{"id":4950,"date":"2026-05-18T04:33:56","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T04:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=4950"},"modified":"2026-05-18T04:33:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T04:33:56","slug":"we-will-find-you-and-we-will-kill-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=4950","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe Will Find You and We Will Kill You\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>    <!-- BLOCK(acast)[0](%7B%22componentName%22%3A%22ACAST%22%2C%22entityType%22%3A%22SHORTCODE%22%2C%22optional%22%3Afalse%7D)(%7B%22id%22%3A%22we-will-find-you-and-we-will-kill-you%22%2C%22podcast%22%3A%22intercept-presents%22%2C%22subscribe%22%3Atrue%7D) --><\/p>\n<p>\n  <iframe src=\"https:\/\/embed.acast.com\/intercept-presents\/we-will-find-you-and-we-will-kill-you?accentColor=111111&amp;bgColor=f5f6f7&amp;logo=false\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"acast-player__embed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p><!-- END-BLOCK(acast)[0] --><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"has-underline\">IN 16 pages,<\/span> the Trump administration\u2019s new official counterterrorism strategy outlines in broad terms who it views as terrorist threats and priority targets, ranging from anti-fascist activists to ISIS and so-called narco-terrorists.\u00a0The line \u201cWe will find you, and we will kill you\u201d appears in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2026-USCT-Strategy-1.pdf\">memo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[The] strategy brings together Trump\u2019s war on the wider world, which stretches from interventions and wars in Yemen and Somalia to Venezuela and the Caribbean Sea,\u201d says Intercept senior reporter <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/nickturse\/\">Nick Turse<\/a>. \u201cIt combines it with the administration\u2019s war on dissent at home which has also been lethal, as we saw on the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/16\/trump-abolish-ice-renee-good-jonathan-ross\/\">streets of Minneapolis<\/a>. \u2026 We can consider this strategy a new declaration of war by the Trump administration on its enemies both foreign and domestic, both real and imagined.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This week on The Intercept Briefing, host <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/jessicawashington\/\">Jessica Washington<\/a> and colleagues Turse and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/noah-hurowitz\/\">Noah Hurowitz<\/a>, who covers federal law enforcement, dissect how the Trump administration is painting anyone it wants to go after \u2014 state and non-state actors \u2014 as terrorists.\u00a0 \u201cFundamentally, this document is a list of the administration\u2019s enemies and a promise of what they\u2019re going to do to them,\u201d says Hurowitz. \u201cThis anti-terror imperative makes for a very flexible and useful means of tamping down on dissent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re not just talking about rhetoric here,\u201d says Washington. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen the administration actually use these terms in action when it comes to the boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific that killed nearly 200 people as of early May.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe actual legal justification for the strikes is, like so much else, secret,\u201d says Turse, who has been <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/collections\/license-to-kill\/\">covering the attacks on so-called narco-terrorists<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about a fake war in which the enemies aren\u2019t even read into the fact that they\u2019re in an armed conflict with the United States.\u201d\u00a0He adds, \u201cIt\u2019s really built on a quarter-century of <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/collections\/drone-wars\/\">executive overreach and targeted killings<\/a> around the world. It\u2019s the price of Congress allowing Presidents Bush, Obama, Biden, and Trump to hunt and kill people by drone from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and Somalia. It took this legally dubious, at best, post-9\/11 drone war and laid the groundwork for a completely illegal one in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSay what you will about the people around President Trump,\u201d Hurowitz notes, \u201cbut they have proved very adept at finding levers of power and levers of pain to go after their enemies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For more, listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-intercept-briefing\/id1195206601\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/2js8lwDRiK1TB4rUgiYb24?si=e3ce772344ee4170\">Spotify<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLW0Gy9pTgVnvgbvfd63A9uVpks3-uwudj\">YouTube<\/a>, or wherever you listen.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-transcript\"><strong>Transcript<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Jessica Washington:<\/strong> Welcome to the Intercept Briefing. I\u2019m Jessica Washington, politics reporter at The Intercept.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Maia Hibbett:<\/strong> And I\u2019m Maia Hibbett, managing editor at The Intercept.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Last week, we talked about the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/05\/08\/supreme-court-voting-rights-act\/\">Supreme Court\u2019s gutting of the Voting Rights Act<\/a>, and the news on that subject has been moving really fast. I was wondering if first you could just give us a quick update on what else is happening since that last conversation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> There\u2019s been a lot <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2026\/us\/politics\/midterms-house-maps-redistricting.html\">happening<\/a> since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act last month, well, gutted it again further, I should say. In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2026\/05\/07\/nx-s1-5815023\/tennessee-redistricting-map-passage\">signed into law<\/a> a new congressional map eliminating the only majority-Black district. Then in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/05\/12\/us\/alabama-governor-primary-elections-house.html\">Alabama<\/a>, House primaries are next week, but the Republican governor is planning to hold a special vote in four districts in August after the state redraws a more GOP-friendly map. Republican leaders like <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/atrupar.com\/post\/3mlqa6diaqw23\">Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a> are excited about it. Here he is talking about it on \u201cFox and Friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>[Clip]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brian Kilmeade: <\/strong>There\u2019s Tennessee, Alabama. How many more?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rep. Mike Johnson: <\/strong>Potentially South Carolina, maybe Missouri, Mississippi. There are other states who are similarly situated. And we think the analysis is, by the end of all this, when you correct all that, Republicans\u2019ll probably pick up between seven and eight seats and maybe double digits, depending on how many states get involved. That\u2019s obviously a good thing for the outcome.<\/p>\n<p>[Clip ends]<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW: <\/strong>My only reaction to hearing that is that Republicans are clearly hiding the ball here. They\u2019re saying that this is about fairer representation, but in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9Vt6Gm0G8NE\">Mississippi<\/a>, they\u2019re clearly trying to eliminate representation for Black Americans. The governor has called to redraw a map that would eliminate <a href=\"https:\/\/mississippitoday.org\/2026\/05\/13\/judicial-redistricting-mississippi-session\/\">Rep. Bennie Thompson\u2019s district<\/a>. He is the only Black representative representing Mississippi, a state that is nearly 40 percent Black. <\/p>\n<p>Maia, did anything strike you in that clip or just anything about this redistricting effort at all?