“Violent left-wing extremists” and “extremist transgender ideology” are among the most concerning threats facing the country, according to the Trump administration counterterrorism strategy released Wednesday.
The strategy, the first released in President Donald Trump’s second term, underscores how Trump’s priorities differ from predecessors, listing “violent left-wing extremists” as one of its top three focuses, alongside “narcoterrorists” and “Islamist terrorists.”
It’s a sharp departure from the Biden administration, which concentrated on extremism on the right. Former President Joe Biden called white supremacythe “most dangerous terrorist threat” to the nation in 2023.
The Trump team is also looking at how domestic online activities could incite violence, a focus that follows an increase in political violence, such as the multiple attempted assassinations of Trump and the killing of Charlie Kirk.
“We see a threat, we will respond to it, and we will crush it, whether it is the cartels, the jihadists, or violent left-wing extremists like antifa and like the transgender killers, the non-binary, the left-wing radicals who killed my friend Charlie Kirk, we will take them on, head on,” senior director for counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka told reporters on a call Wednesday.
Gorka stressed that the counterterrorism team is focused on all online groups that are “inciting violence against innocent individuals” on both sides of the aisle.
“It’s also about the ideology, whether it’s against Western Civilization, America, the U.S. Constitution, our friends, our allies, peace in general, you fit under that rubric,” he said.
“Our national counterterrorism activities will prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent, secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-gender or anarchist such as antifa, we will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home, identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations,” Gorka said of the modes the administration will use to target the left-wing groups.
The Trump administration formally designated antifa as a terror group in September., Short for anti-fascists, antifa is an umbrella description for far-left-leaning militant groups that resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations and other events.
