On Sunday, Donald Trump tweeted that he was going to designate Antifa (which stands for anti-fascist) as a terrorist organization. There’s a lot to unpack there, but the most foundational point is that, as reported by Axios, under existing law the federal government can actually only designate foreign (meaning: not wholly domestic) entities as terrorist organizations. The other important note is that Antifa is, by its very nature, a movement without organized leaders or members. Participants range under a wide-umbrella of values, generally centered around opposing neo-Nazism and white supremacy. It’s also unclear whether Antifa members have actually been at various protests.
With that in mind, let’s dig into what Trump, and others, been saying about Antifa and protests for justice for George Floyd.
Here is that tweet from Trump.
And a quick response from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
What spurred Trump’s tweet? Though Trump’s statement on Saturday got less mainstream media attention, he actually referenced Antifa after the SpaceX launch. As reported by The Washington Post, on Saturday, Trump said: “The violence and vandalism is being led by Antifa and other radical left-wing groups who are terrorizing the innocent, destroying jobs, hurting businesses and burning down buildings.” He also suggested that “what we are now seeing on the streets of our cities has nothing to do with the memory of George Floyd.”
Trump also tweeted this yesterday.
In fact, Trump tweeted about this idea in 2019.
On Saturday, Attorney General Bill Barr gave a statement that referenced “Antifa-like tactics” at protests, as reported by ABC News: “Groups of outside radicals and agitators are exploiting the situation to pursue their own separate and violent agenda. In many places it appears the violence is planned, organized and driven by anarchic and left extremist groups, far left extremist groups using Antifa-like tactics, many of whom traveled from outside the state to promote the violence.”
National security adviser Robert O’Brien also brought up Antifa today. When he appeared on CNN’s State of the Union this morning, O’Brien claimed: "This is being driven by Antifa.” He added: “This is a destructive force of radical—I don't even know if we want to call them leftists. Whatever they are, they're—they're militants who are coming in and burning our cities, and we're going to get to the bottom of it." He also claimed he “hadn’t seen reports on far-right groups.”
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio also tweeted about Antifa.
Mind you, reports of journalists being targeted by police while covering protests continue to come in. Videos and photos of chaos and violence escalated by police across the nation have gone viral at this point as well.
