Today, Donald Trump took our nation one step closer to outright tyranny.

In a rant to more than 800 of America’s top military leaders — who had been summoned from all over the world to a military base in Virginia by Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News “personality” who Trump installed as defense secretary — the commander in chief said this:

“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”

Just to be clear, Trump is talking about American cities. In flagrant violation of the Constitution, Trump has already deployed, or threatened to deploy, troops in several cities. Now the president is telling top military brass to treat the millions upon millions of Americans who live in our country’s great cities as little more than practice dummies for warfare.

Public Citizen is doing everything we can to confront the Trump regime. That includes our legal work to keep the administration in check (18 lawsuits so far) and all the other ways we are fighting Trumpism — both on our own and as a leader of massive nationwide coalitions — like helping to organize the ongoing “Hands Off!” and “No Kings!” rallies all across the country.

And right now we are just hours from a critical deadline at midnight tonight.

Please see our earlier message — copied below in case you missed it — for more about why this moment is so important.

Thank you,

- Lisa & Robert

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We need to talk about something that should be getting far more attention than it is.

Last Thursday, Donald Trump issued a presidential memorandum ordering a crackdown on the perpetrators of an “assault against democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental civil liberties.” While it sure sounds like Trump must be referring to his own regime, what he meant, in essence, is anyone and anything to the left of Joseph McCarthy.

According to Trump’s memo, people or organizations could be investigated and prosecuted as domestic terrorists if they oppose the regime’s ideas about things like “family,” “morality,” “race,” “gender,” “migration,” “Christianity,” and “capitalism.” The memo imagines such people and organizations to be part of a vast network trying to “foment political violence” and “disrupt the functioning of a democratic society.” Absurdly — just to highlight one example — the memo deems trespassing a “politically motivated terrorist” act.

To put it bluntly, Trump — in a feverishly mangled, recklessly incendiary, and grossly inaccurate way — is putting groups like Public Citizen that stand up to his regime on notice.

As we noted in an emergency statement to the national media: “This is dangerous and profoundly un-American. Civil society organizations will band together and not permit the administration to pick off individual groups.”

Later that same day, former FBI director James Comey was indicted. The regime’s case against Comey is so flimsy that multiple Justice Department lawyers have resigned rather than be part of it and even Bill Barr, who served as attorney general for much of Trump’s first term, pointedly rejected it.

Using the power of the federal government to muzzle free speech. To shut down late-night comedians. To threaten nonprofit organizations and their members. To prosecute perceived political enemies.

Make no mistake, this is authoritarianism. In fact, the memo and the indictment came just hours after an Oval Office meeting between Trump and President Erdogan of Turkey, a man widely recognized as a model for Trump’s own dictatorial ambitions.

As it happens, Public Citizen is facing a critical fundraising deadline even as Trump launches this attack on nonprofit organizations like us.

Why is this moment so critical?

Because Public Citizen’s fiscal year ends at midnight this coming Tuesday, September 30. Now, we recognize that the phrase “fiscal year ends at midnight” is no “Ask not what your country can do for you ...” This is an absolutely pivotal moment nonetheless.

Like many nonprofits, Public Citizen operates on what accountants call a fiscal year, which is different from the calendar year for reasons related to bookkeeping, taxes, etc. What it means, in a nutshell, is that we are about to close the books on one year and begin the next.

Historically, then, the last few days of September have been rivaled only by the last few days of December when it comes to the online donations that are essential to powering the work you and Public Citizen do together.

And remember, we neither seek nor accept “help” from Big Business and Uncle Sam — our independence and integrity just aren’t for sale. So, everything this shared project called Public Citizen gets done is possible thanks to folks like you chipping in what they can at junctures like this.

But we are facing some tough realities this time around:
And now the Trump regime is setting out on some sort of modern-day McCarthyist crusade against those of us who are standing up to it — flagrantly lying about our motivations and tactics while threatening our very existence.

If you can, please donate today to support Public Citizen as we continue standing up to the Trump regime.

Anything you can chip in — $5 or $25, $50 or $100, $500 or even more — will help at such a critical moment.

CONTRIBUTE NOW

Or join our popular Monthly Giving program (if you haven’t already) to help make sure we have the ongoing financial resources to fight Trump day after day after day.

If you’ve donated to Public Citizen already, thank you. If a donation is not right, we understand. Either way, thank you for reading this, and thank you for being part of Public Citizen.

Onward,

- Lisa Gilbert & Robert Weissman, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
 
 
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