The Chris Cuomo Project - The Trump Memo Blurring Protest and Terrorism

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

In late September, President Donald Trump issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) — a sweeping directive ordering federal agencies to target what it calls “domestic terrorism�� linked to so-called anti-fascist movements. Citing incidents like the assassination of Charlie Kirk and riots in Los Angeles and Portland, the memo instructs law enforcement to investigate “anti-American,” “anti-capitalist,” and “anti-Christian” ideologies — while omitting far-right violence entirely. Chris Cuomo breaks down why NSPM-7 may be the most alarming policy yet of Trump’s presidency: how it redefines dissent as extremism, blurs the line between free speech and criminal intent, and expands federal power to police ideas instead of actions." Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Support our sponsors: Reverse hair loss with @iRestorelaser! Subscribe & Save for 25% off or more + free shipping on the iRestore REVIVE+ Max Growth Kit, and unlock HUGE savings on the iRestore Elite with the code CHRIS at https://www.irestore.com/CHRIS! Calm your mind, change your life. Calm has an exclusive offer just for listeners of our show – get 40% off a Calm Premium Subscription at https://calm.com/CUOMO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We'd love to talk, business. One of the upsides to all the chaos is that you lose track of what matters like this. I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. This national security presidential memo, NSPM 7, this happened in September. And nobody's talking about it. and it may be the most troubling piece of propaganda that has come out of this administration. I will tell you why. I will tell you why. Domestic terror is a real thing. We are going down a road of

increasing fundamentalism in our society. As you have heard me say before, I believe it is an extension of our binary politics and the battle to the bottom and the zero-sum nature of it. and social media as a turbocharger that is designed by algorithms to reward hostility, okay? That's what's going on. And I must say, it is very interesting. The president puts out a national security presidential memorandum directing resources to target, okay, to target what he is defining as domestic terror. Now, is it tricky when negotiating what is, what ideas are terroristic and what ideas are just free speech? Yeah, yeah, there's a difference between saying and acting, right?

I think America should burn to the ground. I think America's the worst. I think all the politicians should, you know, be expired, whatever, whatever way I put it, is that protected speech. Yeah. If I'm not being specific in my threats, is it inflammatory? Could it make people violent? Yeah. Is it wrong to say certain things that you have the right to say? Yes. Just because you have the right to say it doesn't make it right to say it. Absolutely. But what is the barometer of that? Well, it's this nebulous idea of the public square and of cultural canceling or crowdsourced consequences. I guess. But you've got to be very careful. And there is nothing careful about this NSPM 7. Okay. And if you flipped the R and the D, the Republicans would be going bat shit crazy. And I don't know why the Democrats are not. This thing is about Charlie Kirk's assassination, period. And them wanting to target left wing politics. That's what it is. They say it in the opening paragraph. There's nothing subtle

about this. It's not clever, okay? It's a meat cleaver. Now, let's deal with the first reason that it's really upsetting. Okay? It's upsetting because it is factually flawed. If you were going to target a political disposition for domestic terror reasons, it would be the right. Look at the statistics. I'm not saying that the left doesn't have violence. I am the one telling you the opposite, that these fringes, these competing magnified minorities, weaponized by social media, weaponized by opportunists and pod bros and sisses or whatever you call them, It is a both-sides thing, but it ain't even.

When you look at the FBI and what they're looking at in terms of what are the biggest national security threats to America and you get to domestic terror, their right-wing white nationalist groups. That's what they're looking at, not Antifa. I don't even know what Antifa is the way I know proud boys or something like that. It's more of like terror. Antifa is like terror. It's an idea. And it's people who organize under that umbrella of ideas. right it was the same thing with al-Qaeda anybody can be al-Qaeda if they want to do nasty shit

to the west or to Christians in the name of al-Qaeda now you're al-Qaeda that's the same thing with Antifa it's not like they have a building on the corner of Fifth and Elm and there's the Antifa office go get them it's more amorphous than that it's trickier than that it's harder to deal with than that it's like anarchy antifa's like anarchy oh no antifa is anti-fascists no that's not all they are no they're not righteous and productive and pragmatic or about better in this society they're about chaos and they're about destruction and they're about anger and hostility very often i've seen it okay is that all they're about no can they be about other things that are seen as more virtuous of course but i'm talking about in the main and what the

thrust is and what i've seen in different protests that they turned into riots So, I get why they want to make Antifa a boogeyman. I get why making Antifa a boogeyman is a good political move, but that doesn't make it good policy. And for a president to put out a directive to investigate left-wing political organizations, ignoring the facts and what good policy would be is a problem. And the fact that it got no attention is a huge fucking problem. And this is the mistake of flooding the zone for us, how we deal with it. I got national security. I got Middle East.

