Trump Treasury Secretary Says Far-Left Organizations Being Treated Like Terror Suspects ‘After 9/11’
Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent joined the Charlie Kirk podcast this week and claimed that the U.S. government is now treating far-left protestors and extremists the same as it did terror suspects after the 9/11 attacks — which he compared to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Bessent made clear that protestors have a right to free speech, but then added that the government has begun to “compile lists” of left-wing groups that they believe to be violent.
Andrew Kolvet, Kirk’s longtime producer of his show, hosted the conversation and began by saying, “I want to play a clip here that’s really important, because you’re working on a very important piece of this, and I wish we had more time for this, so let’s just get right into it.”
Kolvet then played a clip of top Trump aide Stephen Miller on Fox News saying, “Let me tell you something. I’ve not shared with anybody, but the last message that Charlie Kirk gave to me before he joined his creator in heaven was he said that we have to dismantle and take on the radical left organizations in this country that are fomenting violence. That was the last message that he sent me before that assassin stole him from all of us.”
“So that is a powerful clip. Stephen Miller said something similar when JD hosted the show on the Monday after he was assassinated. And Treasury, I come to find out, coming to DC, that Treasury has taken an active role in an aspect of this—dismantling of the financial networks that are supporting some of these radical left violent groups. Share what you can. I know it’s an ongoing process,” Kolvet asked Bessent.
“So it’s an ongoing process, and I will tell you that after 9/11, Treasury became the driving force behind tracking down the networks of terrorist organizations—how they were financed, how could this have happened on US soil with these international terrorist organizations? Where did the money come from? Who were the ultimate funders? And that was on the international side,” Bessent replied, adding:
And Andrew, I will tell you that Charlie’s death is like a domestic 9/11 that has alerted us to what Charlie knew—that these organizations are working within our borders. And we believe people have a right to free speech, they have a right to organize, they have a right to protest, but they have to do it peacefully. They cannot embrace violence, and we have seen it.
We’ve seen it since the terrible day two years ago—the anti-Semitism and the bias that came out after October 7th, 2023. And many of these organizations have been financed by nonprofits, and it’s going to stop. And we are going to, as they always say, follow the money when you see these groups where all the signs match.
They have hundreds of the same umbrellas that they’re using. After they cause the mayhem, they have the same lasers that they’re using to blind our police force. How are they constructed? Because this takes a lot of money, it takes a lot of organization, and we are going to do that.
We have started to compile lists, put together networks, and there’s a long record here. And we don’t know how much of the support’s coming in from overseas. We don’t know how much is being supported by U.S. nonprofits—C3s that give money to C4s—but this is mission-critical for us now.
Just as after 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, the ultimate culprit was captured, we are operationalizing this here at Treasury, and we are going to track down who is responsible for this.
So Charlie’s death has set this off, and we are determined—we’re determined not only to honor him but to keep our country safe and to ensure freedom of speech on both sides. We can’t, as conservatives, be afraid to go out and speak. You know, I know people are canceling speeches, having to bring down the size of the rallies. President Trump was millimeters away from death, and he was not deterred, and we’re not going to be deterred.
Watch the clip above.
