The exchange didn’t generate a lot of attention, but Donald Trump held a brief Q&A with reporters last week aboard Air Force One, and one journalist reminded the president, “There’s been some criticism that the Alien Enemies Act has only been invoked three other times; they were all during times of war.” The Republican quickly replied, “Well, this is a time of war.”
That might’ve come as a surprise to many Americans, because, in reality, the United States is not currently engaged in any wars.
The fact that Trump claimed otherwise dovetailed nicely with a New York Times op-ed from Georgetown University law professor David Cole, who explained that while the White House’s recent violations of civil liberties are “profoundly disturbing,” they’re not unprecedented. Cole explained, however, what’s different about 2025: “Virtually every time previous presidents took such extreme steps, they acted in response to at least a plausible threat to national security. This time, Mr. Trump has invoked emergency powers in the absence of any even plausible emergency.”
It helps explain why the president said that United States is now in “a time of war”: He needs it to be in order to justify his efforts to curtail civil liberties.
To that end, White House national security adviser Mike Waltz told Fox News last week that Venezuelan gang members are “no different than ISIS.” He added, “This is about a wholesale shift on what a terrorist is and how they should be treated in the United States, how they should be treated when they are attacking our soil.”
As MSNBC’s Chris Hayes recently summarized, “They’re taking all the Bush-Cheney war on terror arguments and applying them to the basic nuts and bolts of immigration policy and enforcement.”
In case this weren’t quite enough, this “wholesale shift” in how the White House is expanding the definition of “terrorist” also apparently includes those who commit acts of vandalism at Tesla dealerships. “I view these as terrorists,” Trump told reporters on Friday.
Two days later, Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared on Fox News — again — and claimed that some had thrown Molotov cocktails at Tesla dealerships, which she believes “could be a weapon of mass destruction.”
Bondi claims people are using "weapons of mass destruction" against Teslas 🙃
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-03-23T14:14:26.222Z
Traditionally, officials have reserved the “WMD” label for nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. Team Trump, however, appears to be engaged in “a wholesale shift” on what a weapon of mass destruction is, too.
If you’re thinking this is going to get worse before it gets better, you’re not alone.
