
Well, I mean, it's a great point here though, Bill. I mean, they've taken this woke idea and they've just applied it to everything as this broad stroke, you know, sort of, you know, sweeping condemnation of the establishment. Right. When, you know, there's a lot of stuff about quote, unquote, woke that actually is just about fairness and is really just about making sure the right people get promoted regardless of their race or gender. Right. And you know, that's the problem I have with all this is that, you know, they've taken this anti woke stuff so far, now that it's. That you can tell it has nothing to do with actually making sure you have a highly successful or competent sort of military force in place. It's all about their culture war stuff that goes exactly. Grossly exaggerates what's going on that doesn't say there aren't real issues. I mean, I think, you know, I have a lot of friends in the military and different places, different comms, we'll call that, you know, who have complained about policies were put in place, you know, previously in the military. And I've heard them out. But, but same token, you can just see the way Hegseth is handling this. It has nothing to do with any kind of legitimate grievances.
- [16:40]
A
So the same day that Hegseth fired someone, Pam Bondi, his colleague in the cabinet, the attorney general was fired by Trump. That got more attention though maybe ultimately less important maybe than what Hexath's done in terms of the next two and a half years, the next three years of the Trump administration. But what about Bondi? You think we have a better Justice Department with her gone, or thoughts about why it happened, so forth?
- [17:06]
B
I think there are three things going on, why it happened. I mean, one, I think she had this disastrous appearance in congressional testimony in February which led to a subpoena on March 17 over the Epstein files. Her appearance was disastrous. She did not have any good answers for anything. She just was going to sort of the Fox News playbook of basically insulting anyone who asks her a tough question. Right. That's what she was doing. And that was a disaster. It clearly failed. I mean, I think the second thing is that her Department of Justice, which has been totally corrupted now and corroded, I mean, she's really under her watch. They did what they accused the Biden administration of doing. They weaponized the Department of Justice. But from Trump's perspective, they didn't weaponize it enough because a lot of his political rivals and foes, as he sees them, haven't been prosecuted yet. They didn't go after a number of these people because there was no legitimate reason for going after them. You know, and then third of all, and this is the thing I think maybe we're going to talk about a little bit more, too. You know, there was movement, especially over the last several months, toward trying to use the counterterrorism machinery of government, including a DOJ, the stuff that was built up after 9 11, to go after Trump's Democratic domestic political opposition. And she was a key figure in that. I think there are probably other people for sure who are going to be willing to push that even further, but that's very dangerous, and I don't think that that stops just because she's gone.
- [18:20]
A
Well, let's follow up on that last point. I think it's so important. Yeah. I don't see why it should stop. It's not like the people who are being tossed around as possible successors seem fully on board with both the politicization of the Justice Department and the use of it to go after Trump's foes and the, let's use, say, using the terrorism machinery to go after dissenters and protesters here at home. But you've studied that a lot and written about that, talk about that a bit.
- [18:43]
B
Yeah. I mean, what happened is last year after Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Right. It's a horrible murder. I mean, I didn't agree with Charlie Kirk on anything really, ideologically or politically.
- [18:52]
A
Right.
- [18:52]
B
But free Speech is free speech. And you know, this was an act against his free speech, you know, killing him. But what you saw the Trump regime try and do was immediately with Vice President Vance, Stephen Miller and others, they tried to pin the killing of Kirk on a broad, vast left wing terror network that was cohesive and received funds from NGOs and progressive groups and all this other stuff. They didn't have a shred of evidence for any of that. Right. They just, this was just their fiction that what they were imagining the world to look like. And they said we need to turn the government against this imaginary boogeyman that really orchestrates all this. And so what they did in the weeks after Kirk was killed is they started to do that. They started to the Trump regime and Trump himself started direct the power of the government to go after this imaginary network that supposedly was orchestrating and fomenting a word that Steven Miller loves, left wing terrorism. And so one of the things they did was they, they branded antifa, a domestic terrorist organization. Now ANTIFA stands for anti fascist. Anybody will tell you that there who's actually studied it that it's not an actual organization. I haven't found any data or evidence showing it's an actual organization. It's more of an idea. There are all these like constellation of left wing groups out there who may describe themselves as a deep at one point or another, but they have all sorts of other contradictory beliefs. It's not a cohes in other words. But what they did was by doing this, by Trump doing this, he wanted to brand basically all opposition to his regime that comes from sort of left wing extremism or radicals and then work their way down as antifa. They wanted to brand everything as a tifa because that becomes a target to go after and use the machinery of government, the counterterrorism machinery of government to go after. So then they form what Trump does. He issues national security Presidential Memorandum 7. Now Bill, I remember, I think when you and I have talked about this previously, you pointed out, maybe you want to point out now, this is how important it is. Right. There's only seven of them. So that tells you how important this memorandum is that was issued.