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> I just keep getting struck by the way Republicans are framing this as some sort of anti-racist effort, that the way congressional districts are drawn sometimes to take into account the racial diversity or lack thereof of an area is inherently anti-democratic. And as you\u2019ve pointed out before, in reality, that\u2019s a disingenuous framing of what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> Yeah. We\u2019re going to continue to watch the fallout from the Supreme Court. But I want to talk about some other news.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s been talk online that we might be facing a new pandemic. Maia, what can you tell us about the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/05\/08\/hantavirus-cruise-ship-outbreak-ivermectin-covid\/\">hantavirus<\/a>, and do I need to start stockpiling toilet paper?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> No, please, no one go buy a lot of toilet paper. Never helpful.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s definitely a lot of chatter and panic online, but I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any sign that this is going to be a new pandemic. A pandemic is when there is this uncontrolled disease spread on a global scale, and there\u2019s really no sign that\u2019s going to be the case here.<\/p>\n<p>It is, however, really fascinating. This is a wild example of a group of people who have been traveling all over the world, who are all on a ship together, and then a very rare infectious disease breaks out. People are certainly freaked out and worried about this when they\u2019re reading about it online, and I think there\u2019s a lot of information on Twitter, on Instagram, everywhere. There\u2019s a lot of panic.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What the <a href=\"https:\/\/med.stanford.edu\/news\/insights\/2026\/05\/hantavirus-need-to-know-stanford-medicine.html\">general scientific consensus<\/a> says is still that this strain of the virus, which is known to spread between people, is still more likely to spread animal to human, not human to human. And when it does spread between humans, it typically requires close contact. So you\u2019re having a conversation with someone and your faces are close together, you\u2019re exchanging saliva, there\u2019s some sort of large droplet transfer, something like that, is the most likely way for this to spread between people.<\/p>\n<p>We don\u2019t know everything about it, and of course, viruses do change, but that is still the overall scientific consensus. It\u2019s not known to spread the way Covid does, where it\u2019s aerosolized and someone in the room has it and anyone else in the room could get it. <\/p>\n<p>The most well-known vector for this disease to spread is from people actually inhaling particles from the feces or urine of rodents, especially rats. So really the people, I think, who are at the highest risk are anyone who might be in a setting where they\u2019re cleaning that up or otherwise really directly exposed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> Gross, but I do feel a little bit safer. [Laughter.]<\/p>\n<p>But one thing, I do have some concerns about \u2014 we know who\u2019s in charge of HHS, we know who\u2019s in charge of the FDA. Do we have the public health infrastructure to deal with something like this?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MH: <\/strong>We know that since the Trump administration came back into office and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was appointed to be in charge of Health and Human Services, the CDC has been pretty <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/cdc-gutted-rif\/\">dramatically gutted<\/a>. And the Trump administration just doesn\u2019t have the kind of infrastructure the U.S. government <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/wWteAh152zw?si=TVIXTi0_QvroBHPV&amp;t=353\">used to maintain<\/a> in order to keep an eye on pandemics and other disease outbreaks. So that certainly is concerning.<\/p>\n<p>For example, there was a lot of chatter last week. Marjorie Taylor Greene was <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/05\/08\/hantavirus-cruise-ship-outbreak-ivermectin-covid\/\">spreading claims that ivermectin<\/a> was going to be helpful for keeping this virus at bay, and Intercept contributor <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/austin-campbell\/\">Austin Campbell<\/a> reached out to the CDC and asked what they thought of that, and he just never heard back. They never had a stance on it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Another Intercept contributor, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/jacqueline-sweet\/\">Jackie Sweet<\/a>, tracked down for a piece this past week on her <a href=\"https:\/\/jacquelinesweet.substack.com\/p\/a-second-woman-jet-setted-around\">Substack<\/a> the case of a 75-year-old cruise ship passenger who had dual residency in both the U.S. and New Zealand. She had managed to totally evade the supervision of public health authorities, which is staggering because there were fewer than 150 people on that ship. So it\u2019s a little bit wild that they couldn\u2019t keep track of them all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> So what I\u2019m hearing from you is that we\u2019re lucky that it\u2019s this kind of virus and not something that is easier to transmit person to person?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> I would say that\u2019s right, yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> I want to talk about some other reporting that we published this week. On Tuesday, my co-host Akela Lacy published a story about Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student and Palestinian rights activist who was detained by ICE for protesting in support of Palestinians as a part of the Trump administration\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/09\/30\/rubio-noem-deport-aaup-ruling-free-speech\/\">targeting of student protesters<\/a>. So I know the story goes into a little bit more detail about that targeting. Maia, what can you tell us about the story?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> I think a lot of our listeners probably remember this moment last spring when he was detained, and he was one of the first of this group of students that the Trump administration was targeting. What Akela\u2019s story found was that two days before ICE arrested Mahmoud Khalil, the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/05\/12\/mahmoud-khalil-fbi-tip-ice-arrest\/\">FBI had gotten an anonymous tip<\/a> which accused him of calling for, and this is a quote from the tip, \u201cviolence on behalf of Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now, we don\u2019t really have any detail in this document on what the tip is. It came in via a FOIA request that his legal team received and passed on to Akela, and the document is mostly redacted. But what we do know is that less than two weeks after they got the tip, the FBI closed this investigation, and they found that the tip did not warrant further investigation.<\/p>\n<p>But by then, he was already in <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/03\/11\/mahmoud-khalil-columbia-ice-louisiana\/\">ICE detention<\/a> in <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/03\/14\/mahmoud-khalil-ravi-ragbir-ice-deport\/\">Louisiana<\/a>, and the Trump administration was already calling him a \u201cHamas supporter\u201d and accusing him of being a supporter of terrorism. At this point, we now know that the FBI at least had found that allegation was not worth looking into.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> That\u2019s really interesting. It feels like we\u2019re going to be <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/02\/26\/mahmoud-khalil-deportation-case-free-speech\/\">unraveling what actually went behind<\/a> the Trump administration\u2019s targeting of these students. This really fits into broader efforts from the Trump administration to target any of the president\u2019s perceived political enemies, both abroad and in the United States.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> Exactly. And this week, everyone in the newsroom has really been focused on this project that you\u2019ve been working on with our colleagues, Nick Turse and Noah Hurowitz, about how the Trump administration is taking that political targeting apparatus to the next level, and what the next phase of it will look like. Could you tell us a little bit more about that project?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> We\u2019ve been poring through this new counterterrorism strategy that\u2019s been handed down from the Trump administration. I know that sounds incredibly boring, but this is a document laying out the president\u2019s strategy for coming after his political enemies in the United States and abroad, and potentially giving him the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/02\/02\/trump-nspm-7-domestic-terrorist-minneapolis-alex-pretti\/\">authority to kill his political enemies<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So we\u2019ve been really looking into this next evolution of President Donald Trump\u2019s attempt to label his enemies \u2014 so anyone who disagrees with him \u2014 as \u201cterrorists.\u201d And I\u2019ve now successfully dragged both of my brilliant coworkers onto the show to talk about it. Nick is a senior reporter covering national security and foreign policy, and Noah is a federal law enforcement reporter.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> Let\u2019s hear that conversation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> Nick, Noah, welcome to The Intercept Briefing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick Turse:<\/strong> Thanks so much for having us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Noah Hurowitz:<\/strong> Thanks for having us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> Let\u2019s dive right into this project. Last week, the Trump administration released its counterterrorism strategy. The 16-page memo outlines who they view as terrorist threats and priority targets. The three of us have been combing through this document for an in-document analysis that we just published.<\/p>\n<p>To start, Nick, can you tell us a bit more about this document and the objectives of the administration?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NT:<\/strong> I consider this a truly foundational document, a genuine distillation of Trumpism as both a movement and a system of governance. The document is the brainchild of the senior counterterrorism director at the National Security Council, Sebastian Gorka, who\u2019s a truly bizarre figure and whose credentials for the job of counterterrorism czar are highly dubious.<\/p>\n<p>This Gorka-led strategy brings together Trump\u2019s war on the wider world, which stretches from interventions and wars in Yemen and Somalia to Venezuela and the Caribbean Sea, and it combines it with the administration\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/collections\/chilling-dissent\/\">war on dissent at home<\/a> which has also been <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/02\/06\/spencer-ackerman-9-11-terrorists-ice\/\">lethal<\/a>, as we saw on the streets of <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/16\/trump-abolish-ice-renee-good-jonathan-ross\/\">Minneapolis<\/a>. The 2026 counterterrorism strategy puts so-called domestic \u201cantifascist\u201d or <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/12\/11\/fbi-antifa-terrorist-location\/\">antifa organizations<\/a> on par with actual terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State and Al Qaeda as well as with international drug cartels.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThe 2026 counterterrorism strategy puts so-called domestic \u2018antifascist\u2019 or antifa organizations on par with actual terrorist organizations, such as the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, as well as with international drug cartels.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>It states that there are three major types of terrorist threats. So we\u2019re talking about what they call legacy Islamist terrorists, Al Qaeda and ISIS; narco-terrorists like the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua; and these supposed violent left-wing extremists, which include anarchists and anti-fascists. The latter are <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2020\/07\/15\/george-floyd-protests-police-far-right-antifa\/\">longtime Republican boogeymen<\/a> but <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2020\/06\/04\/white-house-forced-retract-claim-viral-videos-prove-antifa-plotting-violence\/\">don\u2019t<\/a> actually <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/12\/11\/fbi-antifa-terrorist-location\/\">exist in a real way<\/a> as, say, urban guerrillas or something like that in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>This is a fictional foe. We can consider this strategy a new declaration of war by the Trump administration on its enemies, both foreign and domestic, both real and imagined.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> I think that\u2019s a really good way to look at this document. If we think about it as a foundational text of the Trump administration, then the foundation of the Trump administration is a <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/02\/24\/trump-kilmar-abrego-garcia-vindictive-prosecution\/\">politics of vengeance<\/a>, which I think is <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/14\/trump-venezuela-senate-war-powers-vote-failed\/\">borne out<\/a> in so many of the administration\u2019s policies, both at home and abroad.<\/p>\n<p>Noah, I want to bring you in. One thing that this document does is loosely define who is and who isn\u2019t a terrorist. So I want to ask you, what did we now learn about who\u2019s considered a terrorist?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NH:<\/strong> One thing that I found really interesting about this document is that it specifically calls out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.govinfo.gov\/content\/pkg\/CHRG-119hhrg59420\/html\/CHRG-119hhrg59420.htm\">previous weaponizations<\/a> of government counterterrorism policy, which is, I think, a pretty clear reference to the prosecutions of right-wing groups, and specifically participants in January 6.<\/p>\n<p>As we know, FBI Director Kash Patel, prior to becoming head of the FBI, was very <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/kash-patel-fbi-fedsurrection-january-6-rioters\/\">critical<\/a> of the federal government\u2019s policies toward violent right-wing extremists, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/politics\/right-wing-extremist-violence-is-more-frequent-and-deadly-than-left-wing-violence-data-shows\">statistically<\/a> have been a majority of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/politics\/right-wing-extremist-violence-is-more-frequent-and-deadly-than-left-wing-violence-data-shows\">domestic terrorists in the United States<\/a>. This document really explicitly does away with that and explicitly names left-wing groups or left-wing people holding left-wing ideologies as terrorists.