The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump Secret Watchlist for American Citizens Exposed by Ken Klippenstein

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas and Ken Klippenstein expose the secret watchlist being compiled by the Trump administration of American citizens in a secretive “watchlist center” in Virginia and Klippenstein shares his original reporting on this critical subject that is not getting the attention is deserves. Check out Ken Klippenstein on substack: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/ Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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far more serious and Ken Clippenstein really drilled into it. When we talk about NSPM 7, this national Security Memorandum. I also want to talk about this office space in Northern Virginia, affluent suburb, just seven miles away from the CIA headquarters where there is a threat screening center in order to screen purported threats arising out of this NSPM 7 of people who the Trump regime could consider having views that are anti-American, anti-capitalism, anti-Christian, support for the overthrow of the United States government, extremism on migration, extremism on race, extremism on gender, however that means, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views

on religion, and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality. And right now, where we see this Trump regime labeling anybody who shows, up at the No King's protest as Antifa. Essentially, they'd be saying, I believe, that any American who shows up and peacefully protests what they're doing, anyone who dissents could fit potentially one of these categories. Let me drill into this reporting from Ken Klippinstein. Trump's NSPM 7 labels common beliefs as terrorism indicators. New directives target anti-Christian, anti-American, and anti-capitalism opinions. So with the mainstream media distracted, on everything else. Trump has signed this little notice national security directive

identifying anti-Christian and anti-American views as indicators of radical left violence called the National Security Presidential Memorandum 7. It's being referred to as NSPM 7 by administration insiders. This is the first time in American history that there is an all of government effort to dismantle left-wing terrorism is what Trump's Homeland Security advisor, Stephen Miller said, referring to the issuance, to the extent that the majority, the major media noticed the directive at all. They even C-SPAN incorrectly labeled it an executive order, Ken Klippinstein writes, like this week's designation of Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. And as Ken Klippenstein writes, it's hard to overstate how much different NSPM 7 is from the over 200

executive orders that Trump frantically signed since coming back into office, an executive order publicly lays out the course of day-to-day federal government operations, whereas a national security directive is a sweeping policy decree for the defense, foreign policy, intelligence, and law enforcement apparatus, Clippenstein writes, national security directives are often secret, but in this case, the Trump administration shows to publish NSPM 7, only the seven since coming into office. Now, you may also have seen Stephen Miller's appearance where he talked about Donald Trump having plenary authority to just do whatever the hell he wants. Here's what Miller said recently, let's play it and had this moment where it seemed like, I guess, according to CNN and him,

there was a technical difficulty, but I'll let you be the judge of it. Here, play this clip. You've called the district judge's ruling blocking the deployment of National Guard in Oregon legal insurrection. Does the administration still plan to abide by that ruling? Well, the administration filed an appeal this morning with the Ninth Circuit. I would note the administration won an identical case in the Ninth Circuit just a few months ago with respect to the federalizing of the California National Guard. Under Title X of the U.S. Code, the president has plenary authority.

Stephen? Stephen? Stephen? Hey, Stephen, can you hear me? It seemed, Stephen, I apologize. It seems like we're having a technical issue. We'll try to fix that and get back to you. Now, as I said, Ken Clippenstein also wrote about the secretive watchless center that's executing NSPM.

You see the center right here, and they're the ones who are expanding this watch list, according to the FBI director. I want to bring in Ken Clippenstein of Ken Clippenstein.com as well on Substack. He's been breaking a lot of major stories. A lot of whistleblower reports have been going Ken's way. And, you know, I would say some of the biggest stories we've seen so far have come from Ken. Ken, it's great to finally have you on the Midas Touch Network. Thanks for your reporting. Talk to us. How big of a deal is this NSPM 7? And why do you think it's gone under the radar except from reporting by you and some other independent media, but you leading the way.

