TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Holds an Antifa Roundtable with Internet Personalities, 10.8.25

[Video]

President Donald Trump: Hey, Pam. You were so good yesterday.

Pam Bondi: Thank you.

Trump: Thank you very much. I was just dealing with people from the Middle East, Arab people and other people on the potential peace deal for the Middle East. Peace for the Middle East. That's a beautiful phrase and we hope it's going to come true, but it's very close and they're doing very well. We have a great team over there, great negotiators, and there are unfortunately great negotiators on the other side also. But it's something, I think, that will happen, got a good chance of happening. I may go there sometime toward the end of the week, maybe on Sunday, actually, and we'll see. But there's a very good chance that negotiations are going along very well with dealing with Hamas and many of the countries. As you know, we have Muslim.

All of the Muslim countries are included. All of the Arab countries are included, very rich countries and some that are not so rich, but just about everybody is included. It's never happened before. Nothing like that has happened before. And our final negotiation, as you know, is with Hamas and it seems to be going well. So we'll let you know. If that's the case, we'll be leaving probably on Sunday, maybe Saturday, maybe a little -- a little later than Saturday evening, but that seems to be our schedule. It should be clear to all Americans that we have a very serious left-wing terror threat in our country, radicals associated with the domestic terror group Antifa that you've heard a lot about lately, and I've heard a lot about them for 10 years.

And other far-left extremists have been carrying out a campaign of violence against ICE agents and other officials charged with enforcing federal law. In Chicago, anarchists have surveilled at least four local ICE facilities and posted diagrams of the buildings online, meaning nothing but bad, accompanied by photos of specific ICE agents that they're targeting, one in particular who's a top person and a great person, a great patriot. In July, approximately a dozen Antifa aligned militants stormed the ICE facility in Texas and then lured officers out of the building before firing dozens of rounds at police. They were crazy, frankly, shooting one Texas officer in the neck. And in Portland, Oregon, Antifa thugs have repeatedly attacked our officers and laid siege to federal property in an attempt to violently stop the execution of federal law.

Everything we're doing is very lawful. What they're doing is not lawful. And what the governor and the mayor of -- as an example, you could say of Portland and you can say certainly of Chicago, is not lawful what they're doing. They have to be very careful. In addition, two weeks ago, a radical left terrorist in Dallas conducted a sniper attack on a local ICE facility, killing two people and leaving behind a note that read, hopefully this will give ICE agents some real terror. That's bad. This attack came the very same month that Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a far-left extremist who inscribed the words, hey fascists, catch, meaning catch the bullet, onto the bullet shelf itself. The epidemic of left-wing violence and Antifa inspired terror has been escalating for nearly a decade.

At universities, Antifa has organized riotous mobs to attack campus speakers. I see it all the time, and these are agitators, anarchists and they're paid, and you'll find that out. You'll be finding it out very soon. You should see what we have on these people. These are bad people. These are people that want to destroy our country. We're not going to let it happen. They've used armed gangs to assault local police in cities nationwide and they have attacked journalists reporting on their crimes. So the journalists that reported their crimes, don't worry, you're very safe. I hope that's not going to turn you around, but they have been very threatening to people.

But we're going to be very threatening to them, far more threatening to them than they ever were with us, and that includes the people that fund them, probably some of the people I know, some of the people I dine with. But if they do, they're in deep trouble. So we're going to be looking very strongly at the people that are funding these operations. When you see the signs and they're all made out of a beautiful -- beautiful paper, beautiful, nice, stiff, very expensive paper with beautiful wood handles, all the same, all the same color. They come from very expensive printing machines. These are not people that write out their signs in a basement that believe in something.

These are paid anarchists. At least three of these courageous journalists have personally been victims of Antifa attacks. Andy Ngo has been repeatedly beaten by Antifa thugs for his work in -- Andy is a very serious person too, I have to tell you. I've been watching him for a long time. Is Andy here? That's what I thought. Hello, Andy. I thought that was you. You're looking better than you do out on those streets, huh? You look much better. It's nice to have you. You feel a little safer here, I think, maybe. Well, not that safe because you have them. You have to worry about that. But thank you very much. Andy Ngo has been repeatedly beaten by Antifa and including one assault that left him with a brain hemorrhage.

