On September 17, 2025, President Donald Trump ignited a fierce national debate by announcing on his social media platform Truth Social that he is designating "antifa" as a "major terrorist organization." The move, coming less than a week after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, has sent shockwaves through political circles, civil liberties groups, and law enforcement agencies alike. While the president’s declaration was greeted with applause from some of his supporters, it has also raised urgent questions about legality, free speech, and the boundaries of executive power.
Trump’s post left little room for ambiguity. "I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION," he wrote. He added, "I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices." According to The Washington Post and Fox News, Trump’s announcement was accompanied by calls for law enforcement to investigate and potentially prosecute those he claims are financially supporting antifa-affiliated groups.
The president’s move comes at a tense moment. The killing of Charlie Kirk by a gunman who allegedly left antifascist-inspired messages on bullet casings has heightened anxieties about political violence. Authorities are still working to fully establish the shooter’s motives, but the incident has been seized upon by the Trump administration as evidence of a “vast terrorist movement” on the left. In a Fox News interview on September 18, Trump suggested that antifa could be responsible for not only Kirk’s death but also for attempts on his own life and attacks against business leaders in New York City. When pressed about whether foreign entities might be funding antifa, Trump responded, "You’re gonna find out. And we’re gonna find out in great detail."
Yet, as the dust settles, legal experts and civil liberties advocates are quick to point out a glaring issue: the United States has no legal framework for designating domestic groups as terrorist organizations. Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, told The Washington Post, "The president does not have legal authority to designate a domestic group as terrorists for good reason, as any such designation will raise significant First Amendment, due process and equal protection concerns." She was even more blunt in a statement to Fox News: "President Trump seems hellbent on targeting real or perceived political opponents based on their constitutionally protected beliefs and speech, and we should all be very clear that he is jeopardizing everyone’s First Amendment rights."
This tension between presidential rhetoric and legal reality is not new. Trump made a similar declaration in May 2020, at the height of nationwide protests following the killing of George Floyd, but no substantive federal action followed. Legal specialists, including Mary McCord, a former acting head of the Justice Department’s national security division, have consistently noted that while the executive branch can label foreign groups as terrorist organizations, no such power exists for domestic entities. “Trump can declare whatever he wants to declare, but there is no legal authority to actually designate a domestic group as a terrorist organization even assuming that antifa is an organization and not just an ideology,” McCord explained to The New York Times.
The ambiguity is compounded by the very nature of antifa itself. While the term “antifa” is shorthand for “antifascism,” it does not refer to a single, unified group. Instead, it is a diffuse protest culture or political subculture, associated with direct action tactics that sometimes cross into illegality or violence. As Jared Holt, a researcher of extremist movements at Open Measures, put it, "‘Antifa’ is short for antifascist and is most often used to reference activists and protesters who support more direct methods of confronting the far right. Some who have self-labeled with the term have engaged in threatening or violent behaviors, but those individuals represent a small number of people who self-identify with the term."
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray has described antifa as a "decentralized ideology," not an organization. The Congressional Research Service concurs, emphasizing that antifa encompasses a wide range of radical views, often aligned with anarchism, communism, or socialism, but lacking the structure of a formal group. Cynthia Miller-Idriss, an American University professor who studies domestic extremism, compared antifa to concepts like "white supremacy" or "Islamist extremism"—ideologies that can mobilize people but are not organizations in the legal sense. "There may be little groups organized around antifa in a neighborhood or community that meet up and share that stance, but it would be very hard to see that as connected in an organizational form that could be tackled," Miller-Idriss observed.
Despite these facts, the Trump administration appears determined to push the boundaries. A White House official told Fox News Digital that the administration is "exploring a wide variety of options to put pen to paper to address left-wing political violence and the network of organizations that fuel and fund it." The official added, "Specifics on what that looks like continue to be discussed." Former acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, who supported Trump’s move, argued, "It needed to happen in 2020, when not only was I in the middle of it, but I think most Americans saw what was going down not only in Portland but around the country, and we saw antifa being very violent." Wolf noted that even without a formal legal designation, Trump’s declaration could spur the Department of Justice and FBI to shift resources toward investigating suspected antifa members, potentially leading to tougher sentences and increased surveillance.
However, this approach has drawn sharp criticism from those who worry about the chilling effect on free speech and political dissent. Representative Dan Goldman of New York said, "I hope he can first define what antifa is, because there is no antifa organization. … He's using the Charlie Kirk murder as a pretext to go after people that he disagrees with." Alex Nowrasteh, a vice president at the Cato Institute, told Fox News Digital, "It's all social media vibes until there is an order from the president of some kind, and that's going to be the dividing line." He added that peacefully adhering to antifascist ideology is "absolutely protected speech" under the First Amendment.
Meanwhile, the administration’s focus on left-wing violence comes as its own Department of Justice quietly deleted a National Institute of Justice study revealing that far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists since 1990. The study found that far-right extremists were responsible for 227 events resulting in over 520 deaths, compared to 42 far-left attacks causing 78 deaths.
Past attempts to label antifa as a terrorist group have fizzled, but observers warn that this time, the administration may be less constrained. Trump’s team has installed loyalists in key positions, and the president has already used federal troops to quell protests in Los Angeles earlier this year—a move a judge later ruled illegal. As the White House continues to explore ways to act on Trump’s declaration, the nation waits to see whether rhetoric will translate into lasting policy—and what the consequences for civil liberties will be.
For now, the designation of antifa as a "major terrorist organization" remains largely symbolic, but the debate it has sparked touches on the very core of American democracy: the balance between security, dissent, and the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution.
