Ex-MSNBC Commentator Calls For FBI Crackdown on Student Protestors

When Malcolm Nance Looks at Students He Sees Terrorists

Last week, as protests over Israel’s war in Gaza engulfed Columbia University’s New York campus, former MSNBC analyst Malcolm Nance messaged his one million plus followers on X (formerly Twitter) calling for the FBI to intervene.

“The NYPD & FBI joint counterterrorism task force can announce BIOMETRIC face & fingerprint identity checks,” Nance wrote, tagging Columbia University’s account. “Suddenly … a lot of people will remember a dental appointment they forgot.”

Calling for crackdown is typical of Nance, a Navy veteran and fervent pro-Biden supporter, who served as MSNBC’s chief terrorism analyst until 2022, when he resigned to go fight the Russian invaders in Ukraine. Now self-employed wolf-cryer on all things national security, the always macho Nance is turning his attention to the domestic United States, where in recent weeks he is convinced he sees the shadowy influence of terror groups like Hamas on the student protests.

“WARNING: On April 15 #FreePalestine activists intend to use civilian disobedience or physical attacks [to] disrupt Western Society,” Nance posted to X on April 10, pointing to “coordination with terrorist attacks by Yemen and HAMAS.” 

But April 15 came and went without any attack.

Such a miscall might instill some humility in other people, but not Nance, who sprays ominous warnings like a machine gun about links between pro-Palestinian protesters and Hamas.

“Experience tells me that the pro-HAMAS protests can & will be crushed and intimidated,” Nance posted to X on April 22. “It’s coming.”

The post, like much of Nance’s commentary in recent weeks, insinuates a connection between the Gaza protesters, Hamas, and the furtive interest it has drawn from the FBI counterterrorism apparatus.

“The FBI’s terrorism task force system, built for ISIS lovers, is quietly watching … & will crash down HARD on them,” Nance tweeted. “Material support for terrorism charges will fly left and right.”

Such charges, you may have guessed, have yet to fly.

Though Nance’s current bombast might seem, well, off the mark, he has for years been taken seriously on counterterrorism matters — and not just by MSNBC. 

In February of 2021, Nance testified to Congress in a hearing titled, “The Rise of Domestic Terrorism.” In his testimony, Nance recounts another incorrect prediction of his, though acknowledging this one. Following the Oklahoma city bombing in 1995, Nance recalls betting a month’s salary that a foreign terror group had orchestrated the attack — a bet he said he quickly lost after it became clear that the attack had been carried out by Timothy McVeigh.

Nance uses the anecdote to illustrate the perils of what he calls the “long history of anti-government extremism in our nation.”

“We tend to focus on large data points, like Oklahoma City and the Olympic Park bombing but there is an undercurrent of mistrust of government that has always existed,” Nance said in his testimony.

It might be tempting to laugh off Nance, but the national security community in many respects echoes his obsession with foreign influence over American protest, from MAGA to campuses. Earlier this year, FBI Director Christopher Wray, in his own testimony to Congress, warned that the Hamas war “will feed a pipeline of radicalization and mobilization for years to come,” as  previously reported. 

Since January 6 in particular, the U.S. government has increasingly focused on countering domestic extremism, a phrase that it likes to use to avoid saying either terrorism or having to identify any particular political slant in protests. During president Biden’s first full day in office, the new president directed his national security team to conduct a panicked review of U.S. government efforts to address domestic terrorism. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also ordered the military to carry out a forcewide stand down to address domestic extremism in the ranks. (This despite evidence that extremism among U.S. service members is in fact comparable to that of the general population.)

But the obsession isn’t just the province of Democrats. Republicans have their own domestic extremist bogeymen. 

After the death by self-immolation of U.S. airman Aaron Bushnell, Senator Tom Cotton, member of the Armed Services Committee, asserted that Bushnell’s death was “in support of a terrorist group [Hamas].” In a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Cotton asked if he had found any evidence of support for Islamic terrorist groups among American service members.

The atmosphere of heightened fear cultivated by Washington allows Nance’s hysterics to pass by without derision, even as prediction after prediction fails to materialize.

“Will the Free Palestine College Protests End American Democracy?” blares the headline of an article Nance wrote for his Substack on Monday.

The fear mongering blends seamlessly with that emanating from our elected officials, like those in Congress who have directed the FBI to investigate student protesters chanting “Death to America” — something they never actually said, as I reported yesterday.

But for the government, threat creation and inflation is the bread and butter of maintaining public weakness. So figures like Nance do well for themselves, appealing to the FBI as if it is the institution that is going to save America.

“I know what I know and I know this is gonna end badly for those kids,” Nance posted to X on Wednesday. “Because one of these days someone is going to commit an act of terrorism and … they will all deny that they had anything to do with the free Palestine movement.” 

“Bookmark this tweet,” Nance advised.

Done!

– Edited by William M. Arkin; contributed reporting by Daniel Boguslaw