I got sending in the National Guard. I got it's about crime. I got it's about politics. You know, I got the tariffs. I got them doing this. There's so much shit in the air that you don't know where to focus. What's going on with the pharmaceuticals? Who's he suing now?

What are they saying about different health things? You know, you don't know. There's so much going on. They flood the zone. And something like this, that if Joe Biden had said, I want to direct more resources to look at white nationalism and how it's expanding its reach within the Christian community in America and how we see it in social media and where. And I got to tell you something, it bothers me that in this proposed frontal assault on these organizations, social media is nowhere. Who does more to amplify angry speech than social media? And look, again, it's a tough line to walk.

Don't punish speech in America. But if it is speech that is related to planned actions, now you've got something else. But that is a tricky line, and it's a slippery slope and every other metaphor of proceed with caution that you can think of. Yes, yes, it is. It's slippery. I don't want to punish speech,

but I don't know how these purveyors of social media can get away with no responsibility when they are doing more of what every other media platform is held to account for. Well, they don't create it. Yes, they do. by curating and amplifying and deciding how what's going to get seen and what isn't

that the same as creating it. If they have apples and pairs and they're pushing pairs everywhere and it's hard to find an apple is the defense, well, I didn't make the pair. I didn't make the apple. No, but you're pushing it. They have to have some kind of standard,

some kind of responsibility. It can't be that Elon Musk gets to make Twitter a repository for bullshit hysteria. And he puts it out himself and there is no recourse other than just not going on the site. Not going on the site is not enough

because the power of choice, my choice, but what about all the choices that he is informing against my choice? Support comes from Irestore. Look, if you care about your hair, all right? the amount the volume you got to go all in all right it's not going to be a little bit of a vitamin here a different shampoo there some gizmo or gimmick you got to go with a system all right and the i restore revive plus max growth kit is a system they call it a full-on hair care dream

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This balance is not working. And the naked gun. That was awesome. Now that's a mountain of entertainment. Paramount Worth. Look, again. It is not simple, but it matters to figure this out. And this is what happens when you decide that you want to make it simple.

This memo is what happens when you want to make it simple. When you want to make everything a hammer, you know, you're a nail and you're a hammer. And everything is just another blunt object that you use to bludgeon your will into a country that has a very delicate fabric. what this is doing, countering domestic terrorism, yeah, but only on the left. It literally says it in here, only on the left, not only on the left, but everything it mentions is left. They're telling you, in their own first paragraph, is Charlie Kirk, proceeded by the health care executive, two separate assassination attempts on his own life, the president, what's happening in Los Angeles and Portland. no January 6 in here, a shooting of an ice facility in Dallas. That's what was motivating all this, all from the left.

And what does he say it is? Anti-fascism. That this anti-fascist lie, don't do things like this that make you look like a fascist, and people won't use that word the same way. And look, is a little bit of it gotcha? Is a little bit of it exaggerated? Yeah, but you're doing your best to justify the exaggerations.

And I believe it's posing. I believe it's posturing. I believe it's not respecting norms in history. And people will say, I'm being naive. I don't see myself that way. But you may be right. The JTTF, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, political violence, terrorism, conspiracy against rights. Good. Those are all actionable. The violent deprivation of any citizens' rights.

Good. That should be actionable. They should also investigate institutional and individual funders and officers and employees of these organizations. Now it starts to get a little dicey, especially with Citizens United. But then again, I'd love to get rid of Citizens United. I hate the idea that money is speech and in an unregulated, unbridled, unlimited way. And when they talk in here about why they don't like these ideas, this is the linking thought to why I find it problematic, okay? The common recurrent motivations and indicia uniting this pattern of violent and terroristic activities is the umbrella of anti-fascism.