- [20:40]
A
Was that issued before? That was issued earlier, wasn't it? And then they sort of reinvigorated it after the Kirk. Okay, okay. There's other things they issued before that sort of laid the predicate for all this.
- [20:50]
B
Kirk was killed on September 10th. I think it was something like that. And NSPM 7 comes out like September 25th, something like that. Of last of last year and it cites the Kirk killing as a, as a basis for, for, for doing it right now. Why is this important? Well, NSPM7 is built on the idea that there is this boogeyman out there to go, that the government has to go get. And what people need to understand is in the FBI world and Department of Homeland Security for a long time, and it's quite imperfectly, but still for a long time there's been a policy of, that they're not going to open investigations or investigate based on speech or protected First Amendment activity, that they're only going to investigate suspected criminal activity. So in other words, where somebody is suspected of violating the law on the books as passed by Congress or others. Right. That's what they're going to investigate.
- [21:33]
A
They're going to investigate, which could include a direct incitement to violence. Obviously if you tell someone, let's be, speech isn't protected by saying you should assassinate, you know, any of us, but, or anyone. Obviously, but that's, that's a legal question. But yes, but they were pretty careful or try, claimed to be pretty, mostly were pretty careful that we can't just go around, you know, calling people we don't agree with terrorists or who are protesting.
- [21:57]
B
And, but the thing about SPM7 is it goes way beyond just any kind of direct assignment for violence. That's not what they're, they're, they're directing the FBI, Joint Terrorism Task Force and others to investigate. They have a whole list of beliefs that you would sort of ascribe to center left people across the country as being supposedly indicators or indicia of left wing terrorism and political violence. Right. And so basically if you criticize the Trump administration's immigration policies or anti immigration policies and the deportation regime, if you criticize capitalism, if you criticize Christianity, if you criticize a whole list of things that people may want in a free society criticize that's supposedly indicative of a threat of political violence or domestic terrorism, which is completely absurd, obviously, because you know, in a pluralistic society as ours, you have all sorts of people who will make those types of criticisms who aren't advocating political violence in the least. But what they want to do is open the aperture that can be used by the federal government to go after people, to go after organizations, to go after individuals, to say no, you're not, you know, we don't just need to go after, strictly on a strict basis, those who are really terrorists or those who are really extremists who are fomenting terrorism. We need to actually go after this broad coalition of network networks of organizations that are behind all this. And that's exactly what Vance has been preaching. That's exactly what Miller's been preaching. It's not tied to reality at all. And to the whole point of this live session we have here, Bill, this is the problem with putting sycophants in place, right? Putting people who are loyal to Trump are going to do his ideological and political bidding, right? The people in the room who should be saying no, who should be saying, hey, you know, this is not the way under the First Amendment that the FBI should be operating. They're not there, they're not in the room. And you know, Pam Bondi being fired, you know, she was pushing this herself. She issued a memo after NSPM 7, you know, wholeheartedly endorsing it and said, we gotta push the board ball forward on it. And the FBI has been investigating under those terms, but I think her replacement is probably gonna do the same thing.
- [23:52]
A
Yeah, no, that's somewhat chilling. I mean, you mentioned the FBI a couple of times. Of course, after earlier abuses of the FBI, Congress instituted the 10 year term for the FBI director to try to insulate the FBI director from pure politicization by the White House. Ten years would overlap, different administrations, maybe administrations of different parties. And that was pretty much adhered to, as always. The President could always fire that person and so we would have a cause to do so. And then with Trump, of course, he fires Comey in 2017, but puts in another FBI veteran, Chris Wray. And I have no idea whether he was really the greatest FBI director or not. But in any case, Trump makes clear he's going to fire him. Guy he appointed, fire him early, before his 10 years are up. Ray, foolishly, to my mind, resigns rather than to spare. I don't know why. Why not make Trump fire you, you know, and show that he's violating, not violating the law, but not doing what the law would anticipate. And, and then Trump puts in and gets confirmed. Cash Patel, someone you've studied over the years and count, dealt with, I think a bit and, or clashed with. And I mean, so he's the FBI director. I mean, what about that?
