The House Democrats’ bill on domestic terrorism is aimed at conservatives, warns former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii.
Introduced by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021 would undermine constitutional rights of “almost half of the country,” she said in an interview Friday with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade.
“We don’t have to guess about where this goes or how this ends,” the lawmaker said.
Gabbard, who distinguished herself in the 2020 primary by criticizing some of the far-left views of her opponents, noted the remarks last week of former CIA Director Brennan in an MSNBC interview.
Brennan said the Biden team was “moving in laser-light fashion” to uncover “insurgency” movements that are part of an “unholy alliance” of “religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians.”
He said “law enforcement, homeland security, intelligence and even the defense officials are doing everything possible to root out what seems to be a very, very serious and insidious threat to our democracy and our republic.”
Gabbard told Fox News that the problem will come into focus as the Biden administration builds its profile of a potential extremist.
“What are we talking about? Religious extremists, are we talking about Christians, evangelical Christians?” she asked. “What is a religious extremist? Is it somebody who is pro-life? I mean, where do you take this?”
Gabbard continued: “You start looking at, OK, well, obviously you have to be a white person, obviously likely male. Libertarians. Well, anybody who loves freedom, liberty, maybe has an American flag their house or people who, you know, attended a Trump rally.”
She said that “once you start walking this down the path, you see where it leads to a very dangerous undermining of our civil liberties, our freedoms in our Constitution, and a targeting of almost half of the country.”
Kilmeade asked Gabbard if she thought the Democrats’ talk about “deprogramming” Trump supporters relates to the domestic terrorism effort.
“I think it does, very directly,” the congresswoman replied.
“This whole effort, whether you’re talking about this bill or people saying that we have to deprogram these Trump cultists and people who voted for Trump because they’ve been radicalized, all of this just goes to further tear our country apart,” Gabbard warned.
“And it moves towards the thing Joe Biden said in his inauguration speech that shouldn’t happen, which is a dehumanization of your opponent.”
Gabbard said President Biden must “denounce people like John Brennan and their statements, bills like the one Adam Schiff put forward, and truly speak to the American people about how we must come together.”
Biden on Friday ordered the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to conduct a “comprehensive threat assessment” on “domestic violent extremism” along with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
While Biden has not specified the targets of his “domestic violent extremism” thrust, he touched on the issue in his inaugural address Wednesday, speaking of “a rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat.”
See the interview:
‘Deprogramming’ for every Trump voter
In November, a member of the Democratic National Committee, David Atkins, said on Twitter that “deprogramming” is needed for every one of the Americans who voted for Trump on Nov. 3.
“No seriously … how *do* you deprogram 75 million people? Where do you start? Fox? Facebook?” he wrote on Twitter.
“We have to start thinking in terms of post-WWII Germany or Japan. Or the failures of Reconstruction in the South.”
WND reported that after casting Trump and his supporters as “white supremacists” and “conspiracy theorists” for the past four years, the most prominent member of the far-left “squad,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said Friday it’s time to pour more money into efforts to “deradicalize” and “deprogram” that population.
One year ago, a campaign organizer for then-Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said the country would need to “spend billions” on “reeducation” of Trump supporters who have become “Nazified.”
See an excerpt of the MSNBC interview with John Brennan:
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