Since right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was murdered at a Turning Point USA event in Utah last month, the vice president has filled in some on Kirk’s podcast — a production that Kirk’s friends and allies have kept up and running.
A few days after Kirk’s death, Vice President JD Vance hosted an episode of Kirk’s podcast from the White House to honor his friend. As my colleague Josh Kovensky reported today, other members of the Trump administration have now also made appearances on the show, which has morphed into a space for them to expand upon their vision for a domestic “War on Terror” waged against “antifa,” Democrats and people who espouse various common, left-coded ideas in America. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was among the latest to detail these plans this week, saying “we are operationalizing the Treasury, and we are going to track down who is responsible for this.” Josh Kovensky gets into the details in his piece, published today, below:
The memo directs Joint Terrorism Task Forces, groups that combine local law enforcement with the FBI, to examine advocacy organizations that the memo views as orchestrating political violence. But it also sets Treasury a significant task: to “identify and disrupt financial networks that fund domestic terrorism and political violence.” For that, it tasks offices traditionally used to track money laundering, sanctions evasion and foreign terrorist financing, among other things, with tracing “illicit funding streams” under the memo.
Trump allies have used Kirk’s death as a springboard for acting on Trump’s longtime vows of retribution against his political foes. Just weeks after Kirk was killed, Trump signed National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-7), instructing federal law enforcement to investigate groups that endorse such vague ideas as “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-Christianity,” among others. NSPM-7 claims these ideas are indicators of alignment with “antifa,” which various MAGA figures have cast as an organized group integral to Kirk’s killing — an assertion that ignores the dearth of evidence that suspect Tyler Robinson was a part of any group or adhered to any particular political ideology. (In the wake of Kirk’s killing and the right’s race to declare all political violence as being perpetuated by the left, the Trump DOJ deleted a study the DOJ had published on the matter, outlining the fact that far-right extremists commit more violence.)
During Vance’s initial appearance on Kirk’s podcast just days after Kirk’s death, Vance and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller first began discussing the details of how the administration might do a crackdown on “the left.” Vance, at the time, said that the administration was looking at how to “dismantle the institutions that promote violence and terrorism in our own country.” Miller took things a bit further. Alluding to, perhaps, what would become NSPM-7, he said that the administration would soon launch a formal effort to begin rooting out what he claimed was a “domestic terror movement” in the U.S. He said that this would all be done in Kirk’s name, too.
A live broadcast discussion of the various MAGA schemes to investigate left-leaning non-profits and those Trump views as his enemies is partially meant for the usual audience of one — Trump.
But it’s for Kirk’s actual audience, too.
During another live-from-the-White House broadcast of the Charlie Kirk Show on Wednesday, which Vance again hosted, the vice president announced that he will speak at a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi on October 29, appearing alongside Kirk’s wife Erika Kirk.
“I’m going to do exactly what Charlie did,” Vance said Wednesday. “My plan is to give a little speech, talk about the issues of the day, but turn most of it over to just do Q&A with the audience. I want to hear from these kids, I want to answer questions from them.”
“Part of keeping Charlie’s memory alive is keeping the mission alive,” he continued. “Nobody can replace Charlie, but if we all take little pieces, we can do as much as we can to ensure that Charlie’s mission continues to survive long after he’s gone.”
— Nicole LaFond
Come to TPM’s 25th Anniversary Live Show!
TPM’s 25th anniversary is coming up and we are having a big party in New York City to celebrate! We will be hosting a live recording of the Josh Marshall Podcast Featuring Kate Riga, as well as an oral history of TPM with alums, moderated by John Light and yours truly 🙂
The events will take place at the Metrograph Theater in Manhattan on Thursday 11/6, and then we are having a party at Bogart House in Brooklyn on Friday 11/7.
All my loyal WTS readers can get 33% OFF ticket prices using discount code WTS at this link. Hope to see you there!
— Nicole LaFond
Portland Still Shielded From National Guard Invasion
Judge Karin Immergut, the Trump appointee who has taken serious flak from the administration, extended her two orders protecting Portland from National Guard deployment during a hearing Wednesday.
The administration already appealed her first order, temporarily blocking the federalization and deployment of the Oregon Guard. We’re waiting for a Trumpy 9th Circuit panel to rule there. Oddly, the administration still hasn’t appealed her second order, which protects the city from the deployment of any Guard. She handed that down in response to the administration’s attempt to circumvent her first order by sending in troops from other states, including California.
In one amusing moment during the hearing, Immergut was running the attorneys through their discovery needs. Oregon’s Brian Marshall said the state would need access to White House communications if the government planned to argue that President Trump’s determination to deploy the Guard was made due to things his advisors told him. The DOJ’s Michael Gerardi searched for a respectful way to respond that there were no such discussions, that Trump’s determination was based on motivations that are “publicly known.” Oregon said in its brief that it seems Fox News’ airing of 2020 protest b-roll from Portland is what prompted Trump to deploy the Guard.
— Kate Riga
Temporary Block On Trump’s Fed Worker Layoffs
A federal judge on Wednesday issued a temporary restraining order, blocking the Trump administration from laying off almost 4,000 federal workers during the government shutdown.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston — a President Clinton appointee — said that the administration isn’t following the legal requirements necessary to conduct reductions in force, aka RIFs, adding that the layoffs seem to be politically motivated.
The administration appears to have “taken advantage of the lapse in government spending and government functioning to assume that all bets are off, that the laws don’t apply to them any more and that they can impose the structures that they like,” Illston said.
Meanwhile, on the Charlie Kirk podcast on Wednesday, White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought continued the threats he has been making for weeks, warning that the initial RIFs were just “a snapshot” of what is to come, supposedly.
“We’re going to keep those RIFs rolling throughout this shutdown because we think it’s important to stay on offense for the American taxpayer and the American people,” Vought said. “We want to be very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy, not just the funding, but the bureaucracy.”
— Emine Yücel
In Case You Missed It
New from Josh Marshall: The Age of Monsters, Part 2
In Supreme Court Land, Fixing Discrimination Against Black Voters Is The Real Racism
Big Talk: Treasury Secretary Declares New War on Terror Against the Left
Mystery Solved: Trump US Attorney Was Forced Out For Not Investigating the Investigators
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
In the New Trump Era, the Proud Boys Are ‘Not Apologizing Anymore’
What We Are Reading
Trump Says Argentina Bailout Depends on Milei’s Party Winning Upcoming Elections
‘Fluoride Disconnects One from God’: Inside the Weekly Call With RFK Jr.’s MAHA Hype Squad
Murkowski signs letter with Democrats demanding back pay for furloughed workers
I am a traditional democrat. I am not the left. Stop with the media shorthand.
This includes all those right-wing militia groups as well, right? RIGHT?
Ohhhhhhhhh…right…nevermind
Thank you. I too despise when folks – even outlets I respect – adopt the language assignations of the Trumpists.
That’s because there is no funding. They can’t reduce spending if the funds were not created.
Another thing: Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) and the state’s attorney from AZ should sue Johnson for breach of duty. (or whatever else they can throw at him). He is living up to the new GOP name.
The Guardians Of Pedophiles
Re: Kirk Killing
Re: TPM’s 25th Big Apple Bash
Yeah, whatever. Some of us live in the hinterlands of the American West. Have a good time.