SIO499: Trump Is Weaponizing Government Against Political Enemies. Nick Fish, President of American Atheists, on How to Be Prepared
Serious Inquiries Only
Thomas Smith
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 December 2025
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In late September, shortly after declaring antifa a "domestic terrorist", Trump issued a memorandum directing the IRS to investigate tax-exempt organizations that could be "directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism" and nonprofit organizations reasonably felt concerned of being targeted. A couple of weeks later, Lydia and Thomas ran into Nick Fish, President of the American Atheists, at California Freethought Day and asked how he and the organization were holding up in light of everything.
We're pleased to have Nick on to discuss what nonprofit organizations can do to protect themselves, as well as the people who have supported their mission and the communities they serve, when it is feeling less and less paranoid that the federal government might be coming for you. How can organizations fortify themselves through governing documents and organizational structure to donor databases and retention policies when the President of the United States could very well declare your nonprofit a supporter of domestic terrorism?
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Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence (NSPM-7) (9/25/2025)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Sirius Only. |
| 0:14.4 | This is episode 499. |
| 0:16.6 | I'm Thomas Smith and I've got a really, really interesting one for you today. So this came about because when I was at a little event, I go to each and every year in Sacramento called California Free Thought Day. Turns out this year, also a few other people were invited that I knew. Seth Andrews, always fun to say hi to him, and Nick Fish, president American Atheists. And we just, you know, |
| 0:38.0 | we're chit-chatting. And I was kind of asking him about there's just something in the news |
| 0:41.3 | at that time about MAGA, Republicans going after certain 501c3s, something like that. And we |
| 0:46.8 | were chatting. And Nick said like 10 incredibly interesting things about how he and the folks |
| 0:53.0 | that American Atheists are thinking about preparing for |
| 0:55.6 | this kind of thing. And so I asked him if we could do an interview, keeping in mind that some of these |
| 0:59.8 | things he can't share because it's literally about trying to stay one step ahead of what this |
| 1:04.8 | administration might do. And maybe that could sound a little paranoid. American atheists is a pretty |
| 1:10.2 | visible organization, but it's not like huge or anything. |
| 1:12.5 | But there is absolutely every reason to be worried and there's every reason to prepare. |
| 1:16.8 | And this was a really interesting conversation. |
| 1:19.6 | What do you do when you're involved in an organization like that? |
| 1:22.3 | And the rules start to no longer apply in terms of congressional subpoenas or the IRS going after you. |
| 1:28.8 | All the ways that Trump and MAGA are abusing the system, is there a way to be prepared for that? |
| 1:34.2 | And it turns out there's just really smart people in the world doing really smart people things. |
| 1:38.2 | And one of those folks is Nick Fish. |
| 1:40.0 | And I'm sure there are many others unsung heroes we never hear from. |
| 1:43.1 | But Nick was kind enough to come on and tell us about what it's like and what it means to be operating an organization like American atheists who atheists aren't enemy number one for Trump and MAGA, but they're not enemy number million. They're not, you know, atheists are not super welcome in the white Christian nationalist movement, which is what runs our country right now. So it's good to be prepared. And there's all kinds of things you would never think of. And all, Nick is just a super cool, interesting guy. I don't think I've ever had him on anything. I'm known for a long time now, and it's such a great opportunity to finally speak to Nick on air. So without further ado, we'll take our break. Please support |
| 2:18.8 | the show, patreon.com slash serious pod. If you want to support more work like this, and avoid |
| 2:23.4 | the ads, which you might hear right now. All right, after this break, we'll get on with Nick Fish, how are you doing today? |
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