In an extraordinary public press conference held Wednesday in the White House, fascist President Donald Trump declared the full force of the US government will be brought down on alleged “antifa” elements. “Antifa,” short for “antifacism,” is not an organized political group but a broad set of beliefs generally centered on defense of democratic rights against right-wing state oppression.
During his press conference, Trump again claimed the previous two presidential elections were rigged and suggested that the 2026 midterm elections would also be slanted against him. Answering a question by a fascist reporter if “antifa infiltrated on January 6 dressed up like Trump supporters and incited violence,” Trump reaffirmed the bogus conspiracy theory. “Well I have heard that, they are fresh out of MAGA but they have nothing to do with MAGA and they make trouble and they try and blame. Yeah, we know some of that and we will be acting on some of that.”
Trump, backed by numerous cabinet officials, neo-Nazis and white supremacists, characterized all opposition to ongoing federal immigration kidnapping operations as “illegal” and claimed that a “well-financed” and vast network of “left-wing terror” was behind the protests against his administration. Protests attended by millions of people this year, including the massive June 14 “No Kings” demonstrations, were not expressions of popular opposition to dictatorship but “paid protests” funded by domestic and foreign organizations, the administration claims.
Organizations and groups that were named as major antifa allies or accomplices by right-wing reporters invited to the White House included the Democratic Socialists of America, antiwar protest group CODEPINK, and Stop the Sweeps, a group that organizes against police sweeps of unhoused people. The latter was branded by a Turning Point USA lackey as an arm of the “homeless industrial complex.”
As was the case with his September 22 Executive Order, which declared “antifa” a domestic terrorist organization, Trump claimed in Wednesday’s event that all instances of violence against ICE officials, police and the killing of Charlie Kirk were the result of “antifa.” He claimed “antifa anarchists” were “paid provocateurs,” who were being “paid by people I dine with.” Trump repeatedly thanked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for cooperating with the administration in uncovering alleged “antifa funding” networks.
Defending rampant ICE violence across the country, Trump claimed, “Everything we are doing is very lawful, what they are doing is not lawful.” Threatening not only “antifa” but Democratic elected officials that do not fully embrace his mass deportation operation and military occupations, Trump added, “What the governor and mayor of ... Portland, and you can certainly say of Chicago is not lawful what they are doing.” The mafioso president added, “They have to be very careful.”
Belching out his, and the US ruling class’s, contempt for democratic rights, Trump admitted, “We took the freedom of speech away because that’s been through the courts and the courts said you have freedom of speech ... but when you burn a flag it agitates ... so we are going on that basis.”
Trump was flanked at the conference by Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, senior White House adviser Stephen Miller and a platoon of fascist agitators, many from Turning Point USA, including neo-Nazi Jack Posobiec. Following his remarks, Trump invited each of the fascist media propagandists to supplicate themselves before him while regaling him with alleged instances of antifa terror and violence.
Secretary Noem, without providing a shred of evidence, claimed that “antifa” had “infiltrated” the country and that the “antifa network” was “just as sophisticated as MS-13, as [Tren de Aragua], as ISIS, as Hezbollah, as Hamas, as all of them. They are just as dangerous. They have an agenda to destroy us just like the other terrorists we have dealt with for many many years, and today is the day we have a president that won’t tolerate it.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi echoed Noem’s comments, “We are not going to stop at just arresting the violent criminals we can see in the streets. Fighting crime is more than just getting the bad guys off the streets, it’s breaking down the organization brick by brick, just like we did with cartels, we are going to take the same approach, President Trump, with antifa. Destroy the entire organization from top to bottom. We are going to take them apart.”
The comments of Noem and Bondi equating domestic opposition to Trump’s regime to foreign terrorist organizations is aimed at criminalizing all opposition to the regime and potentially using military force against Americans exercising their constitutional rights.
Fighting against reality, each of the fascist propagandists in and out of the administration repeatedly claimed that “antifa” was “real.” Solidarizing himself with Hitler, Posobiec informed Trump, “Antifa is real, it’s been around in various iterations for almost 100 years, in some instances going back to the Weimar Republic in Germany.”
After lamenting that there was antifascist resistance to Hitler’s coming to power, Posobiec was forced to acknowledge that ruling class efforts to deify the racist mouthpiece for billionaires, Charlie Kirk, have failed among broad sections of the population. “And now it’s been about one month since we saw a far leftist murder Charlie Kirk and we saw thousands upon thousands of other people, other far leftists and people in positions of authority, people like nurses, pilots and doctors and [Human Resource] departments celebrating the death and the murder of Charlie Kirk.”