Now, that's not true because we've had people from the right that also talk anti-fascism. but we have had more people from the right that don't talk anti-fascism. They're anti-minority groups or they're anti-whatever they're anti. But they're not even mentioned here. So in this definition, foundational American principles, support for law enforcement and border control, that's a foundational American principle. Really? America was founded on the principle of respecting the police, even if they don't deserve it in a given instance, to respect border.

control, even if you don't like how it's being enforced? I don't think that's a foundational American principle. I think a foundational American principle is fairness under law, is the administration of justice with due process that follows our constitutional safeguards. I think that's a foundational principle. Not, I got to love the cops no matter what they do. Not I got to love the government, no matter what it does. Again, if you don't want to be called a fascist, don't write shit like this, okay? Because then what do you say?

Common threads, animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, support for the overthrow of the United States government, extremism on migration, race, and gender, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family. These are all ideas. You are allowed to have all of these ideas.

How you act on these ideas is all that matters. In terms of the law, in terms of the president in a national security memo. What the fuck is going on here? I mean, look, the only reason you don't see this for what it can be understood as is because of your side. and you've got to get past that. That is fealty to somebody else's fortunes, and it is compromising your own fate, not just because it's alliterative,

because it is literal. It's happening. I'm Chris Hadfield. I'm an astronaut, an author, a citizen of planet Earth. Join me for a six-part journey into the systems that power the world. Real conversations with real people

who are shaping the future of energy. no politics, no empty talk, just solutions-focused conversations on the challenges we must overcome and the possibilities that lie ahead. This is on energy. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. I mean, this is not who we're supposed to be. And not just because he has it wrong in terms of the nature of the threat, but that it's obvious that he is weaponizing his political preferences. Now, what can you do about it? Well, first of all, care about it.

Care about it. You're burying me in questions about Diddy's sentence? No one has ever asked me about this. You know, you'll talk all day about Antifa, about ICE and what they're doing and what they're not, and who's illegal, and this one crime here, and this is to prove that they all have to go. You're fixated on things that often don't.

have as big an impact as other things going on. This memo is a big deal. They're giving law enforcement a directive to go after people on the basis of their ideas. And ideas are not enough of a suggestion of actions. You need to catch them having plans. We don't punish ideas in America. It's very, very important. Very important. I'm very important. I I would argue that this matters more than anything else we have going on right now. In terms of overreach of power, more than the National Guard, yeah, because they're related. If the president feels that there's nothing that can stop him other than his appetites from how he uses the military to enforce what he sees is anti-American, which is the language they use in this,

anti-American. Anti-American speech, I would argue, is one of the most uncomfortable manifestations of our freedom. It is the price of our freedom, is that tolerance, that burden of tolerance that we put on ourselves more than anybody else does, that discipline. that discipline of allowing freedom to live and let live means that you have to listen to things that you fucking hate, that you find disgusting, repulsive, so wrong and wrong-minded that they should get the hell out of this country. But that's their choice, not yours.

And is their right, not yours, to decide what is said and what is not said? that is the burden that comes with the blessing of our democracy. And we are fucking with that. And I get the frustrations and I get the delicacy. I get accused of it myself when I say there has to be a change on social media. People say you're censoring us. Look, there's an argument here. Okay.

I may be on the wrong side of it in terms of where society comes out on it. There is, I would rather argue the leave it alone side because legally, and in terms of our cultural dynamic, it's a more vibrant position to have. Let the marketplace of ideas decide. Don't put any weight on either side of the scale. But if you look at social media's effect on our politics, how can you say it's been beneficial? Why? Because it's made people who you never would have heard of in the past rich and relevant and use. using horrible excuses for bad information.

I'm not an expert. I'm just having a conversation with the American people about this. Yeah, but you're stating things as fact and you're citing experts and you're getting things wrong on purpose or recklessly, meaning you don't care if you're right or wrong, because as long as it's provocative, and here is where we are on social media, where a comic who has become a social critic on the Middle East gets exposed for. bullshit about what he says a general revealed about America's plan to take over five countries in seven years or seven and five, whatever it was, which was just neocon political chatter,

but now it's a plan. And when it's exposed that this is bullshit what he's saying, well, but it's an interesting story, isn't it? But it's an interesting story. Don't you think it's an interesting story? That's the bar of saying that a general, to plan to overtake all of these countries. That was complete bullshit. But it's an interesting story. So that's it. That is the admission that you should have been waiting for.

