Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not mince words during an international gathering on political terrorism, calling the rise of leftist extremism a “new wave” of an “old evil.”
Speaking at the State Department’s Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism on Thursday, the secretary addressed officials and experts from 67 countries on the threat of antifa and similar organizations around the world that perpetuate ideological violence and “work alongside hostile foreign states.”
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“Antifa militants and their comrades travel from across Europe and to the Americas to participate in each other’s attacks. To funnel propaganda and training materials and target information through shared encrypted channels,” Rubio said. “Moving through underground networks of safehouses and finance that sustain their operations through transnational funds.”
He told the crowd: “You’re here because your political leaders are being attacked and stabbed and shot in your streets. Because your businesses have been bombed. Because your railways have been sabotaged. Because your police officers have been beaten and burned. You are here because this is real, and it is getting worse, and it can no longer be denied, and it can no longer be ignored. It is time to crush this evil forever.”
President Donald Trump and his administration have led a scorched-earth campaign against antifa and similar left-wing dissident groups since returning to the White House in 2025. Officials have characterized “radical leftism” as a preeminent domestic threat in the U.S. and declared antifa a domestic terrorist organization in September.
Last year, the president held a roundtable about antifa with journalists and experts. Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also joined.
The sense of urgency on the issue has only escalated following multiple assassination attempts against the president.
“Far-left anti-government terrorism now accounts for more attacks and plots in the United States than any other ideological category,” the State Department said in a fact sheet leading up to the summit. “Far-left actors were responsible for 63% of all recorded anti-government attacks or plots as well as three out of the four anti-government fatalities in the United States in 2025.”
Rubio accused the previous U.S. administration and the mainstream media of intentionally excusing or valorizing the problem — citing as an example the infamous 2020 CNN segment in which their correspondent stood near a building set ablaze by rioters in Kenosha with the chyron reading: “Fiery but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting.”
“Left-wing violence was not just excused. It was treated as sacrosanct — a protected class unto itself,” Rubio said. “That era has to end.”
Rubio condemned “radical leftism” as a “distinct and unique evil” that is “driven by hatred against the strong and the good” and “perpetrated by those who cannot build, who cannot create, who cannot achieve great things.”
He appealed to the shared history of left-wing violence among the nations gathered, offering a laundry list of terror cells that previously waged war in Europe and elsewhere, ranging from the “Maoist fanatics” of China to “Marxist guerrillas” in Cuba. He specifically mentioned attacks carried out by Italy’s Red Brigades, the Red Army bombings in Germany, and the assassinations committed by the 17 November Organization in Greece.
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He compared these groups — along with the Weather Underground, Black Liberation Army, Symbionese Liberation Army in the U.S. — to the attempted assassinations against Trump, the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
“Americans have seen what those numbers mean: an all-out assault on our immigration officers, sniper attacks, explosives, armed ambushes, a transgender shooter opening fire on Catholic elementary school students as they prayed — his gun marked with slogans like ‘Where is your god now?'” Rubio said. “A healthcare executive executed in cold blood in the streets. Multiple assassination attempts on a sitting president. And the murder of the greatest conservative activist of a generation.”