It's a huge deal, not just because of the language that you were just quoting directly from the memo saying that it considers as indicators of future terrorist acts, anti-Christian sentiment, anti-government, anti-traditional family. Some of these groups, I don't even know what they mean, anti-gender. I mean, this is descriptors that would cover millions and millions of people. in this country. And basically what that is doing, again, it's not an executive order. It's a national security presidential memorandum is often classified. We're talking about NSPM 7, NSPM 6. We don't even know what it is because it's classified. There are very few of them. And the reason for that

is because these are sweeping strategy statements that basically tasks the entire federal government to pursue a specific strategic goal over the remainder of the administration. And what this one did was it told basically federal law enforcement all of those indicators that I was just describing pay attention to those make terrorism cases around those and how this is going to be interpreted by the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies across the country is that if you make cases around this articulated priority set around these indicators of terrorism so-called you're going to get promoted you're going to get more resources for these things and so this This is a big picture, 10,000-foot view look at what the administration is prioritizing going

forward. It is not the day-to-day of a lot of the executive orders that we've seen where they tend to focus more on small-bore stuff, more on kind of ordinary daily government conduct. This is the strategy document telling them, hey, guys, this is what we're going to be about for the next three years. Right. So it's an instruction, not this broad policy position. and it is you make this list of people. How big is it millions of people? Is it thousands?

But make a list of people who fit this criteria. That's what they're doing in an office. These people are showing up every day in a secret of office, a few miles outside of Langley, Virginia. And they are what? They're looking around at social media? Are they looking at podcasts? Are they looking at people giving speeches?

Are they looking at people peacefully protesting? testing and they're creating a spreadsheet every day this person this person this person this person this person and then that has impacts on those people's lives and you know what what are we seeing in terms of you know like our law firms giving guidance you know is this is our our banks having to respond like this is happening before our eyes even though it's not getting enough attention yeah this is really in a one-way mirror type situation where the federal government via like you said before the threat screening center which which handles the watch list they have criteria and they have not just the list but the terms that they use to add people to the list

your presence on the list isn't even known by the person all of this is happening in secret so they can see what people are doing but the public can't see what it is that they're doing now historically they focused on foreign terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and ISIS groups for which you could at least make an argument that it makes sense to have this kind of an aggressive approach. But in the case of the Trump administration, they are convinced, and Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem said this weekend, she said she thinks that Antifa poses the same kind of threat and is just as, quote, dangerous as those foreign terrorist organizations that I was just describing, despite the fact that it's not even clear it exists as an organized entity. And that's not my judgment. That is

the judgment of Trump's first choice for FBI director, Christopher Ray. whom he appointed in 2017. So they're bringing this huge counterterrorism apparatus, this post-9-11 monolith and dropping the hammer on this group, which isn't clear that it exists. And it is not just Trump. It is his administration officials as well. He has the senior director for counterterrorism,

is Sebastian Gorka, who's also constantly saying things along these lines. You just quoted Stephen Miller. They're not particularly quiet about any of this. I think that part of the reason that it hasn't gotten the attention that it deserves is because it just sounds so crazy that I think people think that either you're being hyperbolic, even though all of this is quoted directly from that memorandum. You know, I'm not editorializing here.

This is all in government records that you can go online and find. I think that is part of the reason that it hasn't got the attention. Another part is so much of it's happening in secret, the watchlisting authority that we described, not being one that goes out and says, hey, here's who we're looking at, but you get clues. FBI director Cash Patel in testimony to Congress several weeks. ago said that there is a 300% increase in domestic terrorism cases. That is a huge increase. And so what it is that constitutes that, we don't know because he hasn't said. Senator

Alyssa Slokkin, she's on the Armed Services Committee in the Senate. She had some good questions about this where she asked the Trump administration nominee for Pentagon Senior Council. she said, hey, this list that you have, not just for foreign terrorist organizations, but domestic groups, too, this is all happening in secret. Are you going to tell us about it? He basically didn't answer. But we are just getting one sign after another that this is happening. It's not just the memorandum. It's not just something Trump said. You mentioned another example of something that's already happened, which is that major law firms, respected law firms in Washington, are instructing their clients to start comporting themselves, to start speaking differently so that you don't run a foul. of this memorandum and have your tax status attacked, have the Treasury Department look at your cash flows. As it's actively doing right now in response to this memorandum, it tells the Treasury Department go and look at organizations that might be supporting groups engaged in that list

of indicators that I described earlier. And as a result of that, these are not just hard left groups. These are, according to these legal advice that I'm describing these organizations giving, to mainstream group, mainstream liberal and democratic organizations tell them, hey, you guys have got to make sure that you don't want to follow this. That's going to have a chilling effect on speech. And that's something that we're already seeing happening. In addition of that, just one day after the memorandum was issued, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a directive creating a anti-ice crimes task force to protect ICE. And throughout that directive, she cites NSPM 7. So those are just two examples of what we have seen already in terms of material effects of this order. The question