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a specific line about doing away with the weaponization of counterterrorism policy against American citizens, when in reality we\u2019ve seen the very explicit weaponization of counterterrorism policy and rhetoric by this administration against its domestic foes, if you will.<\/p>\n<p>Most notably, the language used to describe <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/02\/02\/trump-nspm-7-domestic-terrorist-minneapolis-alex-pretti\/\">Alex Pretti and Rene Good<\/a> in Minneapolis following their deaths, and also the prosecution of nine protesters for their roles in a demonstration outside of an ICE facility in Texas last July. This is the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/17\/ice-protester-terrorism-convictions-trump-prairieland\/\">Prairieland case<\/a> in which eight defendants were <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/13\/ice-protesters-terrorism-prairieland-antifa\/\">convicted on terrorism charges<\/a>. They might say that they\u2019re ending the weaponization of counterterrorism against American citizens, but in reality, we\u2019ve seen a dramatic escalation of it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> One group that you didn\u2019t mention here, but is mentioned repeatedly throughout the document, are people who the administration calls adherents to radical pro-transgender ideology.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly throughout this document, we\u2019re seeing references to the Christian right, references to the idea that anyone who does not adhere to these very specific tenets of <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/02\/22\/trump-dei-christians-woke-civil-rights\/\">white Christian nationalism<\/a> \u2014 a very specific subset of white evangelical Christianity \u2014 that those groups are also considered terrorists under this document.<\/p>\n<p>In April, the Trump administration released the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/task-force-publishes-report-eradicating-anti-christian-bias-and-restoring-religious-liberty\">anti-Christian bias task force report <\/a>which allegedly detailed the Biden administration\u2019s radical efforts to punish Christians and also highlighted President Donald Trump\u2019s efforts to restore religious liberty. There are very similar themes to that document. There clearly is an effort to target anyone who is not a part of MAGA world, and so that includes, obviously, Christian nationalists, but other groups as well.<\/p>\n<p>Noah, I want to ask, how would you characterize what the administration has outlined here?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NH:<\/strong> Fundamentally, this document is a list of the administration\u2019s enemies and a promise of what they\u2019re going to do to them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> Nick, we\u2019re not just talking about rhetoric here. We\u2019ve seen the administration actually use these terms in action when it comes to the boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific that <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/11\/17\/trump-boat-strikes-death-toll-caribbean-pacific\/\">killed nearly 200 people<\/a> as of early May.<\/p>\n<p>The administration has alleged that they are targeting \u201cnarco-terrorists.\u201d This has been going on now since September of last year. What evidence has the administration provided to justify what appear to be extrajudicial killings?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NT:<\/strong> Actually, we haven\u2019t seen one shred of evidence. Instead, we\u2019ve been <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/05\/04\/trump-boat-strikes-fentanyl-cocaine-drug-supply\/\">treated to outlandish claims<\/a> that are demonstrably outright lies. President Trump has repeatedly claimed that the vessels that the U.S. is attacking are trafficking fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. Trump says that the boats are hit, and then you see bags of fentanyl floating in the ocean.<\/p>\n<p>First off, fentanyl is shipped in dramatically smaller quantities than, say, cocaine. You wouldn\u2019t see bales of it floating in a body of water in the aftermath of an airstrike. It\u2019s really beside the point. No fentanyl comes to the United States from South America. Ninety-nine percent of the fentanyl comes into the U.S. through legal ports of entry primarily from Mexico by U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. Cartels would have to smuggle fentanyl down to South America to smuggle it back by boat.<\/p>\n<p>The actual legal justification for the strikes is, like so much else, secret. There is a <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/11\/14\/boat-strikes-immunity-legality-trump\/\">classified opinion<\/a> from the Justice Department\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel. It was drawn up by an interagency lawyers\u2019 group, including representatives of the CIA, the White House Counsel, Department of Justice, and the War Department\u2019s Office of General Counsel. It claims that narcotics on these supposed drug boats, cocaine essentially, are lawful military targets because their cargo generates revenue for cartels whom the Trump administration claims are in a non-international armed conflict with the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Government officials told me that this secret memo wasn\u2019t actually signed by the assistant attorney general until days after the first boat strike on September 2 of last year. So the strikes came before the horse. I should also note that attached to this secret legal memorandum is a similarly secret list of what they call \u201cdesignated terrorist organizations,\u201d or DTOs. <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/11\/07\/trump-dto-list-venezuela-boat-strikes\/\">That list is secret too<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So we\u2019re talking about a fake war in which the enemies aren\u2019t even read into the fact that they\u2019re in an armed conflict with the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> As you\u2019ve reported, nearly 200 people are dead as a result of these strikes, but there are survivors. What do we know about the survivors of these strikes?<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cTo me, that says that there\u2019s a higher evidentiary standard to hold someone on drug charges than to kill them for supposed smuggling.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>NT:<\/strong> Yeah, very little at this point. Most survivors have been gravely injured, or they\u2019ve been <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/07\/boat-strikes-survivors\/\">left to die at sea<\/a> by the United States. What\u2019s notable is that behind closed doors in classified briefings, military officials have said that they can\u2019t actually hold or try the individuals that survive because they <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/10\/31\/trump-venezuela-boat-strikes-unprivileged-belligerants\/\">can\u2019t satisfy the evidentiary burden<\/a>. They can\u2019t bring these people to court because they know they would lose. To me, that says that there\u2019s a higher evidentiary standard to hold someone on drug charges than to kill them for supposed smuggling. So I think of these strikes as a centerpiece counterterrorism strategy of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s really built on a quarter-century of <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/collections\/drone-wars\/\">executive overreach and targeted killings<\/a> around the world. It\u2019s the price of Congress allowing Presidents Bush, Obama, Biden, and Trump to hunt and kill people by drone from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and Somalia. It took this legally dubious, at best, post-9\/11 drone war and laid the groundwork for a completely illegal one in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n<p>Experts in the laws of war, as well as members of Congress from both parties, say that these boat strikes are <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/10\/10\/briefing-podcast-trump-venezuela-boat-strikes\/\">illegal extrajudicial killings<\/a> because the military isn\u2019t permitted to deliberately target civilians, even suspected criminals who don\u2019t pose an imminent threat of violence.