- [25:03]
B
I mean, total sycophant. I mean, Cash Patel's entire career is based on him being a loyalist for Trump, nothing else. There are no other principles or hierarchy there. And I mean, it's very important. What you just said about the 10 year term for the FBI director, twice now under Trump, that norm has been violated. Right? And this is part of what happens when norms or sort of rules or laws are violated and there's no accountability for it and there's no snapback. You now had two different FBI directors pushed out. Chris Wray, you know, wasn't the end all be all for my, my consideration of FBI directors, but he wasn't Cash Patel. He was a heck of a lot better than Cash Patel. I mean, you know, Chris Wray, we go before Congress and when Trump is talking about designated antifa as a terrorist organization, for example, in the first administration, Chris Wray and others would say, hey, we've looked at this and there is no organization to designate. And by the way, they don't have the statutory, the lawful basis for a domestic terrorist organization label. This is a very important point. Under the law, Congress never passed a domestic terrorism statute that could actually label organizations as that such because of concerns about the First Amendment rights of different parties. It's a slippery slope. Once you go down the slope of designating organizations, you basically end up just designating somebody because they're on the other side of you politically or ideologically, which is very dangerous. Right. And in this case, they didn't just go down a slippery slope. They're trying to jump off the cliff. Right. They're trying to take this way beyond where Chris Wray or any of these other people in the past would do it. And Cash Patel is clearly willing to do that. He's somebody who's willing to play the game of talking about the antifa boogeyman and such. And he's a very slippery character, Bill. I mean, you've watched him now in these congressional hearings and everything else. One of my pieces of advice to any congressman or senator who's questioning Cash Patel is you gotta be very slow and deliberate and nail him down to very specific facts because he's a master of talking his way out of things and not answering the question and really being dishonest in doing that.
- [26:48]
A
So you've written about the, the terrorism thing. I think they started using that term. We all thought, what is he talking about? Even domestic terrorism there. Protesters. We're used to dealing with protesters. If they're violent, they can be again or should be punished. It's something that's happened many, many, many times in American history and recently. And then we'll have disputes about exactly how violent they were and so forth. But terrorists. And then of course, people who are protesting the immigration ice and the immigration policies in Minneapolis that are shot and killed. They're terrorists and domestic terrorists. But I don't the term you've made this point, I think, but you should elaborate on it. The use of the term is not an accident and it's a term that's used for foreign terrorists. And we have a whole set of laws to deal with the genuine threat of terrorism, obviously post 911 especially. But they want to ally that difference between national, between the sort of foreign terrorism and domestic terrorism.
- [27:40]
B
Yeah, unlike domestic terrorism, foreign terrorism. There are a series of statutes and executive orders on the books based on the statutes that outline how foreign terrorist organizations can be dealt with by the power of the government. So what they want to do is they want to say antifa is not just a domestic terrorist terrorist organization, but it's this international boogeyman that they can then open up all these, these powers the government has to go after international terrorist organizations. And you know, one of the things they did last year for example is the State Department designated these four so called antifa groups. You know Bill, I looked, I looked at the four groups, right? Groups such as they are, three of the four do not are not even branded antifa. They're like longer established left wing organizations. It's not, not our cup of tea. They're extremists. I mean I don't have any, not going to defend them or the behavior or beliefs. And when they violate the law they should be prosecuted such. But these were not antifa terrorist organizations. Right? They're just not. And the fourth that does is branded as antifa. They got designated in large part for fighting neo Nazis in Hungary. Okay. So they had people that went from Europe to Hungary to fight neo Nazis on the street of Hungary. How is this a concern for Americans that these people are going to fight neo Nazis right? Now a couple of things on that one, Trump regime did not designate these neo Nazi organizations even though they are well organized and even though they've actually committed crimes against Americans in the past. Which raises a very important point. These, these four designations I was talking about, these so called antifa groups. One of the requirements is that they for these types of designations is that these organizations threatened to kill or have killed Americans. There's some act of violence that they're threatening Americans with. The State Department didn't even make the case that they had, that they had threatened Americans. Right. Instead they've got people going antifa people going from Europe to fight neo Nazis in Hungary as if that's a major concern for, for, for Americans. So the whole thing shows you how the tilt is on, right? The political and ideological tilt of, of the The Trump administration, the regime is on. They're trying to twist this counterterrorism machinery to go after their own domestic political opponents. And using domestic terrorism, as you said, or calling people domestic terrorists. Alex Pretty, VA nurse. Right. Renee Good, a mother. Right. Neither one of these people domestic terrorists. Right. They're executed on the streets of Minneapolis and quickly, quickly, almost instantaneously branded as domestic terrorists by Department of Homeland Security and others. That tells you just how desperate to sort of implement this playbook.