Only days ago, Nick Sortor was assaulted in Portland by a flag burning mob and we've made it one-year penalty for inciting riots. We took the freedom of speech away because that's been through the courts and the courts said, you have freedom of speech. But what has happened is when they burn a flag, it agitates and irritates crowds. They've never seen anything like it, on both sides, and you end up with riots. So we're going on that basis. We're looking at it from -- not from the freedom of speech, which I always felt strongly about, but never past the courts. This is what they do, is they incite -- when you burn an American flag, you incite tremendous violence.

We have many examples of it, many, many examples of it and it's actually down on tape. And you see things happen that that just don't happen unless it's the flag that's burning. Very recently, Katie Davis Court was hit in the face with a flagpole in Portland by an Antifa radical, leaving her with a very blackened eye. So Katie, thank you very much. and I'd like to also say that I watched Nick. Where's Nick? Is Nick here?

Bondi: Right there.

Trump: Nick? Hi, Nick. That was a rough time you went through. I watched. I hope you got my little note. I wrote you a note.

Nick Sortor: Yeah. I really appreciate that. It helped a lot, because it was a difficult situation. It was very stressful and your note helped a lot. I truly appreciate you sending that.

Trump: I thought it was terrible, actually. I thought it was terrible. So we'll talk about it a little bit. Under the last administration, the Department of Justice targeted faithful Catholics, Christians and patriotic parents as domestic -- domestic extremists. They said, oh, they're extreme because they believe in God. They're extreme because they go to Catholic Church or evangelicals, who are -- everybody was under the gun. Unless you are a really bad, sick person, then they left you alone. Under the Trump administration, we're going after Antifa criminals and all who fund and support their campaigns are in serious trouble, and we have a lot of records already, a lot of surprises, a lot of bad surprises.

It's people that you would never think. I want to thank Attorney General Pam Bondi, who, by the way, yesterday was incredible in Congress. It was amazing and she just did it from the heart, and the brain because she's very smart, in all fairness. But she did it from the heart and she did an incredible -- everybody was talking about it. She exposed some of these fake Senators, these terrible Senators, people like Blumenthal that had a phony war record. For 20 years he talked about what a hero he was and it turned out he never went to Vietnam. For 20 years he talked about being a hero in Vietnam. Then it was exposed when he said what platoon he was with and it was exposed that somebody was watching from that particular platoon. They said, he was never with us. And then he went out and he cried and he was ready to drop out of the election.

And -- disgraceful. And then he looked -- and people like Pam and he starts criticizing her and she's a patriot. They ought to do something with that. You know, we have a young Congressman that's right now in jail for lying about where he went to college and other things. It was, frankly, not good; it was pretty bad, but it was nothing compared to Blumenthal. I mean, what Blumenthal did, he was for 20 years a hero, a great war hero, and then he sits back and, sanctimonious kind of a guy, looks down -- how dare you do this to the American public, you know. What a fake. But I thought Pam was incredible yesterday. As well as Secretary Kristi Noem, who's really out there courageously.

And I appreciate it, Kristi, amazing what you're doing. FBI Director, Kash Patel, who's really coming up with some great information, Kash. It's great, keep it coming because there's plenty of it. Deputy Attorney General, one of the best lawyers you'll ever find, Todd Blanche, who I know personally, is a good lawyer because I'm here. Thank you very much, Todd. Good job, Todd. Let me ask Attorney General Bondi to say a few words and then we'll follow it up with Secretary Noem and Director Patel. And we're going to have some of the people around the table, very courageous people, and they're going to be talking -- journalists almost all -- and they're going to be talking. And we'll take some questions from the press at the end. OK, Pam, please.

Bondi: Thank you, President Trump. And as you made clear, Antifa is a domestic, left-wing terrorist organization. We've seen them on video for years because they wanted to be seen and they got away with it. They beat journalists, they attack courthouses, they attacked police stations, they dox and assault our law enforcement officers. The Biden administration let them commit these crimes with total impunity for years, so did Democrat leaders like Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson. Last week, Independent Journalist Nick Sortor was arrested just for protecting himself against Antifa. I saw it online and I called Nick, I couldn't believe what happened.

