Liz Wheeler exposes the color revolution playbook targeting Trump — and why Pete Hegseth is public enemy No. 1



According to BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has been quietly fighting a “legitimate color revolution effort by the deep state.”

The institutional left, she argues, has been attempting to “control the president's every thought, every action, every decision, every policy in order to impose on you wokeism and destructive [left-wing policies],” and it’s Pete Hegseth who’s standing in its way.

This isn’t just her hunch either. On this episode of “The Liz Wheeler Show,” Liz dives into a recent @DataRepublican thread that blew the lid off the shocking truth behind the nonstop attacks on Pete Hegseth.

Liz begins by reading through the X thread posted by @DataRepublican on Monday:

The thread argues that Hegseth is being relentlessly attacked not because of any personal scandals (drinking, women, etc.), but because he's a loyal secretary of war who would prevent the military/security forces from defecting.

According to the thread, this loyalty is what’s stopping a would-be soft coup attempt against Trump. Citing academic studies, training videos, and planning docs from left-leaning groups that emphasize getting security forces to disobey or stand down, the post posits that you can't execute a successful color revolution without flipping or neutralizing the military — and Hegseth, being outside its influence networks and loyal to Trump, makes that impossible.

Two people @DataRepublican highlights in the thread are Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan — “the two most cited scholars in the color revolution field.” According to their research into 323 different regime change campaigns, security force defections make those campaigns “46 times more likely to succeed.”

“Once you meet these women, you will not only understand who is behind much of the civil unrest in our country, but how they do it,” says Liz.

Stephan, she argues, “is the epitome of a blob creature,” citing her careers at the State Department, the Atlantic Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, and in academia. Liz notes that she also founded and directed the “program on nonviolent action at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP).”

Chenoweth, who “serves in many different capacities at Harvard University,” is famous in the color revolution world, Liz says, for coining the “3.5% rule,” which argues that it takes only 3.5% of the population’s participation, combined with a military willing to defect, for a color revolution to be successful.

Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth, Liz contends, are connected to the founders of the No Kings movement, Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg, who “get their funding ... almost directly from George Soros.”

“Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg are on video talking about how their protests, the No Kings protests, are essentially a color revolution,” says Liz, playing a clip from their joint podcast where they interviewed none other than Chenoweth.

“Maria Stephan is also involved in the No Kings protest through her organization New Horizons Project. She actually trained No Kings protesters,” she continues, playing more videos from @DataRepublican capturing Stephan training protesters on how successful campaigns depend on “defections and loyalty shifts within key institutional pillars,” specifically business, labor, faith, education, civil service, and military/police, which must be “[cracked]” so that “the entire edifice can crumble.”

Liz says Stephan’s framework is “almost exactly the same thing” as Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and the "war of position,” which argues that revolutionaries must first capture the institutions of culture, education, media, ideas, and other key pillars of society in order to eventually seize power.

In the same thread, @DataRepublican also highlighted Gene Sharp, the father of modern "color revolution" tactics, and Hardy Merriman (Sharp’s former assistant), for co-writing the main training manual used for regime changes in over 50 countries.

Merriman then created a U.S. version that tells government and military people: You don’t owe loyalty to the president — only to the Constitution — and teaches them how to quietly defect (slow down, leak, ignore orders, etc.) so the regime can be brought down.

All of this explains the “character assassination” attempts on Pete Hegseth, says Liz.

“Seventy-two hours after President Trump named Pete Hegseth as his nominee for secretary of war ... Democracy Playbook 2025 specifically named Pete Hegseth as a threat because he cannot be convinced or compromised to the point of defection,” she says, noting that this playbook was edited by “Democrat super lawyer” Norman Eisen, who Liz exposed last year for being one of the central architects and coordinators of a "resistance" network seeking to topple the Trump administration.

But that’s just the beginning of the intricate network Liz uncovers in this episode.

She continues unpacking the rest of @DataRepublican’s thread to reveal how these color revolution tactics are allegedly being deployed against Trump right now and why unco-optable Pete Hegseth is literally the one man preventing a successful soft coup.

If you want the full picture — and to see exactly how deep this goes — watch the entire eye-opening episode above.

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Anti-Trump Think Tanks Rake in Millions from Taxpayers for ‘Virtual Exchanges’ in Africa, Women’s Empowerment Conference in Saudi Arabia

Federal agencies have awarded nearly $50 million over the past four years to the Aspen Institute and the Atlantic Council—well-funded liberal think tanks which between them boast 50 donors who have given them at least $1 million—for projects that include a $6 million program to provide "virtual exchanges" for students in the Middle East, and $300,000 to host a conference to empower women in Saudi Arabia.

The post Anti-Trump Think Tanks Rake in Millions from Taxpayers for ‘Virtual Exchanges’ in Africa, Women’s Empowerment Conference in Saudi Arabia appeared first on .

Trump's potential pick for FBI director haunted by Russiagate, 'security state' loyalties



FBI Director Christopher Wray's 10-year term does not expire until 2027. President-elect Donald Trump is, however, expected to replace him upon taking office. While Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who Trump said is "a very talented guy," might be in contention, the two men whose names keep popping up in discussions of a potential successor are former National Security Council official Kash Patel and former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers.

Establishmentarians have piled on Patel, characterizing him as inexperienced, revenge-driven, and "dangerous."

While Rogers, who specialized in organized crime as a special agent at the FBI's Chicago office, has so far avoided similar abuse, Trump loyalists and critics of the American intelligence community have expressed concerns about his past associations with individuals and censorious groups antagonistic to Trump; his historic support for surveillance programs; and the role he apparently played in pushing Russiagate.