Trump took a series of questions during the press conference. Asked by another fascist reporter if Trump would designate “antifa a foreign terror organization?” Trump replied, “Well has that been done?”
Looking at neo-Nazi Jack Posobiec Trump asked, “Would you like to see it done?”
Posobiec replied, “Yes, Mr. President.”
Trump: “Do you think it would help?”
Posobiec: “They have foreign links all across Western Europe.”
Trump: “I’d be glad to do it, it’s the kind of thing I’d like to do.”
Posobiec: “And the Middle East.”
Looking around the room to the assembled neo-Nazis, Christian nationalists and reactionaries, Trump asked, “Do you agree? If you agree, I agree. Let’s get it done.” Turning to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump added, “Marco, let’s get it done.”
“That’s international you mean,” Trump added, “sounds good to me.” Turning to Hitler-lover Stephen Miller, Trump asked, “Steve, are you ok with it?”
Miller eagerly replied, “Yes, it’s true there are extensive foreign ties, and I think that would be a very valid step to take.”
Trump: “Good, I think so too.”
Under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) the president is allowed to kill alleged members of “FTOs” (Foreign Terrorist Organization) without due process. On September 30, 2011, US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki was murdered in a US drone strike in Yemen that was authorized by President Barack Obama. Since this extrajudicial killing, every US president has conducted similar strikes against alleged “terrorists” without providing a shred of evidence or legal justification. In the last several weeks, the Trump administration has carried out repeated military strikes on small boats off the coast of Venezuela, killing dozens of people the administration has alleged are gang members or drug runners, without providing any proof.
The Democrats, the Republican partners in crime, have responded to Trump’s threats to imprison them with their typical cowardice and fecklessness. They remain far more terrified of a mass movement from below against both parties and the system they defend than of the coming to power of a fascist government.
Asked in a CNN interview to reply to Trump’s threats to arrest him, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said Trump was “unstable, unhinged, a double-minded individual that quite frankly is a threat to our democracy.”
He added that this was not the first time, “Trump has called for the arrest of a black man unjustly.” He said he was “not going anywhere” but did not propose any action to stop Trump’s attacks, from impeachment to appeals to the working class for a general strike to take down the regime.
As was the case with Johnson, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker proposed no concrete action to oppose Trump’s drive towards dictatorship, even as 500 troops from Texas and the Illinois National Guard arrived at the Army Reserve Training Center in Elwood, Illinois, in the last 48 hours. In a tweet thread Wednesday, Pritzker, who has already deployed Illinois State Police to protect ICE gestapo, advised residents to “stand up and speak out.”
In Broadview, Illinois, where ICE agents have repeatedly assaulted peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders, independent Mayor Katrina Thompson responded to ICE lawlessness by instituting a curfew from 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., blocking protests outside the ICE facility.
Asked by CNN to respond to Trump’s threats to arrest Democratic Party politicians, Thompson said Trump “has his right to his opinions, and I severely disagree with that.”
Thompson was then asked to respond to clip from an interview Tuesday featuring Oregon Democratic Representative Maxine Dexter. In the clip Dexter urged protesters to restrict their First Amendment right to assembly and speech by not protesting near the ICE facility. “By going to that facility people are not being strategic, you know at this moment in time,” she said.
As to what “stratagem” protesters should advance Dexter said, “Protesting on the streets is absolutely important. Just don’t protest right there because then you’re playing into their story that is not the reality as you can see looking around here.
“When you become part of a war zone narrative, if they decide that that’s the time they’re going to go out there and provoke.”
Asked by CNN if she agreed with Dexter’s advice to restrict protests, Thompson replied, “Oh, absolutely ... By going out to that facility it’s just going to incite other things that can take place and will. We just want people to be safe and to be able to exercise their freedom of speech.”
She added, “(L)ocal leaders have protocols in place to keep people safe. It’s not to restrain or put a ban on anything, it’s in the best interests of them. And sometimes people just don’t know what’s best for them because of the anger that they are facing or the challenges that they want to see change, from their lens.
“But I agree with them that, you know, we’re asking you all to stay away from the facility because it’s going to create more problems.”