Antifa be warned: The Trump administration is coming for you, but first they have to speak with some podcasters.
Conservative podcaster Glenn Beck insisted Monday that the FBI was turning over “every single stone” to locate members of the famously decentralized anti-fascist movement—a fact he became aware of when they allegedly arrived at his door to discuss a recent series he did discussing the supposed Antifa network.
“We dove in head first and we analyzed the Antifa network, and we went from the street thugs to the support groups and eventually to the funding. To say the FBI was interested in this, might be an understatement,” Beck said. “It is so clear to me that they are exploring all angles of this and they are talking to anyone and everyone that can give them any kind of information.”
“How do I know? Saturday, I get a phone call,” Beck continued, recalling the conversation.
“‘The director would like to send over some agents to speak to you, Glenn.’ I’m like, ‘The director? FBI agents?’ ‘Yes, you said some things that they need to talk to you about.’”
The fact that Beck might catch FBI Director Kash Patel’s attention should come as no surprise, especially since Patel used to host his own conspiratorial political opinion show before he was tasked to run America’s lead investigative agency.
“They sat in my—three agents—sat in my living room for almost two hours,” Beck said. “It was surreal at one point.”
For years, Donald Trump and his allies have pushed the idea that violent, far-left radicals are wreaking havoc in cities across the country, but their rhetoric has been noticeably devoid of evidence. To quell the noise, members of the House Intelligence Committee asked the CIA and FBI in 2020 to investigate false intelligence campaigns and find proof of the anti-fascist group’s supposed “invasion.” Despite reports contradicting Trump’s rhetoric, the noise did not die down.
Last week, Trump designated Antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization,” despite the fact that anti-fascists fail to commit a fraction of the violence that the far-right extremists that they oppose do.
“Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law,” Trump’s order states.
But Trump’s action flouted the fact that he doesn’t have the authority to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization—that power resides with Congress. And critics have warned that this could just be the beginning, as the White House works towards a broader crackdown on political opposition to its immigration agenda, as evidenced by Trump’s decision to send the National Guard to subdue alleged unrest in the hipster paradise of Portland, Oregon, or by the elevation of rhetoric that has lumped fervor against Antifa with legitimate political parties, such as the Democratic Socialists of America.
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