Newsletter: August 2026

Breaking Down Trump’s Blueprint Against Dissent

Defending Rights & Dissent is leading the charge against Trump’s crackdown on dissent, political advocacy, and free expression. Ever since Trump issued National Security Presidential Memo 7, his plan to further weaponize the FBI and the full counterterrorism apparatus in his campaign to crush left-wing activism across the country, we’ve been providing legal analysis, historical background, and in-depth coverage of how the plan is being implemented and how we can fight back.

Last week, Defending Rights & Dissent Policy Director Chip Gibbons joined a panel discussion hosted by Freedom of the Press Foundation on NSPM-7, with a particular focus on the threat the memo poses to the freedom of the press. The panel, which also featured the Brennan Center’s Faiza Patel and independent journalist Daniel Boguslaw, broke down the way the memo targets “anti-American”, “anti-capitalist”, and “gender extremist” viewpoints to paint left-wing activists as domestic terrorists, and how its intentionally broad and vague language can be used to target reporters covering these movements as well.

Watch the full discussion here 

The New McCarthyism: House Subpoenas & Cuba Report

In July, the Trump administration ratcheted up its McCarthyite attacks to a new level, and we responded in kind. In the span of one week, Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller hosted a summit on “left-wing political violence” with representatives from more than 60 countries, and the State Department issued a 100-page ‘Cuba Report,’ explicitly smearing several left-leaning activists and organizations, including the Democratic Socialists of America, National Lawyers Guild, and journalist Amy Goodman, among others. The next day, the House Ways & Means Committee subpoenaed independent news outlets and activist groups, clearly attempting to intimidate dissidents.

Defending Rights & Dissent fought back hard against Trump’s war on the left, producing legal analysis, in-depth coverage, and historical context for this government-wide crackdown on freedom of expression. 

We responded to the Cuba report by issuing a statement calling on Congress to “not only condemn the report but hold hearings examining its authorship and to determine if the claims behind it have been used to facilitate the surveillance of American activists.” 

We condemned the Ways & Means subpoenas in a press release, “This is clearly not a valid legislative inquiry at all, but an attempt to intimidate and chill dissenting opinions.”

We published an in-depth article in Truthout explaining how these developments build on NSPM-7 and Trump’s ‘antifa’ executive order to form a full-scale escalation in the U.S. government’s long-standing war on the left.

Mobilizing in Defense of Our Rights

Defending Rights & Dissent is mobilizing thousands of you to take action in defense of our Constitutional rights. 

Last month, we organized a mass email campaign against the confirmation of former U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for Director of National Intelligence. The Senate confirmed Clayton for DNI despite serious civil liberties concerns: as lead prosecutor for SDNY, Clayton subpoenaed New York Times journalists for reporting in the public interest. Then during his confirmation hearing, Clayton refused to acknowledge the results of the 2020 presidential election, and he declined to support a warrant requirement for surveillance of Americans under FISA section 702 – making the need to reform 702 to enforce a warrant requirement all the more urgent.

Defending Rights & Dissent also organized thousands to write to their members of Congress to reject the expansion of U.S.-Israeli military cooperation. Congress passed this year’s National Defense Authorization Act which included a provision which calls for the U.S. and Israel to co-produce weapons, coordinate AI tech for war, and meld together the U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex.