"WE’RE OUT OF TIME!" — What I Didn’t Get to Say About Trump’s Attacks on the Southern Poverty Law Center
A manufactured case and the playbook behind it.
I was on NewsNation last night, and I was brought on to talk about a few different things—including the U.S. Special Forces officer arrested for insider trading, Donald Trump declassifying marijuana, and the DOJ’s embarrassing indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
I got a chance to share my views on the first two, but when it came to the third, we ran out of time—and that didn’t sit right with me. The person I was debating—someone I genuinely respect—Batya Ungar-Sargon, one of the other NewsNation hosts, got to make the case for why what Trump and the DOJ are doing to the Southern Poverty Law Center is justified. I could not disagree more, and I didn’t get the chance to say it.
So I got fired up after the show. And I’m getting it off my chest now.
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Because I am pissed to high hell about what is happening here—about the abuse of power from Trump’s DOJ, from the FBI leadership under Kash Patel, from Todd Blanche, and all these clowns targeting the Southern Poverty Law Center.
For decades, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been one of the most important organizations in this country when it comes to tracking and exposing hate groups. One of the ways they’ve done that is by running programs that place informants inside extremist organizations—people who report back on what’s actually happening. Historically, that information has been shared with law enforcement, including the FBI—until Kash Patel cut that relationship off.
Now suddenly, Trump, the DOJ, and the MAGA ecosystem want you to believe that the Southern Poverty Law Center is funding hate groups. That’s the argument. That’s the indictment. It’s complete bullshit.
And now you’ve got conservative influencers like Matt Walsh—someone widely known for pushing dangerous rhetoric—trying to spin this into a narrative that without the SPLC, there wouldn’t even be hate groups in the MAGA movement. That is not just wrong; it’s absurd. Even worse, people are out here claiming—and Batya Ungar-Sargon echoed this last night—that the SPLC somehow organized the Charlottesville rally. That they were behind the tiki torches, the neo-Nazis, the chants.
Think about how insane that is. That would mean they were funding people like Nick Fuentes to go out there, be openly racist, embarrass the country, and terrorize communities. That is not reality. That is propaganda.
If I had gotten the chance to respond last night, I would’ve said this directly: be careful defending this, because it is going to collapse under scrutiny. This indictment is weak. A grand jury has only heard a narrow, one-sided version of events—and a heavily manipulated one at that. There is no credible evidence of wire fraud, bank fraud, or material misrepresentation. None. And when this actually gets in front of a judge or a jury, it’s going to get laughed out of the courtroom.
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Career prosecutors—people who actually understand white-collar cases—are already saying this is ridiculous. On top of that, there’s evidence that the indictment itself selectively edits and misrepresents what the SPLC told its donors, cutting out key language to make their case stronger. In other words, they’re misleading the grand jury. Again.
Because at its core, this isn’t about justice. It’s about using the legal system as a weapon while saturating the public with just enough noise to make the truth harder to track. It’s about politics, and it’s about weakness. Trump’s approval ratings are in the low 30s, the midterms are coming, and his base is frustrated—about the economy, about foreign policy, about everything. So what does he do? He throws red meat. He manufactures a conspiracy, weaponizes the DOJ, and gives the MAGA media machine something to scream about, monetize, and keep the outrage cycle going.
And eventually, like always, it falls apart.
We’ve seen this before—with James Comey, Tish James, Don Lemon, and members of Congress. It’s the same playbook: make a wild accusation, blast it everywhere, get a chunk of the country to believe it, and then watch it crumble when actual evidence is required. And when it does, they claim the system is rigged. Rinse, repeat.
It is so blatantly obvious what’s happening here that I honestly can’t believe it’s even being entertained. It’s just one outrageous claim after another—flood the zone, bury the last scandal with the next one, and hope nobody has the bandwidth to call it out.
But here’s the part that matters most: even when these cases fail, they still do damage. Because the goal isn’t just to win in court—it’s to disrupt, to drain resources, to expose informants, and to intimidate anyone who pushes back. They want people to be afraid. They want journalists to hesitate, organizations to stay quiet, and critics to wonder if they’re next.
And at the same time, they’re weakening the very institutions that are supposed to protect us—like the FBI. That part hits me personally. My father spent 34 years in the FBI, and I’ve seen firsthand the kind of work they’re capable of. Are they perfect? No. But they do more to keep this country safe than almost any other federal agency, in my opinion. Watching it get hollowed out and turned into a political tool is infuriating.
Because what’s really happening here is bigger than one indictment. It’s an attempt to reshape the system by silencing the people and institutions that challenge power. It’s about silencing opposition. When they go after the SPLC, when they target journalists, when they try to dismantle Democratic infrastructure like ActBlue, they are trying to break the ecosystem that challenges them. They want fewer watchdogs, fewer critics, and less accountability.
And we cannot let that happen.
We have to keep calling this out—loudly. And Republicans should think very carefully about the precedent they’re setting, because it cuts both ways. You really think there isn’t going to be scrutiny on MAGA influencers taking money from foreign entities to pollute our politics? Because there should be. There should be investigations into corruption, financial misconduct, abuse of power—all of it.
They’re acting like they’ll never lose power again, and they’re wrong. The midterms are coming, and no amount of bullshit, manipulation, or fuckery is going to stop what’s building in this country. People are paying attention. And if we keep doing the work—if we keep speaking up, organizing, and having the tough conversations—we will win.
We will not let them take over this country. We will not let hate run unchecked. We will not be silenced.
We will not allow it.
Thank you for your coverage of this issue and support for the
SPLC!! How desperate and absurd are those who try to pull off this type of persecution! Hopefully "Truth, Justice and the {true} American Way" will prevail soon!!??
The decision to sue the SPLC looks like a striking example of selective prosecution. It feels like this administration is willing to stretch the law in any direction if it helps chill First Amendment rights. I haven’t read the full complaint yet, but it’s hard to imagine how protecting people from the actions of hate groups became something worth federal scrutiny.
In my view, the people who donate to the SPLC know exactly how their contributions are being used, and they support that work because they believe it serves the public good. Groups like the Ku Klux Klan didn’t hide their intentions behind white hoods, and the idea of government agents operating with masks and secrecy raises its own set of concerns about accountability.
After decades of tracking extremist groups and advocating for civil rights, seeing the SPLC suddenly cast as a defendant is a stunning reversal that says a lot about where the legal landscape is shifting.