Trump team eyes a crackdown on left-wing groups blamed for the spread of political violence
The Trump administration vowed Monday to root out left-wing organizations that foment political violence, pivoting from the successful manhunt to a broader response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
President Trump said he is considering designating antifa and other far-left groups as domestic terrorist organizations.
“Antifa is terrible,” Mr. Trump said. “There are other groups. We have some pretty radical groups that got away with murder.”
Earlier, Vice President J.D. Vance and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said federal authorities will go on the offensive by, among other things, stripping the tax-exempt status of liberal groups such as the Ford Foundation and the George Soros-founded Open Society Foundation.
Mr. Vance singled out those groups because they help fund The Nation magazine, which, he said, published a “disgusting article justifying Charlie’s death.”
“Do you know they benefit from generous tax treatment? They are literally subsidized by you and me, the American taxpayer,” Mr. Vance said. “And how do they reward us? By setting fire to the house built by the American family over 250 years.”
SEE ALSO: Trump says he would label Antifa a domestic terrorist organization
Bhaskar Sunkara, president of The Nation, said Mr. Vance was lying about the magazine’s financing in an attempt to “rile up his online Right base.”
“We’re not funded, not one dime by Soros or Open Society Foundation,” Mr. Sunkara said on X. “The Soros/Open Society mention is a dogwhistle — an appeal to conspiracy tropes rather than reality.”
The White House did not specify other groups it could be targeting. An administration official told The New York Times that federal officials would be looking for links between left-wing groups and the people who burned Teslas and assaulted immigration enforcement officers.
Mr. Miller described the effort in robust terms.
“We are going to channel all of the anger that we have over the organized campaign that led to this assassination, to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks,” he said, citing the doxing of public officials and organized street violence. “It is a vast domestic terror movement.
“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe against the American people,” he said. “It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name.”
SEE ALSO: Dark online subculture emerges behind Charlie Kirk’s assassination
The investigation into the assassination of the conservative activist at Utah Valley University last week is continuing, but authorities have arrested Tyler Robinson, 22, and are preparing to formally charge him Tuesday.
Investigators are compiling significant evidence implicating Mr. Robinson in the shooting of Mr. Kirk, and they believe he was indoctrinated by left-wing ideology.
In Congress, 23 House Republican lawmakers proposed a select committee to investigate “the money, influence and power behind the radical left’s assault on America and the rule of law.”
The lawmakers, led by Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, are interested in investigating the Southern Poverty Law Center, which labeled Mr. Kirk’s Turning Point USA as a “hate group.”
The lawmakers also want to investigate the Wren Collective, which advocates for cashless bail and other liberal criminal justice causes.
Since Mr. Trump took office, authorities have arrested dozens of members of the far-left antifa for rioting and attacking Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents carrying out deportations. Other antifa members have been arrested for violently protesting Israel at college campuses, attacking people and setting property on fire.
Bullet casings left at the scene of Mr. Kirk’s shooting were carved with anti-fascist messages favored by antifa.
Another offshoot of antifa is made up of transgender activists who call for violence against those who oppose transgender people and policies supporting them.
A group of transgender people on Facebook that has more than half a million followers has urged supporters to “recruit ex-military members, stockpile weapons and train to kill for a paramilitary insurrection against the U.S. government,” independent journalist Andy Ngo, who closely follows the antifa movement, posted on X earlier this year.
Trans Army group said its use of military terminology and imagery “is metaphorical, intended to foster unity, resilience and structured resistance against discrimination and oppression.”
Another transgender group is accused of several killings.
Two members of a “Zizian” transgender terrorist cult are now on trial for the brutal killing of an elderly man. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a transgender Zizian member accused of killing a Border Patrol agent in Vermont. Members of the Zizian cult are tied to at least two other killings.
The plan to pursue left-wing groups arose while Mr. Vance paid tribute to Mr. Kirk by hosting his podcast, “The Charlie Kirk Show.” Mr. Vance broadcast the show from an office in the White House.
Mr. Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, has vowed that the podcast will continue.
An evangelical Christian and co-founder of the youth organizing group Turning Point USA, Mr. Kirk was fatally shot during one of his “Prove Me Wrong” debate sessions in front of about 3,000 students on the university green.
His assassination is the latest in a series of political violence that has rattled the nation and triggered concerns that things could get bloodier.
Mr. Trump has singled out the “radical left.” He said liberals have normalized the fiery rhetoric that is “directly responsible for the terrorism that we are seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
“My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else that brings order to our country,” Mr. Trump said last week.
On the podcast, Mr. Vance said polls show a higher percentage of liberals have an appetite for political violence than conservatives.
“The data is clear, people on the left are much likelier to defend and celebrate political silence. This is not a both-sides problem,” he said. “If both sides have a problem, one side has a much bigger and malignant problem, and that is the truth we must be told.”
Indeed, a survey this year by Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute found that about half of liberal-leaning U.S. residents could justify the assassinations of Mr. Trump and his top adviser at the time, Elon Musk.
The left-wing political violence, the researchers warned, “is becoming increasingly normalized” and at risk of “real-world escalation” unless political and cultural leaders condemn the pro-violence chatter.
To move forward now, Mr. Vance said, the nation must “dismantle the institutions that promote violence and terrorism in our own country.”
“We will sometimes move more slowly than I want us to, but I promise you that we will explore every option to bring real unity to our country and stop those who would kill their fellow Americans because they don’t like what they say,” he said.
• Kerry Picket and Jeff Mordock contributed to this report.