He did all this just trying to save our American flag from being burned. He was pushed down and assaulted, yet the local police arrested Nick, not the Antifa thugs who did this to him. Antifa feels empowered to operate in the open because weak Democrats have turned a blind eye to their actions. Their hatred for President Trump and for law and order agendas fuels their violence. We've seen more than a 1,000 percent -- a 1,000 percent increase in attacks against our ICE agents since January 20th. Secretary Noem is out there fighting for you firsthand to keep our federal officers safe, to keep our federal buildings safe and we're not going to have it anymore, these thugs. We saw what's happening in Portland and Chicago, and you saw what happened in Dallas.

No longer. This is not activism, it's anarchy. We can't and we will not let masked terrorists burn our buildings, attack our law enforcement, and intimidate our communities. Under your leadership, President Trump, we're deploying the full might of the federal law enforcement to crack down on Antifa and other domestic terrorist organizations led by Stephen Miller. And Stephen, thank you for everything you're doing. Last week I issued a memo ordering our federal law enforcement agents, DEA, FBI, US Marshals and ATF, to protect ICE officers from Antifa and other radical left-wing violence. Director Patel has been going nonstop. He and Deputy Attorney General Blanche were in Chicago yesterday -- yesterday, while Secretary Noem was in Portland.

We are around this country fighting against this domestic terrorism. We had Apple and Google take down the ICE Block apps. Hope they continue to comply with that. Threatening the safety of our federal law enforcement officers, we're not going to stop at just arresting the violent criminals we can see in the streets. Fighting crime is more than just getting the bad guy off the streets. It's breaking down the organization brick by brick. Just like we did with cartels, we're going to take the same approach, President Trump, with Antifa -- destroy the entire organization from top to bottom. We're going to take them apart. Thanks to your bold leadership and the designation of Antifa as a terrorist organization, which is exactly what they are, Americans will no longer tolerate their unhinged violence. Thank you.

Trump: Thank you very much, Pam. Kristi?

Kristi Noem: Well, thank you, Mr. President, and thank you for hosting today and focusing on Antifa and the terrorists that they are. Let's not make any mistake, these individuals do not just want to threaten our law enforcement officers, threaten our journalists and the citizens of this country, they want to kill them. Their agenda is to destroy the American people and our way of life and this president is standing in their way. He is stopping them from bringing their death and destruction to the individual citizens in this country that just want to raise their kids and their grandkids in peace and in safety. I want to also thank everyone around this table for being so bold and so brave for standing up and recognizing the threat that Antifa is to our way of life.

By recognizing how advanced they are, how sophisticated their networks are, how they've infiltrated our entire country. And we're seeing them play out with their tactics from city to city and how they have built out their funding mechanisms. And sir, I also want to thank our Treasury Secretary for his work in getting to the bottom of these funding mechanisms and individuals who are perpetuating this violence on our American cities. I was in Portland yesterday and had the chance to visit with the governor of Oregon and also the mayor there in town, and they are absolutely covering up the terrorism that is hitting their streets. While you talked about some of the stories of our ICE agents, our Border Patrol agents, how they have been attacked, how they have been shot at, injured, the damage that they've done, these leaders in these local cities, along with Pritzker and Johnson, ignore what's going on or, sir, they're helping Antifa cover it up. We have arrested dozens of individuals that are Antifa members or affiliated with them.

And I want to thank our attorney general for prosecuting them and making sure they never see the light of day again. They have been so bold in making sure we're bringing those individuals to justice. One of the individuals we arrested recently in Portland was the girlfriend of one of the founders of Antifa, and that we are hoping that as we go after her, interview her and prosecute her, we will get more and more information about the network and how we can root them out and eliminate them from the existence of American society.

I want to thank the new journalists here today for telling their stories and for being able and willing to go to the streets and to cover what's happening here in America. Many times, the legacy media has looked the other way, refused to tell the stories. The networks have not really focused on what this is and what damage it is doing to our country and how this network of Antifa is just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TDA, as ISIS, as Hezbollah, as Hamas, as all of them. They are just as dangerous, they have an agenda to destroy us just like the other terrorists we've dealt with for many, many years. And today is the day that we have a president that won't tolerate it and will stand up and fight for the American people. So, thank you for being here, for being so bold and for standing in the gap at such a time as this.

It will matter, it will make a difference, and your life will be one of significance because of what you've done today. So, with that, God bless you and thank you, Mr. President.

Trump: Thank you very much. Thank you. Kash, please.

Kash Patel: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, the American people gave you a sweeping mandate in your victory in this election cycle, and they demanded safety and security for our citizens. And your administration with your leadership has provided us with the resources that we need, which is a whole of government approach to go after criminals absolutely everywhere, not just outside of this country but within this country. And that takes a whole of government approach. The interagency seated up here with the Department of Homeland Security, our attorney general, deputy attorney general and your White House staffers, including Stephen Miller's leadership, has allowed us to go out there and map out these networks. What we are doing at the FBI is simple, it does not require rocket science.

We are following the money. Money never lies and that's what it's going to take to bring down this network of organized criminal thugs, gangbangers and, yes, domestic terrorists because that's what they are. They are harming everyday citizens in every single one of our communities. And the folks you see here on the right and left are some of the bravest men and women we have today. They're reporting the stories live time because the mainstream media won't cover it. They're putting their lives on the line. They're standing up for the flag. The least we can do is stand up for them. So, you have my thanks. I read more of your stories than I do theirs because you guys are putting out the truth.

And we deserve a country where you are protected as equally as they are. We in this FBI will go after with -- the criminals with a vengeance. We will not rest until we find every single seed, money, donor, organization and funding mechanism that we have. And I want to echo the Secretary's comments on Scott Bessent, who is allowing us to map out these networks through their financial criminal activities, which has been going on for decades. And I would like to remind the American public they built this diseased temple of corruption over decades.

And in eight short months, Mr. President, you have crippled their foundation because of your leadership here because of the interagency, because of people like Deputy Attorney General Blanche and because of Attorney General Pam Bondi fearless leadership to go after criminals wherever they are, they will not be able to hide. They were able to hide and conspire with prior administrations and we are exposing their corruption from within and we will go to every single city in this country under Operation Summer Heat and the other operations we are doing at the FBI to bring these criminals to justice. We will arrest every single one of them.

From whatever perch you sit in private or public, no matter how high your goal or your ambition is, it will be crushed by the Constitution because the American people deserve law and order and that's what we're going to give you.

Trump: Thank you very much, Kash. Great job. Maybe we'll start over here. Would any of you like to say something? Feel free. You can say it in front of a fine group of people, also journalists and reporters. Do you want to start? Sure, go ahead.

Sortor: Absolutely. President Trump, members of the cabinet, really appreciate you guys bringing this together and the fact that we are here today on such short notice shows how serious you guys are taking this issue of trans terrorists and the frankly the cities and police departments that are cooperating with Antifa such as Portland. I mean, the Portland politicians are literally willing to sacrifice their own citizens just to appease these Antifa terrorists, it's sickening. I've seen it firsthand obviously. Uh, when I went to jail that night, never expected it to happen. I thought that they were maybe removing me from my own safety.

It never crossed my mind that I was the one that was being arrested for a crime after I was just thrown into a hole. Uh, I heard from the Department of Homeland Security after I had gotten out of jail, uh, and one of your -- I won't say exactly who it was, but somebody very close to, uh, Secretary Noem over here said that they were legitimately worried for my safety in Portland jail. But luckily, the Portland jail was -- I was the only one there essentially because they don't actually arrest people in Portland, uh, besides conservative journalists, I guess. So it -- look, I'm glad that -- it was not a good night for me. Let's just say that. It was not fun sitting in that jail, but I'm glad to see what has come of it and I've been able to talk to a bunch of FBI agents, ATF agents, uh, DHS agents that I didn't even know existed until I went there and went to that ICE facility.

And the morale is at an all time high. It is so exciting to see, uh, these guys know now that they have the backing of the secretary, the DOJ, as well as the president of the United States and they are there to do their job. They are going to fulfill this mission and deport these violent criminals. I believe one of the ones that I did a ride along with with Secretary Noem yesterday, President Trump, and there was a pedophile that had come into the country five times over the past seven years. Seven years. And apparently under the Biden regime that was just allowed to happen, that was fine. No problem. Um, it's concerning to me that you're seeing the Portland Police Department as well as the governor of Oregon and the mayor, of course, coming out and running defense for pedophiles that have entered the country illegally five times.