Former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon asked Mike Benz, the executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, this week why the "MAGA right" would be "particularly upset about a guy like Mike Rogers, who in normal times would be looked at as a fine, center-right candidate put up by a Romney-type Republican administration?"

'You can't really have a compromised candidate.'

Benz, keen to see Patel nominated, suggested that Rogers' involvement with the Atlantic Council — "probably the number-one apex predator in the entire censorship industry" — and his help advancing Russiagate were disqualifying.

"The relationship between the Justice Department and the FBI is the same relationship that's shared between the U.S. State Department and the CIA. They need to be constantly in sync," said Benz.

"You can't really have a compromised candidate where one person supports the president and the other person is looking to put a knife in the president's back. That is simply untenable when you're dealing with the kind of special, compartmentalized operations that happen at the FBI level."

The Daily Caller reported that Rogers is not only a member of the Aspen Cybersecurity Institute, a left-leaning think tank, but also served as an adviser to the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy initiative, spearheaded by a former foreign policy adviser to failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and aimed at tackling supposed Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The ASD launched the Hamilton 68 Dashboard in 2017 to monitor hundreds of then-Twitter accounts allegedly linked to Russian influence efforts online — a project likened by investigative reporter Matt Taibbi to "digital McCarthyism that was repeatedly used by establishment media publications as a source to push the Russian influence and interference narratives that Democrats, in turn, exploited during Trump's first term."

According to Taibbi, when Twitter executives attempted to recreate the group's list of accounts, they determined that the accounts were "neither strongly Russia nor strongly bots," and indicated that "there is no evidence to support their statements that the dashboard is a finger on the pulse of Russian information ops."

When pressed for comment, Rogers' spokesman Chris Gustafon said in a statement to the Caller, "President-elect Trump is once again assembling a fantastic administration to help the American people and Make America Great Again."

Wikileaks, which has been highly critical of Rogers as an FBI director aspirant, suggested that the ASD was a "central player in efforts to tie President Donald Trump and his supporters to Russian interference in the 2016 election" and that the Hamilton 68 Dashboard's "true purpose appeared to be casting suspicion on Trump supporters and reinforcing claims that his presidency was illegitimate."

Wikileaks also highlighted how in 2018, Rogers advocated for the suppression of a Republican memo critical of the FBI's spying on the Trump campaign.

Rogers told NPR at the time the memo should not be released because

you're only going to get a small part of the picture. And so what they're purportedly alleging is going to come out in the memo today is that there was some misconduct on behalf of FBI agents and some DOJ officials, lawyers at the Department of Justice, in the application for something called the FISA, which is the secret court that does counterintelligence, espionage cases, terrorism cases, where it needs to be in a classified setting.

Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald, responding to a video of Rogers apparently joking with Hunter Biden "intel" letter signatory Michael Hayden about having Edward Snowden assassinated, tweeted, "There's literally no worse appointment possible than choosing Mike Rogers for FBI Director, or for any government position. He's the single most devoted loyalist to the US Security State and all of its multi-faceted abuses. It doesn't get worse than Mike Rogers."

While Rogers' past remarks and associations may serve as red flags for the president-elect, Trump endorsed him in March for his unsuccessful bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan — months after the former congressman and defense lobbyist criticized the Biden Justice Department's "war" against Trump.

Patel endorsed Rogers for Senate in April, saying he would "hold the FBI and DOJ accountable."

"I am a big fan of Mike Rogers, and should there be an opening [for FBI director], he would be my choice," said Maine Sen. Susan Collins (R).

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said, "Mike Rogers is a terrific guy. I don't know Kash Patel."

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‘National Security’ Officials Who Endorsed Harris Tied To Intel Agencies, Defense Contractors

Deep State Officials Who Endorsed Harris Tied To Intel Agencies, Defense Contractors

The Latest Hunter Biden Document Dump is Littered With Bombshells. Here are the Biggest.

The House Ways and Means Committee released more than 700 pages of documents related to the committee’s investigation into Hunter Biden.

The post The Latest Hunter Biden Document Dump is Littered With Bombshells. Here are the Biggest. appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The Atlantic Council Says Russian Oil Sales Fuel 'Putin's War Machine.' One Of Its Biggest Donors Doesn't Care.

The Atlantic Council has positioned itself as one of the Beltway’s most vocal critics of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But one of its biggest donors is snatching up a massive amount of discounted Russian oil, fueling what the prominent think tank has called "Russia’s war machine."

The post The Atlantic Council Says Russian Oil Sales Fuel 'Putin's War Machine.' One Of Its Biggest Donors Doesn't Care. appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

FACT CHECK: Quincy Institute Says DC Think Tanks Have Too Many Foreign Conflicts of Interest

Claim: "Washington-based think tanks have been notoriously slow to implement the same conflict of interest policies and disclosures commonly implemented by journalists, academics, and scientists."

The post FACT CHECK: Quincy Institute Says DC Think Tanks Have Too Many Foreign Conflicts of Interest appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The UAE Has Donated Millions to the Atlantic Council. They Just Got a Glowing Op-Ed From the Think Tank's Chief.

The Atlantic Council's chief executive officer, Fred Kempe, this month lavished praise on the "resource-rich, renewables-generating" United Arab Emirates in a Jan. 14 op-ed for CNBC praising the oil-rich Gulf nation's "utopian" plan to fight climate change.

The post The UAE Has Donated Millions to the Atlantic Council. They Just Got a Glowing Op-Ed From the Think Tank's Chief. appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Atlantic Council Parts Ways With Prominent Iran Apologist

After more than a decade providing a platform for some of D.C.'s most notorious Iranian regime apologists, the Atlantic Council is disbanding its longtime Iran program in the face of mounting protests against the hardline government in Tehran.

The post Atlantic Council Parts Ways With Prominent Iran Apologist appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.