is how much farther it's going to go. And to what extent it's going to activate what are called joint terrorism task forces, mostly established after 9-11, exist in all 50 states, represent thousands of federal agents. To what extent is this going to operationalize those folks to go after the indicators that I was describing before? Because unlike the National Guard deployments, the military is constrained by what's called posse comitatis. So they're really limited in terms of what they can do. That's why you see these ridiculous videos of them just wandering around picking up trash because they're really limited what their authority is. But these joint terrorism task forces, they do not have those limitations on them. And they can do and go places that

the military can't. And so I would say that's the next big question is to what extent is this memorandum going to task those joint terrorism task forces with going and doing and investigating the list of indicators I was describing before. You mentioned Senator Slotkin. Her questioning was, as you point out in your article is particularly pertinent because she used to be a CIA analyst. So she knows what counterterrorism initiatives look like with terrorists and the types of things that can be done, I think, including surveillance and, you know, and again, triggering audits of financials and things to that would normally be deployed against cells. So now that whole panoply of power there is now look at these individuals on this list. These people, and again, from all the language we've seen, from Mike Johnson, from Trump, as they talk about the no kings protests, the language that they've been using over and over again

is that this is the pro-Antifa pro-Hamas event. So their view of Antifa is anybody, it seems, who descends from what they're doing, they lump into one of these categories, which they're now, according to, you know, if they're treated, again, it's all, a lot of this is still done in secretive, but if what they're doing is the same as how they've approached al-Qaeda, any American can be on this list and have the same treatment as though they were like an al-Qaeda suspect at this point. That's, it should be the top story right now, you know, out there. I mean, amongst kind of many others. Let me just, let me pivot there, though. You can still comment on that because with a lot of your

reporting in this moment, you know, I'm just curious, one independent reporter to another kind of independent reporter kind of navigating with big stories like this where people may go, hey, Ken, you being hyperbolic, you know, why are you causing all, why are you going there? And it's like, I'm literally just saying what is happening, you know, and I'm sure you have that moment a lot as an independent reporter. Well, Trump says so many crazy things that don't materialize that I'm sympathetic to the view that, oh, you know, you can't just go off of something that Trump is saying. But again, this is not just something that Trump is saying. You mentioned the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who compared the upcoming No King's protests this weekend to, I think he said, pro Hamas and, you know,

terrorist groups. So this is something that is solidly within the mainstream of the political leadership of the party. In addition to that, the second highest-ranking Republican official in the House, Steve Scalise, called it something like the American hating protest. And then third top official in the House also compared it to terrorism. So this is something that's being echoed throughout the administration. When Trump says stuff that is something that you can just chalk up to Trump's flamboyant rhetoric, that is often something that you'll see. He says, and it's not really reiterated by other principal figures within, in the case of national security, within the national security apparatus, you know, his appointees and certainly

Congress, but that's not the case here. They're all talking like that. To give you just one other example, Secretary of Homeland Security, Christy Noem, said recently that they had arrested the girlfriend of the leader of Antifa. And again, the judgment of the intelligence community and Trump's own FBI director as recently as a couple of years ago was that there was no such organized group. It's an idea. It's like saying the internet hacking collective anonymous has a leader. It doesn't work that way, you know.

So there's a lot of, I think there's an abundance of indications here that this is something that the Republican Party in large part is taking seriously. And then when you look at federal law enforcement like Pam Bondi, the attorney general, who's the country's top cop, operationalizing this and creating an ice protection task force. Again, you can go online and see that directive. It's publicly available. And she cites as its inspiration, NSPM 7, as its authority that it's based on as NSPM 7, you see that they are acting on this. This is not just words, and it's not just Trump. I want to tell everybody to go check out, Ken Clippenstein.com. That's your substack.

It's where you publish a lot of this information. And it's not just, on NSPM 7. I mean, you've been getting lots of whistleblower scoops that you've been that you've been breaking. Love to have you back on to discuss those in the future. Ken, thanks for your work. Thanks so much for having me. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our substack at Midasplus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, add free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at Midasplus.com. Thank you.