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> It is so telling that they say they have the legal authority to kill people, but not the legal authority to hold them. I think it just shows the entire game, frankly.<\/p>\n<p><!-- BLOCK(newsletter)[0](%7B%22componentName%22%3A%22NEWSLETTER%22%2C%22entityType%22%3A%22SHORTCODE%22%2C%22optional%22%3Atrue%7D)(%7B%7D) --><\/p>\n<div class=\"newsletter-embed flex-col items-center print:hidden\" id=\"third-party--article-mid\" data-module=\"InlineNewsletter\" data-module-source=\"web_intercept_20241230_Inline_Signup_Replacement\">\n<div class=\"-mx-5 sm:-mx-10 p-5 sm:px-10 xl:-ml-5 lg:mr-0 xl:px-5 bg-accentLight hidden\" data-name=\"subscribed\">\n<h2 class=\"font-sans font-light uppercase text-[30px] leading-8 text-white tracking-[0.01em] mb-0\">\n      We\u2019re independent of corporate interests \u2014 and powered by members. Join us.    <\/h2>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/join.theintercept.com\/donate\/now\/?referrer_post_id=515992&amp;referrer_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheintercept.com%2F2026%2F05%2F15%2Fpodcast-trump-counterterrorism-strategy%2F&amp;source=web_intercept_20241230_Inline_Signup_Replacement\" class=\"border border-white !text-white font-mono uppercase p-5 inline-flex items-center gap-3 hover:bg-white hover:!text-accentLight focus:bg-white focus:!text-accentLight\" data-name=\"donateCTA\" data-action=\"handleDonate\"><br \/>\n      Become a member      <span class=\"font-icons icon-TI_Arrow_02_Right\"\/><br \/>\n    <\/a>\n  <\/div>\n<div class=\"group default w-full px-5 hidden\" data-name=\"unsubscribed\">\n<div class=\"px-5 border-[10px] border-accentLight\">\n<div class=\"bg-white -my-2.5 relative block px-4 md:px-5\">\n<h2 class=\"font-sans font-body text-[30px] font-bold tracking-[0.01em] leading-8 mb-0 xl:text-[37px] xl:leading-[39px]\">\n          <span class=\"group-[.subscribed]:hidden\"><br \/>\n            Join Our Newsletter          <\/span><br \/>\n          <span class=\"group-[.default]:hidden\"><br \/>\n            Thank You For Joining!          <\/span><br \/>\n        <\/h2>\n<p class=\"text-[27px] mb-3.5 font-bold text-accentLight tracking-[0.01em] leading-[29px] font-sans xl:text-[37px] xl:leading-[39px]\">\n          <span class=\"group-[.subscribed]:hidden\"><br \/>\n            Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you.          <\/span><br \/>\n          <span class=\"group-[.default]:hidden\"><br \/>\n            Will you take the next step to support our independent journalism by becoming a member of The Intercept?          <\/span>\n        <\/p>\n<p>        <a href=\"https:\/\/join.theintercept.com\/donate\/now\/?referrer_post_id=515992&amp;referrer_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheintercept.com%2F2026%2F05%2F15%2Fpodcast-trump-counterterrorism-strategy%2F&amp;source=web_intercept_20241230_Inline_Signup_Replacement\" class=\"group-[.default]:hidden border border-accentLight text-accentLight font-sans px-5 py-3.5 inline-flex items-center gap-3 text-[20px] font-bold\" data-action=\"handleDonate\"><br \/>\n          Become a member          <span class=\"font-icons icon-TI_Arrow_02_Right\"\/><br \/>\n        <\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"font-sans text-accentLight text-[10px] leading-[13px] text-balance [&amp;_a]:text-accentLight [&amp;_a]:font-bold [&amp;_a:hover]:underline group-[.subscribed]:hidden\">\n<p>By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/privacy-policy\/\">Privacy Policy<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/terms-use\/\">Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- END-BLOCK(newsletter)[0] --><\/p>\n<p>[Break]<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW: <\/strong>Noah, the strategy repeatedly references narco-terrorists in Latin America as principal targets for the Trump administration\u2019s counterterrorism efforts around the world. Does this help us to understand anything about what the administration has been doing in Venezuela, Cuba, and elsewhere?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NH:<\/strong> I think what it helps us understand is that the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/podcasts\/collateral-damage\/page\/2\/\">drug war<\/a> is and always has been a instrument for various U.S. foreign policy objectives, particularly in <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/11\/12\/collateral-damage-episode-six-airborne-imperalism\/\">Latin America<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThe war on drugs continues to be a very useful cudgel for U.S. foreign policy in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Actually labeling these somewhat nebulous drug trafficking groups as explicitly as terrorist groups was, until fairly recently, a right-wing fever dream. But on day one, President Trump signed an executive order asking the State Department to label various drug trafficking groups in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/08\/15\/trump-mexico-war-cartels\/\">as terrorist groups<\/a>. What that tells us is that the war on drugs continues to be a very useful cudgel for U.S. foreign policy in the region.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been used by Trump to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/01\/06\/after-venezuela-trumps-cartel-threats-put-mexico-on-edge-00711703\">discipline and pressure<\/a> President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico. It\u2019s been used to underwrite the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/sanctions-oil-tankers-venezuela-trump-maduro-9ffee61472d248aafdc9d9bef6195c2e\">sanctions regime<\/a> against the government of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. Then, of course, as a pretext for the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/03\/venzuela-war-nicolas-maduro-airstrikes-caracas-trump\/\">kidnapping of Maduro<\/a> in January.<\/p>\n<p>This counterterrorism strategy, like the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf\">national security strategy<\/a> released late last year, makes repeated reference to the Monroe Doctrine, which is a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy dating back to 1823 when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/11\/17\/world\/americas\/trump-latin-america-monroe-doctrine.html\">President James Monroe<\/a> issued a diktat, if you will, basically saying that the Western Hemisphere is closed to further colonization by Spanish forces and other European powers, and basically it\u2019s our corner of the world, butt out.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The strand of \u201cAmerican First\u201d nationalism that undergirds the Trump administration\u2019s foreign policy is heavily influenced by this Monroe Doctrine. Now what\u2019s interesting is that it was posed as a sort of anti-colonial doctrine \u2014 that the Spanish should stop meddling, that the British should stop meddling. But it has been used in an essentially colonialist or imperialist fashion by the United States to assert power in the Western Hemisphere for centuries now.<\/p>\n<p>It is popular among American-first nationalists because it is a vision of the world that predates liberal internationalism, and instead \u2014 it\u2019s not isolationist, it\u2019s not, \u201cWe\u2019re going to sit in our country and take care of ourselves\u201d \u2014 it is, \u201cWe are going to take care of ourselves by projecting power in the Western Hemisphere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That is something that we\u2019ve seen very explicitly from the Trump administration, both in rhetoric, in the national security strategy and the counterterrorism strategy, and in its actions. We\u2019ve seen that in Venezuela. We\u2019ve seen that in <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/02\/20\/podcast-trump-cuba\/\">Cuba<\/a> with the reinforced blockade. We\u2019ve seen that in Mexico with the Trump administration\u2019s treatment of President Claudia Sheinbaum.