Donald Trump said early on Thursday that he plans to designate antifa as a “major terrorist organization”.
Antifa, short for “anti-fascists”, is an umbrella term for far-left-leaning activist groups and is not a single entity. These are groups that resist fascists and neo-Nazis, especially at demonstrations.
It was unclear how the administration would label what is in effect a decentralized movement as a terrorist organization, and the White House on Wednesday did not immediately offer more details.
The US president, who is on a state visit to the UK, made the announcement in a social media post shortly before 1.30am Thursday local time. He called antifa a “SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER”. He also said he will be “strongly recommending” that funders of antifa be investigated.
Antifa is a domestic entity and, as such, is not a candidate for inclusion on the state department’s list of foreign terror organizations. Dozens of groups, including extremist organizations like the Islamic State and al-Qaida, are included on that list. The designation matters in part because it enables the justice department to prosecute those who give material support to entities on that list even if that support does not result in violence.
There is no domestic equivalent to that list in part because of broad first amendment protections enjoyed by organizations operating within the United States. And despite periodic calls, particularly after mass shootings by white supremacists, to establish a domestic terrorism law, no singular statute now exists.
In an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said he would pursue a domestic terrorism designation for antifa if such a move had the support of Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and others in his cabinet.
“It’s something I would do, yeah,” Trump said. “I would do that 100%. Antifa is terrible.”
On Wednesday night, Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican senator, praised Trump’s announcement, saying: “Antifa seized upon a movement of legitimate grievances to promote violence and anarchy, working against justice for all. The president is right to recognize the destructive role of antifa by designating them domestic terrorists.” In July 2019, Cassidy and Ted Cruz, Texas Republican senator, introduced a resolution in the Senate to condemn the violent acts of antifa and to designate the group a domestic terror organization.
In 2020, in the midst of the George Floyd protests, Trump also raised the idea of designating antifa as a terror organization.
Trump’s previous FBI director, Christopher Wray, said in testimony that year that antifa was an ideology, not an organization, lacking the hierarchical structure that would usually allow it to be designated as a terror group by the federal government.
The president made the announcement less than an hour after ABC bowed to pressure from the Federal Communications Commission and cancelled Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show “indefinitely” following complaints about his comments on the killing of Kirk.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be pre-empted indefinitely,” an ABC spokesperson told CNN.
The decision by Disney-owned ABC came after one of the country’s largest owners of local ABC stations, Nexstar, announced that it would immediately pre-empt Kimmel’s show, “for the foreseeable future” because the company “strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk”.
In his opening monologue on Monday, Kimmel said: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the Maga gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”
The comedian added: “Some people are cheering this, which is something I won’t ever understand.”
Trump celebrated the ABC’s decision to pull Kimmel.
“Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED,” Trump wrote on his social network, although the suspension of Kimmel’s show is not yet officially final.