It's -- it's crazy. I'm glad it's taking a front row seat in the media and, uh, you know, they're being forced to talk about it in reality because, you know, we -- we're the ones that were on the ground, we're the ones that are actually reporting what's going on. Uh, and -- and, you know, much of the legacy media has been either ignoring it or covering for Antifa for years now. So thank you guys so much for taking this seriously and -- and President Trump, you mentioned that flag. So remember you put out a truth right after I --

Trump: -- That's right, I saw that.

Sortor: Took this flag from that, uh, from that man that was burning it in the street.

Trump: Do you know who he is?

Sortor: Oh, yeah, I know exactly who it is.

Trump: So why don't you give it to Pam. Give it to the attorney general and let's start prosecutions.

Sortor: Yeah, I actually have a second flag that he tried to burn as well. So I have two of them.

Trump: You also saw what happened when that flag started burning, everyone went crazy and that's when it started when they started burning the flag. So thank you. If you could give the information, it would be great.

Sortor: Absolutely.

Trump: And at least that horrible night made you famous, you got -- [Laughter] You got something.

Sortor: I got a -- I got a text from the president of the United States. I appreciate that.

Bondi: And President Trump after that happened to Nick I called Harmeet Dhillon and we opened a pattern and practice investigation into the Portland police very publicly as to how they let this happen.

Sortor: Thank you, sir.

Brandi Kruse: Thank you, Mr. President. You're going to -- you're going to hear us be very fired up today and you can tell and it's because some of us have been covering Antifa for 15 years and have never had anyone in a position of authority even acknowledge their existence. And I'll also tell you that I think that had you not done, the single most powerful thing you've done to deal with this scourge has been acknowledging that Antifa is a real thing. I genuinely believe there would be people at these tables who would be dead today and would have been killed in Portland had you not called them a terror organization and said we're going to bring the full weight of the federal government to bear. I talked to Katie Davis in Portland the other day. She'd been assaulted all summer and she said the same thing that seems quick to violence as soon as you made that designation.

So they're thinking in their heads, they're worried. There's been two dozen or so arrested in Portland. They don't want to go to federal prison. There's this video of them, one of them who was in the face of an ICE agent and then he's -- he's in custody, shaking. Once you take the mask off, they're nothing. And I was told by probably a dozen people not to tell you this, I'm going to tell it to you anyway because it's relevant to what we're talking about. I'm living proof that you can recover from TDS. I had strong Trump Derangement Syndrome for probably eight years. It's one -- this is one of the reasons I recovered from it and by the way, it's much better to not have TDS, I'm happier. [Laughter] I'm healthier more successful.

I even think I got a little more attractive -- [Laughter] -- after I got rid of my Trump Derangement Syndrome. Yes, you know, I watched I'm a reporter in Seattle and frankly I could not care less what any of you have to say about this meeting. Could not care any less. We're not here for you. I'm not here to convince any of you that Antifa is a real thing because if you have not come to that conclusion by now, you are never going to come to that conclusion because you don't want to see it. And you're going to go and you're going to say it's a bunch of right wing, conservative influencers who are here spinning a tale.

I was one of you, I was a mainstream reporter in Seattle for ten years. I was a TV reporter on the streets doing my job and I was still assaulted by Antifa. So it's not about being conservative. It's about people who go there and show what they're doing. And when I saw after all those years that the media wouldn't be honest about what was happening, that Democratic politicians wouldn't be honest about what was happening, I thought, well, gosh, if they're not being honest about that, maybe they're not being honest about President Trump either and it opened my mind to just looking at things for what they were.

And now I find you quite funny actually. [Laughter] Now I'm, like I said, I'm much happier about it, but you know for me again, I could not care any less the stories that they go to print. This is what I care about. We have three-and-a-half years, nothing is guaranteed. Although I think if Democrats keep it up, we'll probably have Republican presidents for the next three decades, but nothing is guaranteed. And so what I want to see over the next three-and-a-half years is a full court press to dismantle Antifa once and for all in a meaningful way. I know Andy, we talked before this about some ideas. That's really what we want to -- I don't care what the media says. I don't care what Democrats say. They will never wake up to this fact.

So we want the federal government to take as many of these cases as possible, look at the interstate travel between Portland and Seattle when it comes to these people who are committing violent acts. And hopefully in three-and-a-half years, they will be a shell of their former selves.