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve seen that in other countries where it appears that the Trump administration, especially through Marco Rubio, are trying to create a sort of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2026\/5\/8\/headlines\/us_and_israel_worked_with_disgraced_ex_president_of_honduras_to_destabilize_leftist_governments\">Pan-American right-wing project <\/a>linking the brain trusts and power of <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/03\/02\/trump-latin-america-new-right\/\">Javier Milei in Argentina<\/a>, the supporters of Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez in Honduras, the administration in Paraguay, and the the government of Ecuador, where we\u2019ve also seen military strikes against alleged drug traffickers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> Nick, this Pan-American view isn\u2019t really limited to the Western Hemisphere. We had a conversation with historian <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/09\/trump-venezuela-maduro-greg-grandin\/\">Greg Grandin<\/a> as well where he got into this. Can you talk about how the administration has also loosened rules of engagement and the effects of that on countries with U.S. military operations?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NT:<\/strong> This new strategy boasts that as soon as Trump retook the White House he reinstituted <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/04\/15\/pete-hegseth-pentagon-civilian-casualties-harm\/\">loosened rules of engagement<\/a> that were used during his first term in office. In retrospect, we know that these weak rules during Trump\u2019s first term had a profound effect across the Middle East and Africa. Attacks in Somalia, for example, tripled after Trump relaxed targeting principles. At the same time, U.S. military and independent estimates of civilian casualties across U.S. war zones, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen all spiked. The U.S. conducted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newamerica.org\/insights\/americas-counterterrorism-wars\/the-war-in-somalia\/\">more than 200 <\/a>declared attacks in Somalia during Trump\u2019s first term, and that was a more than 300 percent increase over the eight years of the Obama presidency.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Trump, already in less than a year and a half in office in the second term, is on the cusp of eclipsing his first four years of strikes in Somalia. A review of the Trump era rules by the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2021\/03\/07\/biden-drone-strikes-syria\/\">Biden administration <\/a>found that the operating principles used in these strikes including what had previously been at a near-certainty that civilians would not be injured or killed in the course of operations, were severely watered down.<\/p>\n<p>When I talked to retired <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2016\/07\/11\/in-africa-u-s-military-sees-enemies-everywhere\/\">Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc<\/a>, who led Special Operations Command Africa during Trump\u2019s first term, he told me that this shift in the rules of engagement led to a major shift in who could be targeted and who would be killed. In essence, it made it much easier to strike targets.<\/p>\n<p>Back in 2023, in an investigation for The Intercept, I found that these rules in one case led to the deaths of three and possibly five civilians in a strike in Somalia, including a young mother, a 22-year-old, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2023\/11\/12\/somalia-drone-strike-civilian-deaths\/\">Luul Dahir Mohamed, and her 4-year-old daughter, Mariam<\/a>. Members of the U.S. strike cell didn\u2019t know what they were looking at and somehow misidentified Luul as a man and completely missed Mariam.<\/p>\n<p>The mother and child had hitched a ride in a pickup truck that the U.S. targeted. Luul and Mariam actually survived the initial strike but were killed in a double-tap attack as they fled for their lives. This was only possible because of these loosened rules of engagement that Trump has now bragged about in this 2026 counterterrorism strategy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW: <\/strong>Frankly, it\u2019s alarming to think that now we\u2019re going to see even more incidents like that, like you just described. And we\u2019re seeing people targeted here at home too.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Nick, I was looking at a piece you did last year focused on NSPM-7, the presidential memorandum that effectively created a secret list of domestic terrorists, which included everyone from anti-Christians to anti-capitalists.<\/p>\n<p>One of the haunting questions from your piece was whether the administration has the authority to kill people on the list that it has designated as terrorists. The line \u201cWe will find you and we will kill you\u201d appears in this new counterterrorism strategy. I know that stuck out to both of us as incredibly chilling.<\/p>\n<p>Does this new strategy give us an answer to your earlier question? Does the administration have the legal authority to kill its enemies?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NT:<\/strong> The White House and Justice Department have never answered this question. It\u2019s been left hanging there in both cases since the fall when I started asking.<\/p>\n<p>But in December, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/12\/16\/trump-domestic-attack-dtos\/\">Gen. Gregory Guillot<\/a>, the Chief of U.S. Northern Command, a four-star general who takes his orders from Pete Hegseth and oversees the United States, seemed to answer this question, and worryingly so. When he was asked about his willingness to attack so-called designated terrorist organizations within U.S. borders by Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island. Guillot said that if he had questions about such an order, he would ask Hegseth, and if not, if he thought it was a legal order, then he would \u201cdefinitely execute that order.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cYou don\u2019t get four stars on your shoulder by saying, no, sir, that\u2019s immoral. I won\u2019t do what you want, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Now, as far as four-star generals go, Guillot has a good reputation. People on the Hill, decent people there, like him. He\u2019s not a Hegseth acolyte, not a MAGA general. But the military are, in the end, orders followers. They kill on command. They do what they\u2019re told. You don\u2019t get four stars on your shoulder by saying, no, sir, that\u2019s immoral. I won\u2019t do what you want, sir.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You don\u2019t see a lot of military officers at any level <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/12\/23\/boat-strikes-venezuela-hegseth-bradley-legal\/\">pushing back against the orders<\/a> of this administration to <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/12\/05\/boat-strike-survivors-double-tap\/\">attack and kill people<\/a>, whether it\u2019s in <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/20\/joe-kent-iran-military-conscientious-objectors\/\">Iran<\/a> or Venezuela, or specifically the boat strikes that every legal authority worthy of that name says are illegal extrajudicial killings.