- [29:55]
A
Yeah. And there is this whole structure set up mostly post 9 11. You've had your doubts about aspects of it, I think we've also defended. You've also defended aspects of it, but these were. The domestic side of that was to deal with genuinely genuine domestic threats of people who were allied with or instruments of, worked on behalf of genuine foreign terrorist groups. Right. I mean, if Al Qaeda has operatives in the U.S. if the Iranian regime has operatives in the U.S. we can try, or we can, or intermediaries who are dealing, you know, passing on orders, we can deal with them under this terrorist regime. We can get authorization to even to eavesdrop on them and that kind of thing. But that's still. And it may be it was abused a bit, maybe not. You know, that's a complicated issue over the last 25 years. But basically the constraints held, I think, pretty well. And anyway, the point of it was there are these genuine foreign terrorist groups that wish on us real harm. And we need to be. We can't just not observe that. That was the problem of pre 9 11. Right. We can't sort of have such a division between the foreign side and the domestic side that we don't monitor people here in the US which would be the 911 hijackers, you know, but that's what that was intended for. And the idea that this pretty big apparatus is being turned on, quote, domestic terrorists under a fake, you know, use of the word terrorism and fake kind of, as you say, stipulations. They're connected to something international. I don't know where did that really is. Where does that lead?
- [31:24]
B
You know, I mean, it should freak people out. You know, I mean, people should be legitimately concerned about this. And look, I think there are significant roadblocks in their way, including First Amendment protections. There's a whole, you know, sort of coalition of legal groups that will sue on First Amendment grounds to protect people who, who had their rights stripped under this whole push, this whole agenda they're putting forward. But it's still, it's very scary. I mean, because there are things they can do that you don't even know they're doing. Including, you know, part of what trying to go after foreign terrorist organizations and roping antifa into this whole, this whole notion of antifa into this whole architecture is they can surveil people. It opens up the ability to do surveillance, opens up to modern financial transactions things. And again, you know, if somebody's really a criminal or really committing an act of terrorism or planning an act of terrorism, then the government should have the right under the laws that are on the books to go after them and investigate them. Right. The point here is they're trying to broaden that aperture to go after people who are not necessarily directly tied to any of that stuff. And it's a step. It's a step up the ladder. What they're trying to do is where they're going is where they want to go, where Vance and Miller have said they can go, which is to go after all these different NGO groups, all these different progressive groups, as if they're all part of some cohesive network that's fomenting terrorism in America. That's what they want to do. It's a fanciful notion of terrorism, but that's where they want to go. And they're not there yet, but they're moving up the ladder to get there there.
- [32:45]
A
And maybe just to close, we won't get maybe to dhs. We've discussed DHS and ICE quite a lot. And so I think people are aware of the problems of ICE and the recruitment of Christian nationalist ICE and the. Well, just. And their whole behavior and everything else. And there Kristi Noem has been fired. But I don't know if we can expect fundamental changes there either. But just on this point, I think it's so, so important. We're the broader point where what are we. Less than a third of the way through the Trump administration, as you say, there are roadblocks, there are lawyers and others fighting. Congress might eventually do something. People in the administration may be pushing back a little bit, but on the whole, I don't know. I mean, people who are sort of, well, we've probably seen the worst of it and Bahanti got fired. And there are, you know, there's. Some of the courts have ruled against them and I don't know if they just keep the pressure on, as you say, going up the ladder. You know, they've gotten this far and 30% of their time in office, what does it look like? That's it, you know, 60% in and 90%. And what does it look like as we get to November 2026 and then especially, I would say through 2728? I know you've given that a lot of thought, but I mean. And what. What are the best ways to combat this, I suppose, for all of us?
