The Crackdown Begins

Vice President JD Vance hosts an episode of "The Charlie Kirk Show" at the White House

Doug Mills/The New York Times/AP

Today’s notice: Liberal groups, beware. The appropriations process feels stalled. A surprisingly active Iowa Democratic Senate primary. NOTUS investigates confusing travel disclosures at DHS. And: Airlines win in Trump 2.0.

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Government action on political rhetoric was the promise from JD Vance and other top officials in Donald Trump’s administration who stopped by Monday when Vance guest-hosted his late friend Charlie Kirk’s livestream.

“We’re not always going to get it right. We will sometimes move more slowly than you would like. We will sometimes move more slowly than I want us to, but I promise you that we will explore every option to bring real unity to our country and stop those who would kill their fellow Americans because they don’t like what they say,” the vice president said on air, promising a broad crackdown on liberal advocacy groups and media organizations.

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The targets: Vance specifically mentioned groups funded by George Soros and the Ford Foundation as potential targets for government investigation. (“The Ford Foundation has not provided any funding to ‘The Nation’ since 2019,” the group told NOTUS after Vance took issue with one of the magazine’s articles on Kirk.) Top admin officials are working to identify people and organizations to go after, The New York Times reported, with the goal to “categorize left-wing activity that led to violence as domestic terrorism.”