<\/p>\n<p>With secret lists of both foreign and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/02\/12\/pam-bondi-domestic-terror-list-nspm-7\/\">domestic terrorists<\/a>, we don\u2019t know who can be targeted. But it\u2019s possible that so-called left-wing extremists could be targeted and killed on Trump or Hegseth\u2019s say-so. In a world of secret wars, secret enemies lists, secret legal findings, we just can\u2019t know for sure. And that alone should scare every American.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> I think most people in the United States would like to believe that the military would not follow those kinds of orders. But as you\u2019ve documented throughout your entire career, we cannot count on individual soldiers not following through on those orders.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that we now have an enemies list and a counterterrorism strategy that is rather explicit about targeting the left, that includes the words \u201cWe will find you and we will kill you,\u201d I think that should be terrifying to pretty much anyone.<\/p>\n<p>Noah, you\u2019ve covered other targets, specifically nonprofits. Can you talk a little bit about how that fits into the broader efforts to not only tamp down but arguably eliminate any dissent? Has the Trump administration strategy here evolved over the last year? And if so, how?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NH:<\/strong> As we\u2019ve mentioned before, this anti-terror imperative makes for a very flexible and useful means of tamping down on dissent. Prior to the Trump administration returning to power, I reported extensively on what was known as the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2024\/11\/15\/nonprofits-trump-bill-gop-republicans\/\">nonprofit killer bill<\/a>,\u201d which was a piece of legislation in Congress that would allow the Treasury Department to revoke the nonprofit status of any 501(c)(3) organization found to be providing material support for terrorism.<\/p>\n<p>That was a bill that had received relatively broad bipartisan support prior to the reelection of Donald Trump, and then in the immediate aftermath of the reelection of Donald Trump, it became much more of a partisan issue because suddenly the Democrats looked around and realized that we were going to be handing this tool to a new emboldened Trump administration. So that bill ended up <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/05\/19\/nonprofit-killer-trump-big-beautiful-bill\/\">languishing in legislative hell<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I see that as an early warning sign of the way in which the Trump administration planned to use this terrorism rhetoric to tamp down on pretty non-terroristic political enemies. I think that we\u2019ve seen most clearly that coming through in its prosecution of the Southern Poverty Law Center.<\/p>\n<p>Now, that is through the DOJ. They are not necessarily using the rhetoric of anti-terror against the SPLC in that lawsuit, which is based on the use of undercover informants in white supremacist groups. They did accuse the SPLC of essentially providing material support to these extremist groups by paying informants, but it was a slight evolution of the somewhat more crude use of this terrorism label against political enemies.<\/p>\n<p>But we do see that they are using every tool in the toolbox to delegitimize, to prosecute, to make the lives harder of anyone they see as their political enemies.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> What\u2019s also fascinating, maybe horrifying is the better word, is the fact that they don\u2019t even have to pass this legislation. They don\u2019t even have to <em>convict <\/em>these organizations on any charges, and yet there\u2019s already damage. The Intercept has been reporting on the fact that certain financial institutions essentially <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/05\/08\/splc-donations-banks-censorship\/\">complied in advance and began preventing donations<\/a> from their donor-advised funds to SPLC.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"promote-banner\">\n    <a class=\"promote-banner__link\" href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/collections\/chilling-dissent\/\"><br \/><span class=\"promote-banner__image\"><br \/>        <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"promote-banner__text\">\n<p class=\"promote-banner__eyebrow\">\n            Read our complete coverage          <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><br \/><\/aside>\n<p>Nick, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2020\/06\/02\/history-united-states-government-infiltration-protests\/\">at different points in history<\/a>, we\u2019ve seen the government target civilians it perceived as enemies of the state, from the McCarthy era to COINTELPRO to the war on terror. Perhaps it\u2019s too soon to tell the full impact, but how does what we\u2019re seeing now with the Trump administration compare to these other periods?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NT:<\/strong> I was really struck by some of the language in this new counterterrorism strategy. At one point, it notes that the national counterterrorism activities \u201cwill prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups\u201d whose ideology is and this is quoting, \u201canti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This language of neutralization, it really harkens back to the FBI\u2019s analogous and infamous COINTELPRO program that you mentioned which was employed in the 1960s and 1970s to target the civil rights movement; the new left; anti-Vietnam War protesters \u2014 basically domestic groups and individuals. It\u2019s very much the spiritual precursor to Trump\u2019s current war at home. It\u2019s just that COINTELPRO was secret, and Trump\u2019s effort is out and proud.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThis type of counterintelligence was meant to \u2018expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize\u2019 \u2014 that language again \u2014 \u2018African American groups and leaders.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.senate.gov\/about\/powers-procedures\/investigations\/church-committee.htm\">1976 Senate Select Committee report <\/a>on U.S. intelligence activities, COINTELPRO turned a law enforcement agency into a law violator. The Senate committee found that the FBI went beyond the collection of intelligence to secret action designed to \u201cdisrupt and neutralize target groups and individuals,\u201d and that they used wartime counterintelligence techniques that were antithetical to a democratic society. There was a 1967 internal FBI memo that laid this out basically that this type of counterintelligence was meant to \u201cexpose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize\u201d \u2014 that language again \u2014 \u201cAfrican American groups and leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>These efforts were meant to, this is another quote, \u201ccause serious physical, emotional, or economic damage to the targets,\u201d according to the Senate committee. Martin Luther King Jr., for instance, was one of the targets of the FBI\u2019s campaign. The Senate Select Committee again uses that same language. They said that the FBI targeted him to neutralize him. The man that was in charge of the FBI\u2019s what they called \u201cwar against Dr. King,\u201d said that they used the same methods they employed against Soviet agents. It\u2019s the Cold War at the time, very much at war with the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n<p>To me, I think Trump is really reinstituting COINTELPRO under a new name.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cTrump is really reinstituting COINTELPRO under a new name.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> The groups that you just mentioned are all generally considered left-leaning movements. What impact did those efforts have on leftist movements in the United States?