Trump: And it's Antifa and many others, unfortunately.

Kruse: Yes.

Trump: There are many others, bad ones. Most have been named terrorist organizations. There are a couple that were going to, but I think we've got it pretty well covered, but there are many others, but very specifically today it's Antifa and it's really bad and we're going to get it cleaned up. Andy, do you have some?

Trump: Thank you very much. I'm glad you no longer have TDS. I feel very good about that. [Laughter] Thank you.

Andy Ngo: Thank you, Mr. President, and members of the cabinet. I have a lot of gratitude and a little bit about my background. I'm born in Portland, Oregon, from there and growing up it's always been left wing, very progressive and I liked it, it had cafes and artists and those who lived a bohemian lifestyle. And in 2016 I was a graduate student at Portland State studying political science. I was an editor at the student paper there, a very progressive paper and I was assigned to cover the election night demonstrations. Well, the elections night protests turned to riots three days of violent rioting in Portland and it was the first time that I saw groups dressed in black with their faces covered. This is for years before COVID, some of them were waving the black flag of anarchism, some the red flag of Marxism and within seconds they would ravage one street to another to another to another. And the next day, I would read the legacy media, which I still read at that time and looked forward to and I looked up to those journalists and I was really shocked to see that the narrative was that these, in my view, anti-democratic political violence was legitimate acts of protest.

Because people were -- they were concerned about racism or all these other lies and so for the next four years, I just continued going out with my video camera. I thought, look, people can ignore what I write because of spin, but videos can quite speak for themselves. And in 2019, it led to me nearly losing my life. I was covering another Antifa protest turned riot. At that point, had been routine in Portland, and then I was ambushed in a mall beating. And I had never been in a fight. I didn't even realize that I was being assaulted until seconds in. And the punches came from everywhere, on my head and my face, and I was bleeding out of my eyes and ears.

And then they threw all the drinks in my eyes to humiliate me further, and to laugh at me. And I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance and a CT scan and I had subarachnoid hemorrhage, which is bleeding in the brain and nearly died. And after surviving that, the reporting that I saw in liberal media was -- it seemed to suggest that I had deserved it because they branded me far right. And some even went so far as to suggest that I maybe faked my injuries. A BuzzFeed reporter asked for my medical records, which I did provide, but this felt so -- it's like, because I didn't die in that attack, there was another round of people who wanted to finish me off, but I continued. And then 2020, Portland was really the epicenter of the longest political violence.

Those months of riots, I was on the ground, undercover. And there was an assassination there. There was a supporter of Donald Trump named Aaron Danielson, who was shot dead by a self-described Antifa member, who then fled out of state and died in a shootout with US marshals. In 2021, I returned undercover, naively thinking that enough time had passed, and was chased through the streets of downtown and beaten, nearly choked out. The person who was trying to choke me out held me so tightly that I had -- the blood -- the vessels in my eyes burst. So one of the symptoms where my eyes were completely red after that and I was hospitalized. So thank you so much for acknowledging Antifa and for directing your administration to treat them as domestic terrorists.

It's going to be really challenging because what they -- how they organize is that they are decentralized, autonomous and they operate on deception. And we're still, to this day, told that they don't exist, that it's a figment of our imagination. I think the DOJ could look at federal conspiracy charges. The state of California and San Diego County last year broke up an Antifa cell in San Diego. And I think, maybe, perhaps the State Department should designate Antifa, its international arm as a foreign terrorist Organization, FTO. So thank you so much for this invitation, Mr. President.

Trump: Thank you. Thank very much, Andy. Great. That's a rough time you had, huh? So the choke out was almost the end, you thought -- you felt?

Ngo: Yeah, that was my only near-death experience in my life and I'm quite shaken when I think about it now. It really feels unbelievable to me that on the streets of America, that this type of violence against citizens could become so routine and accepted and cheered on by people. Although, you know, in the immediate aftermath of Mr. Kirk's assassination, we saw again that type of depravity play out on quite large swaths of the left. So there's a deep sickness that's in this country right now, and it pains me a lot to acknowledge it.