- [33:51]
B
Well, the first thing is sunshine is the best disinfectant. I mean, we're going to keep pounding away on what they're trying to do with NSPM 7, these other executive memoranda that have been issued to try and go after domestic political opposition. But part of it, too, is the culture war, which is tied into all this. You know, we talk about Hagseth, you talk about Kristi Noem. You know, what's a common theme between the two of them, what they did during their time in power. You know, both the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security have pitched white nationalism and Christian nationalism. They've done it on their websites, they've done it on official government websites. They pushed that type of propaganda. I think this is a key point here. Right. That is often missed. They rail against woke. They go after WOKE all the time as something that they're countering. Right. What's their answer for woke? Well, it's white nationalism and Christian nationalism. That's their answer for woke. So wait a minute now. Should we be focusing on their extreme ideas and their extreme beliefs and what they're actually pitching instead of letting them get away with constantly railing against this WOKE threat that sort of hit its peak 10 years ago or whatever? I think that's very important because that's a big part of the big part of the sort of ideological belief system undermines a good part of this. You know, we talked. We just talked about NSPM 7. I was struck by how they said anti Christianity is an indicator of political violence or domestic terrorism. Right. As if, you know, a country like America in which the secular enlightenment played a very big role in our founding. You know, tell Tom Paine that anti Christianity, you know, is something that's an indicator of political violence in any kind of meaningful sense of terrorism. You know, it's just. It's kind of crazy that they would.
- [35:16]
A
That.
- [35:16]
B
That would be in there. But that's. That's a big part of what's pushing them. And I think constantly pushing and illuminating the ways they're violating the Constitution, our constitutional rights, and illuminating their extremist beliefs and not getting away with letting them get away with branding us as extremists. That's very important.
- [35:31]
A
Yeah. So important that you said, I just. And I'LL give you one more chance to sort of elaborate a bit more on that because I do think, think we maybe some of us make the mistake of, well, it's illegal or unconstitutional or certainly unwise and inappropriate for liberals free and liberal society. And I think those are all absolutely crucial arguments to make and the key arguments that will get made in court, I suppose, because that's more of a kind of legal standard. But I, I think the ideology behind it needs to be confronted as well. And you've, you've stressed this several times in what you've said and wrote and written. And maybe people think, well, we don't need to quite get to that because it's not quite the legal. Maybe it is incidentally illegal for them to be putting this on their websites, but it's a different kind of thing, you might say, than the actual national security memorandum. But it's not that different. Right. And I think you're really right to focus on. We need to take the. We people who want to preserve freedom and rights and liberal democracy in America need to take on the Christian nationalism, I think you've called it the monoculture, as opposed to the multi. Say a word about. Just more about. You studied this so much. You know, you were one of the main drafter of the January 6th committee report where you discussed this at some length. I mean, I feel like that's a little bit, as you say, not neglected, but underweighted as a key part of this.
- [36:46]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think it is. I think it is undervalued in all this. I mean, I think, like, again, you know, politics is very much tied to the culture war. They're coming from Hagseth, Nome, Trump. All these characters we're talking about, they come from the MAGA monoculture. You know, it's basically white, it's Christian, it sees things a certain way. They have certain political beliefs and they're going to ram them down your throat. Throat. You know, that's sort of the MAGA monoculture. Right? It has a very. It does not. It, you know, it's. It's very much opposed to diversity. It's very much opposed to pluralism, and it's opposed to multiculturalism. You know, and I think that what needs to happen here is there needs to be a much more forceful defense of multiculturalism and pluralism and that these are fundamental American values and principles and beliefs and that they are a good basis for forming society. And in fact, America has always been multicultural, despite what the mag monoculturists will tell you. You know, and we should defend that. And, you know, when you started off talking about how Hegseth is and you've written this, I think, too, that Hegseth was firing. Isn't it interesting? He's firing the women and he's firing, you know, black officers and would be generals and these types of. Not letting them get promoted. Right. What's that all coming from? Right. That's all coming from this MAGA monoculture that sees things a certain way and only wants a certain type of person to be in charge. You know, I think we need to fight back on that and not let them get away with branding us as woke for doing so. It's not woke. It's American. Right. It's American to stand up for multiculturalism and our pluralism. These are things that are. That we value. And when you lose them, that's. That's part of how you get down this slippery slope of losing constitutional rights.
- [38:16]
A
No, that's so well said. And, Tom, thank you for taking some time out for Easter Sunday. I know you're at family occasion there and for joining us today. And I look forward to having more conversations about this. And as you monitor both, actually carefully, because you know so much about it, there's the mechanisms, you might say, of Trump's authoritarian project within the administration and how they're trying to use these mechanisms through their different agencies, but also the underlying, as you say, ideology of it, because both are really important. So thank you, Tom, for joining me today.
- [38:51]
B
Thank you, Bill. And happy Easter at all to celebrate.
- [38:54]
A
Yes, same here. And for me, too. And thank you all for joining us here on the Bulwark on Sunday.