The Trump administration has repeatedly sought to justify its most aggressive and least popular actions under nebulous pretenses of defending national security. It’s a familiar argument in American politics and one that has often accompanied similarly questionable expansions of federal authority, surveillance and secrecy.
And yet, as officials publicly insist their policies are necessary to defend the homeland, the Trump administration has quietly undermined a host of federal programs and resources meant to prevent and address domestic terrorism — something law enforcement officials have repeatedly identified as an urgent threat to public safety. It’s unclear what, if any, plans the administration has to address the vulnerabilities it’s creating.
The Trump administration has repeatedly sought to justify its most aggressive and least popular actions under nebulous pretenses of defending national security.
Reporting published by ProPublica this month revealed that federal funding for violence prevention programs had been cut or frozen by the secretive White House initiative known as the Department of Government Efficiency. Without consulting officials or providing much notice, DOGE decided that federal grants for initiatives that strengthen security at Jewish institutions and stage interventions with people who display violent desires were worthy of its “wood chipper for bureaucracy.”
Current and former officials at the Department of Homeland Security, which has a dedicated program that awards federal grants to prevention programs, told ProPublica that DOGE’s cuts likely signaled the end of the government’s “prevention mission.” (The U.S. government awarded and subsequently terminated federal grants to the nonprofit research organization I work for, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. My work didn’t contribute to those projects, and my employer had no input on this article.)
While many civil rights advocates have opposed federally sponsored prevention programming for valid reasons, it’d be a grave mistake to assume the Trump administration has moved to curtail those efforts with pure intentions. In fact, the White House has sought to repurpose many of the same systems and programs for its own alarming agenda items, like conducting mass deportations, punishing college students who protest the Israel-Hamas war and retaliating against Trump’s political opponents.
The priority shifts are obvious at the FBI, where Trump administration officials have scaled back resources for investigating domestic terrorism and reassigned staff members working terrorism cases to the administration’s mass deportation mission. And after Trump issued sweeping pardons and commutations for participants in the 2021 Capitol riot, including for extremist group leaders and people who were violent toward police officers, the FBI has reportedly moved to purge agents who worked on those cases.
For all the flaws and risks inherent in federal programs to combat domestic terrorism, there are also some signs that the government’s renewed focus and resourcing on the issue may have helped save lives.
When reviewing public records for information about extremism-driven attacks in the United States last year, I was surprised that most relevant cases I found were reported arrests of people whom police accused of plotting violent attacks against government facilities, critical infrastructure, religious institutions, places of education and other sensitive targets. From my count, federal law enforcement reported it foiled more extremist attacks than were successfully carried out.
While efforts to combat domestic terrorism desperately need reforms and oversight, abandoning the issue altogether would defy the consensus of national security assessments and compromise the safety of vulnerable communities. But if spending cuts and staffing shifts are indicative of the Trump administration’s priorities on this issue, that might be exactly what it intends to do.
Top administration appointees have dissuaded any notion that the Trump administration’s national security concerns include domestic terrorism.
The Trump administration has mostly been silent about what plans, if any, it has to address domestic terrorism that don’t hinge on mass deportations of foreign nationals. With the exception of vandalism and attacks targeting Tesla, an electric vehicle manufacturer run by far-right billionaire and DOGE leader Elon Musk, the Trump administration has failed to even acknowledge the threat of domestic terrorism, even as it borrows its vernacular and legal mechanisms to scapegoat and pursue its political enemies.
Top administration appointees and hires have further dissuaded any notion that the Trump administration’s national security concerns include domestic terrorism.
Trump placed the FBI in the hands of Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, who have both promoted far-right and anti-government conspiracy theories. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has signaled intentions to shutter programs to root out extremism in the military and trafficked in anti-government theories of his own. Hegseth’s deputy press secretary, Kingsley Wilson, has shared obscure antisemitic conspiracy theories online. The State Department appointed Darren Beattie, who promoted racist extremist views on a junk news website he operated, to a role that deals with issues including counterterrorism and violent extremism. The Justice Department tasked civil rights attorney Leo Terrell, who recently shared an X post from a longtime white nationalist activist, with leading its task force to address antisemitism.
Americans should be skeptical of the Trump administration’s reliance on national security arguments to assert and expand its power, especially as it dissolves programs and directives that contribute to public safety in ways that its other “national security” directives, like erasing women, people of color and LGBTQ+ communities from government websites, plainly do not.
The Trump administration’s tough talk on terrorism is a Trojan horse for authoritarian power grabs and retaliatory misuses of power. If enough people take the bait, the administration will hide behind national security’s inherent political conveniences: secrecy, impunity and irreverence for civil liberties.