Trump: The amazing thing -- yeah, the amazing thing is you look at Portland and you see fires all over the place. You see fights and, I mean, just violence. It's just so crazy. And then you talk to the governor and she acts like everything is totally normal, there's nothing wrong. What's -- it's almost like, are you waking up from a dream or something? You see it on your network. You see it all over the place. And it's so bad. It's so crazy. It's like the movies you see for the kids, I guess not only the kids, adults also, where you have these bombed out cities and these bombed out people. It's like worse than that. I don't think they could make a movie as bad.

And then the governor will get up and say, I don't know why they're coming here, it's such a wonderful place. And the amazing thing is the people want us to be there, the people. When they get the real people that live there, many of them have left. But the real people want us to be there. Same thing in Chicago. So they've had 60, 70 murders over a short period of time, murders, people that got shot. They've had hundreds of people shot and then a guy like Pritzker, or this low IQ mayor gets up. I mean, he got up -- he's got a five percent approval rating, and the people are all against him. They want people to come.

Beautiful Black women are wearing a MAGA hat last night on television, beautiful people. And they want -- they said, we don't care who comes, just stop the crime. They don't care. Frankly, they don't care if it's National Guard, military, send in anybody you want, stop the crime. And they're afraid to go out. They can't even go out. And then a guy like Pritzker, think of that, 50, 60, 70 people over a short period of time, murdered, actually murdered, mostly gun violence but knives, but gun violence, they're murdered. And hundreds of people shot. They had one weekend where they had like 18 murdered and 71 shot, but they said -- you know what their excuse is, yeah, but it was a long weekend.

In other words, it was a long weekend so that was OK. And then Pritzker gets up and he says like, I don't know what they're talking about, we don't have crime here. They're crazy. I think, actually, they're petrified. You know, their families live there, everything else. I actually think they're scared. Pritzker was a failure in his family. They threw him out of the family business. Guy's a loser, but you know what, they actually -- I believe they're scared. They're actually frightened for their lives. Jack, please, say a few words.

Jack Posobiec: Mr. President -- Mr. President, thank you so much for having us here today and holding this roundtable. Antifa is real. Antifa has been around in various iterations for almost a hundred years in some instances, going back to the Weimar Republic in Germany. And it's now been just under one month since we saw a far-leftist murder Charlie Kirk and we saw thousands upon thousands of people, other far-leftists and people in positions of authority, people like nurses and pilots and doctors and HR departments, celebrating the death and the murder of Charlie Kirk. The sickness that's out there is absolutely real. And Mr. President, thank you for mentioning the fact that one of the bullet casings read, hey, fascist, catch, on it. One of the other bullet casings right next to that had, Bella Chow, written on it. Now, Bella Chow is a song that is known in Antifa circles as the international anthem of Antifa.

And all of us around the world -- around this room that have studied Antifa were very familiar with these symbols. And Mr. President, I think the situation is getting worse. When you look at people like Luigi Maglione, in his 20s; Thomas Matthew Crooks, of course, who took a shot at you, sir; the ICE shooter in Dallas and now this Tyler Robinson, we're starting to see a pattern of more and more murderous violence and this same violence is not just random. It is targeted assassinations which are getting worse. And every single one of us in this room that goes out there, and obviously, you as well, sir, and all the staff, we are now under that threat every single day. And working there at Turning Point USA, and I've spent just about the last month out there in Phoenix with Erika, with the family, with the team, and I will tell you this, Mr. President, even though going through something like that, which is an absolute nightmare and people say, what was it like to speak in front of all those people, it was horrible.

Every second of it was horrible, but we're not going to quit. And Turning Point USA is continuing the tour that Charlie was on. We had 6,000 people when we went back to Utah. We had 5,000 people last night in Montana, if you can believe that. We are continuing to organize on campus. We are getting more and more people coming out in the face of this threat, knowing what happened to Charlie. But Mr. President, we need to do something about this because I fear that the next one who could be killed could be sitting at this table right now, and we're not going to stop but they need to stop, and they will not stop until they are stopped. Thank you.

Trump: Thank you, Jack. I appreciate it very much. One thing I have to say is that Washington, DC was almost as bad. I don't know what could be worse than Portland. You don't even have sewers anymore. They don't even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows, but most of the retailers have left. But Washington, DC was so bad. And Pam, I'd say it took 12-days to really make it pretty good, and a month to make it great. And now people are going out to dinner. The restaurants are booming. They don't have enough seats. They're opening up new restaurants, because many of them closed. And people are walking down the street totally safe.