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NT:<\/strong> Yeah, COINTELPRO and some analogous operations were going on at the same time. They really <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lib.berkeley.edu\/about\/news\/fbi\">weakened activist groups<\/a>. They sowed dissent within organizations, discord among members. They broke up families. They encouraged gang warfare on the streets of American cities. It got people killed. <\/p>\n<p>They utilized informants and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2020\/06\/02\/history-united-states-government-infiltration-protests\/\">agent provocateurs<\/a>. They undermined groups that were trying to bring about social change through democratic means and hurt people that really just wanted to build a better, more inclusive America.<\/p>\n<p>We can talk about the promise of 1960s radicalism and the movement and people trying to bring about social change and how it failed. But, we can\u2019t seriously address those failures if we don\u2019t talk about a sophisticated government campaign that was meant to undermine those groups and destroy those people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> Are we doomed to repeat that history, to repeat that fate of previous leftist movements? Or is there a way for alleged enemies of the state to fight back? Noah, I want to start with you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NH:<\/strong> Oh, yeah, we\u2019re doomed. [Laughter.] Just kidding. No, I think there are definitely ways to push back on these. The Trump administration has been dealt a number of defeats in various district <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawfaremedia.org\/projects-series\/trials-of-the-trump-administration\/tracking-trump-administration-litigation\">courts<\/a> on a number of important policies.<\/p>\n<p>So it\u2019s going to be really important for groups like the SPLC to fight back from a legal basis. We\u2019re also seeing a number of the charges that are being brought against protesters in various cities that have been invaded by ICE <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/caught-in-crackdown-ice-cbp-doj-trump-arrests-convictions\">fall apart<\/a>. The <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/13\/ice-protesters-terrorism-prairieland-antifa\/\">Prairieland case in Texas<\/a> was actually a <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/17\/ice-protester-terrorism-convictions-trump-prairieland\/\">bit of an outlier<\/a>. If you look at a lot of the cases, particularly in Chicago and Los Angeles, the charges brought against protesters there, where the rhetoric of terrorism has been used against them by the administration, have <a href=\"https:\/\/abc7chicago.com\/story\/conspiracy-charge-dismissed-broadview-6-other-immigration-protesters-sue-dna-collection\/19065008\/\">often fallen apart<\/a> because juries see through what the prosecution is saying against them.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re going to keep seeing creative methods used to tamp down on dissent.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>I think that we are early in this administration and we\u2019re going to keep seeing creative methods used to tamp down on dissent. Say what you will about the people around President Trump, but they have proved very adept at finding levers of power and levers of pain to go after their enemies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The SPLC lawsuit is a really good example of that. I\u2019m sure they knew that these donor-advised funds were going to stop allowing donations there. It\u2019s not just the bad press. It\u2019s not just the legal headaches. There\u2019s all sorts of problems that you kick off when you make an accusation like this in court.<\/p>\n<p>So we are going to continue to see this so-called anti-terrorism carried out against leftist groups. It\u2019s just going to be really important to find creative ways to push back on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> Nick, how does the left survive this?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NT:<\/strong> The only reason that we, the public, that Congress, anyone ever found out about the COINTELPRO program is because a tiny group of academics, a daycare director, and a taxi driver <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zinnedproject.org\/news\/tdih\/cointelpro-exposed\/\">broke into an FBI field office<\/a> in Media, Pennsylvania, in 1971, stole more than a thousand classified FBI documents, and exposed the FBI\u2019s illegal operations.<\/p>\n<p>The Citizens\u2019 Commission to Investigate the FBI, as they called themselves, changed our understanding of how underhanded and unhinged the U.S. government is and can be. And they were just regular people.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not encouraging people to break into an FBI field office, but activists are still smart and committed, and I\u2019m confident they\u2019ll find a way to expose today\u2019s illegality.<\/p>\n<p>I hope and I humbly ask that they send whatever they uncover to The Intercept.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not encouraging people to break into an FBI field office, but activists are still smart and committed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>JW:<\/strong> Sounds like we\u2019re going to have a lot more documents to go through. We\u2019re going to leave it there. We go into much more detail about the far-reaching implications of the administration\u2019s counterterrorism strategy beyond what we cover here, so you can check out our story. You can find it at theintercept.com, and we\u2019ll link it in the show notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Nick and Noah, thanks for joining me on The Intercept Briefing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NT:<\/strong> Thanks so much for having us.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>NH: <\/strong>Thanks so much.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JW: <\/strong>That does it for this episode.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This episode was produced by Laura Flynn. Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief. Maia Hibbett is our Managing Editor. Chelsey B. Coombs is our social and video producer. Fei Liu is our product and design manager. Nara Shin is our copy editor. William Stanton mixed our show. Legal review by David Bralow.<\/p>\n<p>Slip Stream provided our theme music.<\/p>\n<p>This show and our reporting at The Intercept doesn\u2019t exist without you. Your donation, no matter the amount, makes a real difference. Keep our investigations free and fearless at <a href=\"https:\/\/join.theintercept.com\/donate\/Donate_Podcast?source=interceptedshoutout&amp;recurring_period=one-time\">theintercept.com\/join.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And if you haven\u2019t already, please subscribe to The Intercept Briefing wherever you listen to podcasts. Do leave us a rating or a review, it helps other listeners to find us.<\/p>\n<p>Let us know what you think of this episode, or If you want to send us a general message, email us at <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/05\/15\/podcast-trump-counterterrorism-strategy\/mailto:podcasts@theintercept.com\">podcasts@theintercept.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Until next time, I\u2019m Jessica Washington.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/05\/15\/podcast-trump-counterterrorism-strategy\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>IN 16 pages, the Trump administration\u2019s new official counterterrorism strategy outlines in broad terms who it views as terrorist threats and priority targets, ranging from anti-fascist activists to ISIS and so-called narco-terrorists.\u00a0The line \u201cWe will find you, and we will kill you\u201d appears in the memo. \u201c[The] strategy brings together Trump\u2019s war on the wider [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}