Two of the things that stuck out the most to me in this interview were

•The point made by the interviewer (Robinson) regarding the history of and potential for Feds to actually target and encourage and provoke individuals to carry out acts of violence or crimes in order to show they stopped a crime or an act of terrorism:

It is no conspiracy or exaggeration to point out that the history of the FBI shows that in the ’60s and ’70s and after 9/11, there were active efforts not just to investigate but to plant moles in left-wing and activist organizations to try and foment discord or provoke people into committing something that could be a crime. One of the things that was so scandalous after 9/11 was the FBI finding hapless, mentally ill Muslim men and trying to convince them to plan a terror attack so they could show that they’d stop the potential terror attack. That’s happened. And if they take this directive seriously, it directs them to do more of this. As you say, the list here is really remarkable. In groups like the DSA, people might think, “Obviously we’re completely nonviolent, so we don’t have anything to fear.” But it says “groups that foment political violence before they result in violent political acts.” And then, as you say, the list is anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, support for the overthrow of the U.S. government, extremism on migration (anyone who supports more liberal immigration policies), extremism on race (anyone who says racism exists), extremism on gender (anyone who’s pro-transgender), and hostility towards, as you said, traditional American views of family, religion, or morality. It’s really so broad that it captures basically everyone to the left of MAGA. And depending on how seriously this order is taken, it includes not just investigations but efforts to “disrupt” the political activities of basically anyone who isn’t MAGA.

•And this point Klippenstein makes about JTTFs:

One last thing I want to say here: these Joint Terrorism Task Forces that are responsible for carrying a lot of the stuff out on the ground, he doesn’t have to build that logistical infrastructure that I was describing before. The JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force), since 9/11, exists in every state. And what’s interesting about them is, unlike the National Guard, they are not restricted by posse comitatus. When you see the National Guard, as you said earlier, people often might not know what is just Trump talk. I think with a lot of the National Guard stuff, I’ve characterized that as theater, something that should certainly be opposed and that is corrosive to the democratic culture, no question. But the reason they’re wandering around picking up trash is because they literally don’t have the legal authority to go and do something, so they’re really restricted in that way.

But what’s sort of ingenious about what this memorandum does is these Joint Terrorism Task Forces, just like the Guard, exist in every state; they can be tapped and tasked at any moment. But they don’t have posse comitatus because they’re law enforcement. So this is a really useful arrow in Trump’s quiver that we have yet to see how it’s going to be applied.