Eliyahu Gasson | editor-in-chief

President Donald Trump has escalated attacks on his political opponents since the death of Charlie Kirk last month, experts say.

On Sept. 25, the president signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-7) titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.”

The memorandum instructs partnerships between the federal and local law enforcement agencies — called Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) — to “investigate, prosecute and disrupt entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation designed to suppress lawful political activity or obstruct the rule of law.”

In the memorandum, Trump defines a set of “recurrent motivations and indicia” for organizations that he considers worth investigation, emphasizing organizations that might fall “under the umbrella of self-described ‘anti-fascism.’”

“Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion and morality.”

NSPM-7 twice mentions Charlie Kirk, the right-wing influencer and co-founder of Turning Point USA who was killed at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, noting that the bullets found at the crime scene were engraved with “so-called ‘anti-fascits’ rhetoric.”

Following Kirk’s death, a number of people began decrying those who celebrated the shooting, including Vice President JD Vance, who appeared as a guest host on Kirk’s show the Monday after his death.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who appeared as a guest on the episode, said the administration would “uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks.”

Vance also posited that people affiliated with the left “are much likelier to defend and celebrate political violence.”

According to data compiled by the bipartisan nonprofit Center for Strategic and International Studies, left-wing political violence has been on the rise over the last two years, though right-wingers have committed the majority of politically motivated attacks between 1995 and 2024.

But the Trump administration has been putting more focus on violence committed against right-wing figures or perpetrated by left-wing individuals, Pittsburgh-based lawyer Jon Pushinsky noted. He cited a recent fire that destroyed the home of liberal South Carolina Circuit Court Judge Diane Goodstein, who had received death threats after issuing a temporary injunction that blocked the release of South Carolina’s voting files to the Department of Justice, an incident that Trump has not yet commented on.

“I haven’t heard Trump say that those groups and people who express advocacy for violence against those who oppose him should be prosecuted or investigated,” he said. “So it seems as if this is targeted toward one side only.”

Bruce Ledewitz, professor emeritus at the Thomas Kline School of Law at Duquesne, said NSPM-7 is demonstrating just how important freedom of speech and association are under the First Amendment, though some of the memorandum seems like political theater.

“Some of it violates First Amendment speech directly,” he said. “So much of it is political performance, you can’t guarantee it’ll all be enforced.”

Ledewitz also explained that celebrating political violence is protected under the First Amendment, though incitement and the act of violence are not.

“I can go out on the porch and say ‘I’m happy Charlie Kirk was shot,’” he said. “Advocating violence right there right now is illegal.”

Pushinsky compared the NSPM-7 to McCarthyism in the 1950s, named for former U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, who led hearings on people alleged to be associated or perceived to be in the Communist Party or communist ideas. He added that one of Trump’s early mentors, Roy Cohn, was involved in the hearings as McCarthy’s chief counsel.

“I think a lot of Trump’s strategies and the way he comes across and tries to bully people were things he learned or honed under the tutelage of Roy Cohn,” he said.

Pushinsky said he believes the NSPM-7 is designed to “discourage people from speaking out against the administration or taking actions contrary to the goals of the administration,” citing a second example where, in 1798, former President John Adams signed “The Alien and Sedition Act,” which made it illegal to publish “false, scandalous and malicious writing” against the U.S. government.

“[Trump] probably means it as a chilling effect,” Ledewitz said. “I don’t think people will be chilled.”

In a news release issued the same day the memorandum was signed, the ACLU’s National Security Project director, Hina Shamsi accused Trump of “invoking political violence … as an excuse to target nonprofits and activists with the false and stigmatizing label of ‘domestic terrorism.’”

“In an earlier era, civil rights movement leaders were also labeled security threats and investigated, monitored and even arrested,” she wrote. “True strength in this country comes not from political leaders engaged in fear mongering and political vendettas, but from vibrant civil society, activists and communities steadfastly pursuing the goals of equality, fairness, and democracy for all.”

Eliyahu Gasson can be reached at gassone@duq.edu