A leaked security assessment from President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security reportedly argues that the most serious danger to the United States is not foreign adversaries—but people inside the country.
The U.S. faces ongoing risks to critical infrastructure and national security from hostile actors including Russia, China, and others. But according to a new report, an unreleased Homeland Threat Assessment drafted under the Trump administration places the greatest emphasis on threats emerging domestically.
Since 2020, DHS has issued an annual Homeland Threat Assessment outlining the department’s view of the biggest risks facing the nation. The usual categories—crime, drug trafficking networks, and illegal immigration—appear again this year. However, independent journalist Ken Klippenstein says the latest version introduces a new focal point: terrorism tied to “class-based or economic grievances.”
Klippenstein, who says he obtained a leaked copy, argued the wording is broad enough to capture a wide range of Americans.
“The phrase could as much refer to an angry MAGA Midwesterner as it could any Mamdani-supporting urban dweller,” Klippenstein wrote in a new Substack essay. “But the focus is clear: the main threat to the ‘homeland,’ DHS thinks, is the American people.”
The leak comes amid heightened public friction with DHS and its enforcement agencies, the report notes. In one recent flashpoint, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer named Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good, 37, a mother in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as she drove away from an immigration raid, according to the account described.
Good’s death fueled protests and anger directed at DHS. The backlash intensified after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended Ross’s actions, even as eyewitness accounts and testimony reportedly contradicted her public claims.