It's just what's interesting. It's just what's provocative. It's just what works for them. They don't give a shit what it does to everything else. Now, that is the burden of our blessing of this democracy. is that we allow that. We allow it traction. We allow it reach.

We allow it riches. When it's stupid and it's destroying us and it's dividing us. But it's giving him nicer vacations. Support comes from calm. Oh boy, here we're coming. Into the holidays, into the end of the days, the end of the year. This sun is going down.

and the days are getting shorter and there's so much to do stress how do you release it hello calm calm is the number one app for sleep and meditation i have used it a long time it is here as a tool to help you get yourself to feel better if you need some support navigating the ups and downs you can get help and relief with comms sessions like guided meditations, help you work through anxiety and stress, help you focus your energy, help you build healthier habits, take better care of yourself, sleep stories, sleep meditations, calming music to help you go to bed and stay asleep, grounding exercises to help you reset and relax, calm your mind, change your life. Calm has an exclusive offer

just for listeners of the Chris Cuomo Project. You can get 40% off, Com premium subscription. Just go to com.com, C-A-L-M dot C-O-M, front slash Cuomo. This is an amazing value. Go to C-A-L-M dot com slash Cuomo and you will get 40% off unlimited access to Com's entire library.com.com forward slash Cuomo. Please tell them you heard about com from me. So when you approach this, you have to approach it methodically and in all of the ways that are so frustrating and unsatisfying. This is satisfying. If you're a MAGA person, this is satisfying. You voted for this.

Bust down on those people who hate this country. No, bust down on those people who act on their hatred of this country with hatred and violence. That's what we're supposed to be about. Not going after people who say shit that I hate. No, that's what this is. That's what Trump wants. So on the one hand, they all say, oh, because we were censored, so we know we would never do that. No, you'll do exactly that.

That's exactly what you'll do. is what was done to you, and then some. That's exactly what you will do. That's what you did to Biden and his son, what you felt was done to you. And then you had your son go out and do even more than had ever been done before. And then you go after Comey

because you are doing what was done to you because revenge feels good and is satisfying to angry people. And they are in the business of anger and making people angry and scared and using that. That's what a demagogue is. That's why demagoguery is so effective. That's why it's so powerful an idea that you nor I know the Greek word for the positive opposite of demagoguery. I don't even know the word.

Because in our usage, that is the powerful one. using prejudice and fear to galvanize works very well. That's what's happening as reaction formation to MAGA. The Dem Sox, the Democratic Socialists, are young people with real grievance who are pissed off at Trump and MAGA for screwing things up for them and trying to tell them they're to blame for it and being out of touch with how they feel about themselves and one another. and they're coming.

And the president knows it. And that's why he's afraid. And that's why he's targeting the left. And that's why he's trying to accuse them of terror. And that's why he's sending the National Guard all over the place to flex. This should concern you. Ah, so now you think Trump's a Nazi. No, I do not.

I think he is flexing and he wants to put down his opponents. and he will do it any way that he can get away with. And the system must hold. And opposition must be there and must be intelligent and must be productive, not just echoing whatever he is. Not a Twitter war. Litigation. Motivation.

Look, if the guy is a raging despot, why is the government shut down right now? now you could say he let it get shut down because he thinks he's winning it's bad for the democrats it's not what the polls show if the guy were a full on despot why wouldn't he have done something to not let them shut the government down and uh you know some irrational use of power some extrajudicial act that's what a real heavy does i don't think that's what we're dealing with at least not yet okay but this memo, what's happening with the National Guard, these are bad suggestions of malintensions, bad suggestions of malintensions.

And you should be aware. I'm Chris Cuomo. Thank you for subscribing and following here at the Chris Cuomo Project. Look, the parties are what are fueling. this furor. And that's what's being fed. Where your independence. Be a free agent. Say fuck you to the parties. Our problems are real. Yes, I believe they get worse. But in that is an opportunity to become obsessed with getting to a better place. An equal desperation, an equal drive, but a very different ambition. Let's get after it.

Thank you.