Trump’s “rolling coup” claim echoes through federal power moves

NPSM-7 rolling – A warning memo and a new op-ed argue that a series of U.S. government actions—starting with a September 25, 2025 national security directive, expanding through a Joint Mission Center, and followed by court-shielded targeting authorities and planned domestic de

On September 25. 2025. President Donald Trump signed a National Presidential Security Memorandum. NPSM-7. titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” The memo’s language. according to the warning. designates as targets of federal counterterrorism authorities Americans whose sponsors are labeled “anti-American. ” “anti-capitalist. ” “anti-Christian. ” or “hostile to traditional American views on family. religion and morality.” The warning says no statute authorizes the federal government to treat protected political speech as terrorism—while NPSM-7 does it anyway.

Just five days later. on September 30. 2025. Trump stood before nearly 800 senior military commanders at Marine Base Quantico and told them the United States was “under invasion from within.” The warning quotes his description of the enemy as domestic—saying. “the enemy is not in Beijing or Moscow. The enemy is domestic”—and adds that he told cities they should serve as “training grounds” for troops to target domestic “enemies.”.

Taken one action at a time, each move can sound like it fits a familiar national-security frame. But the warning memo argues the sequence is precisely how a different kind of takeover can be assembled: step by step. each component paired with denials and legality-shaped language. until the full mechanism is too entrenched to reverse.

NPSM-7. the piece says. is a sweeping federal directive that orders agencies to “aggressively investigate and disrupt” groups or financial networks associated with political violence and domestic terrorism. It tasked the FBI. the IRS. and the Treasury Department with tracking funding sources and supporters of organizations suspected of directly or indirectly facilitating political unrest. without any reference to the First Amendment.

Soon thereafter. the FBI organized a Joint Mission Center that. the warning says. drew hundreds of personnel from 10 federal agencies to identify and prosecute the targets of NPSM-7. It cites testimony from the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, that domestic terrorism investigations increased by 300 percent. It also says former Attorney General Pam Bondi testified that thousands of U.S. citizens and nongovernmental organizations are now on a secret watch list tied to the Joint Mission Center.

While the warning describes the domestic enforcement machinery building outward. it also points to simultaneous pressure aimed at officials from prior administrations. It says the Justice Department has opened grand-jury investigations and indictments aimed at officials of previous administrations. including former CIA director John Brennan and former FBI director James Comey.

It then ties rhetoric to enforcement posture. The piece says Trump’s deputy chief of staff. Stephen Miller. has publicly described political opposition as a “fifth column. ” and that Trump amplified this line by posting on Truth Social: “Arrest them all. Prosecute them all. Incarcerate them all……… But first, Barack Obama.”.

The warning says the campaign did not stop with a single strategy. On May 6. 2026. it says the administration’s senior director for counterterrorism. Sebastian Gorka. released a new National Counterterrorism Strategy naming “violent left-wing extremists. ” “anti-fascists. ” and certain religious minorities as principal threats to the United States. It adds that Bondi provided a Department of Justice operational order including a five-year plan for retroactive mining of data files and plea interrogations. along with a requirement that financial donors be named.

At the center of the warning’s case is the Joint Mission Center and what it cost. It says the Joint Mission Center uses its $12.5 billion budget to do the targeting. It also says Trump v. The United States provides absolute immunity for official acts; and it claims the president’s lead lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel have preauthorized the use of domestic force. It further argues that a parallel enforcement expansion is under way through detention capacity: the administration has appropriated $45 billion for construction of new ICE detention facilities—described as a 265 percent increase over previous years and more than four times the entire budget of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The warning says Tom Homan. the president’s “border czar. ” has overseen the proposal for the acquisition of over 100. 000 detention beds above the current capacity of 70. 000. and it says there are contracts for permanent mega-centers whose scale far exceeds anything an immigration processing operation would require. It asserts that these are “undoubtedly prisons for political prisoners. ” even though it says 1974 federal law prohibits the detention of U.S. citizens without an act of Congress.

Outside the continental U.S., the warning points to lethal counterterrorism practices as precedent for what could follow domestically. It says that in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, U.S. forces have killed more than 200 people across nearly 60 strikes on small boats designated as “narcoterrorists” without indictment. trial. or judicial review. It says the commander of U.S. Northern Command has publicly said he would “definitely” execute lawful orders to apply this same authority on American soil.

Back in Washington, the warning says the White House declined to rule out using lethal force against U.S. citizens designated as members of domestic terrorist organizations. It adds that Trump fired most of the Department of Defense officials responsible for overseeing the legality of military operations. It also says he is seeking yet more funding for what it describes as his private army of ICE and Border Patrol agents to be deployed in numerous target states. at airports. and at urban polling places in states he lost in the 2024 election. where it says he has begun to seize voter rolls and ballots.

As the warning puts it. “political prisons. a domestic army. control of the military’s legal apparatus. the seizure of voter rolls. and much more” presage the potential declaration of a national crisis and the implementation of various President’s Emergency Action Documents. or PEADS. It frames the danger as not a sudden coup with tanks in the streets. but “the methodical construction of an apparatus designed to identify. arrest. prosecute. and if necessary forcibly suppress Americans” whose only offense is opposition to the administration. by an executive who. it says. has openly declared that opposition itself is the enemy.

The author argues that many Americans are not seeing it because the changes have come incrementally and have been wrapped in legitimate-sounding language of national security or law enforcement—each paired with reassurance: “We are not deploying the military domestically; we are not declaring an emergency over elections; we are not coming for citizens.” It says Congress has been “paralyzed and outnumbered” and has not mounted a serious institutional response. adding that some press has reported stories about individual pieces but not “the whole dangerous picture.”.

The memo also stresses timing as part of the threat: “The first job of any coup is to make the recognition of it seem premature.” It argues that by the time recognition no longer seems premature, “the moment to resist has already passed.”

The warning’s prescriptions are directed at Congress, governors, state attorneys general, and newsrooms. It says Congress must reassert its Article I authority over emergency powers, military deployment on U.S. soil, and the Office of Legal Council’s power to rewrite statute by memo. It urges governors and state attorneys general to adopt protective measures that civil liberties lawyers have already drafted to shield citizens. nonprofits. and election workers from NPSM-7. It calls on newsrooms to report the “rolling-coup architecture” as a single big-picture story, rather than isolated parts.

The piece ends with a blunt warning about the consequences of delay. It says that unless action begins “with resolve. fortitude. and clear-eyed commitment to our democracy. ” a future election will be lost and “our democracy will likely be destroyed” by a presidential declaration of a national emergency and the subsequent implementation of emergency measures found in PEADS—described as not authorized by law and drafted and implemented without congressional oversight.

It traces the warning’s urgency to a shared oath. The authors say they took the same oath of office as every member of the military and every federal officer to “defend the Constitution against all enemies. foreign and domestic. ” and it argues that the obligation “does not end when one leaves office.” It concludes that an “awake America” can stop what “a drowsy one will not. ” but that time is short and the challenge is urgent.

Richard Gephardt and Timothy Wirth, cofounders of Keep Our Republic, are identified as authors of the warning.

United States politics Donald Trump NPSM-7 domestic terrorism Joint Mission Center FBI IRS Treasury Kash Patel Pam Bondi Stephen Miller Sebastian Gorka Office of Legal Counsel PEADS ICE detention facilities Tom Homan voter rolls emergency powers Article I