Reporter -- a reporter, I'm not sure if she's here. I can't see, there's so many reporters. There she is. She was violently assaulted. And I don't know. She tends to be somewhat liberal, but she wasn't liberal on this one.I appreciated your honesty, but you won't -- that won't happen again. It won't happen again. You're lucky you're alive, frankly, with what happened; I know exactly what took place. So, Washington DC, our capital, we thought we'd start there appropriately, and it's safe and people are so happy, they're so happy. And now it's a couple of months, I went to dinner there, I felt totally safe. I gave a press conference right in the middle of the street, which I don't think Secret Service was thrilled about.

But you know, I'll tell you what, I wouldn't have wanted to do it six months ago. It's incredible what happened. Now we're in Memphis, as you know, we're having a great impact in Memphis. It's been only a week, but it's -- Kash, I hear it's been amazing what's happening there just very early. But you take a look at DC and you take a look at some of the other, we've had a big impact. What we haven't said, because Pritzker said, well, crime is going down in Chicago. Well, five months ago cash went to Chicago with a lot of FBI agents just to prepare it. So that we went in with, I guess you could call it a surge, call it whatever you want, but would be even more effective. And we're going to be doing that and very, very strongly doing that because Chicago is a very unsafe city.

It's a great city. The head of the Union Pacific Railroad said, sir, please save Chicago. It's a great city; it can be saved. Other cities are gone. I mean, they're lost, they can get better, but they're just really -- they've been so decimated. But I'm so proud of what they've done so quickly in DC, and it's taking place quickly in Memphis where we were asked to go by the mayor and by the governor. And it's really incredible what we can do and how fast we can do it. Let's go for two more. Would you like to go? And then Katie, you'll go, OK? Please.

Julio Rojas: Yeah, thank you, Mr. President, for having us here. And not to sound like a broken record, but it needs to be said that Antifa is real. It's real. It's a threat. I just saw them last weekend over in Portland while they were causing mayhem over there. And the reason why there's such a big problem is because we have Democrats and a lot of people in the mainstream media refusing to acknowledge that they even exist, right? So, how can we as a country begin to address it when you have large swaths of these people who are supposedly decision makers and people who are supposed to inform, they don't want to say that it exists. Because the common argument is like, well, they're not a real organization because there's no national leadership.

They don't have a national headquarters, so how can law enforcement go after a group that doesn't exist like that? Well, law enforcement goes after criminal groups that organize to rob banks or do smash and grabs. They don't have a registered LLC, they don't have official membership cards, they don't have a business address, but law enforcement still goes after them because they're working as a group. These people don't just show up randomly at the same time to do the same thing, dressed in a very similar fashion, espousing the same ideology. And they say, well, it's an ideology, it's like, well, yes, it's an ideology because there's people alive present that believe in it and they're acting on it. And so, I've been very well aware of what Antifa has been doing.

I was very busy during the riots in 2020. That was probably my most exposure to them prior to this year. I've been at the ICE facility at Broadview, I'm originally from the Chicagoland area unfortunately, but that's where I grew up around. Like I said, I was in Portland. I was covering the riots in Los Angeles as well. And probably one of the most disturbing parts about that is in addition to Antifa being present, they were tagging the streets with CJNG, which is Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, which is a cartel. So, you have these people who are working basically in concert with other terrorist groups to say that we're here, we're present and we're going to attack federal agents and people who are going to expose what we do. And so, to be clear, political violence, sustained political violence that we're seeing in this country is not a both sides issue.

I was at Charlie Kirk's memorial in Glendale recently, conservative gathering, totally peaceful. It was the most peaceful gathering that I've been at. Every other time that I've been covering violence in the streets just this year, forgetting -- just this year it's always been from left-wing people, radical left-wing people -- and it's not even just Antifa anymore. The shooting that happened in -- the defensive shooting that happened in the Chicago area, that wasn't someone dressed in black block. That was just somebody that had taken upon themselves to go out and try to interfere and ram federal vehicles. So, people are becoming more and more radicalized, and it was to be expected unfortunately.

And the reason why we're in this position today is because, after I was done covering the riots, I was at the border from the San Diego sector all the way down to the Rio Grande Valley sector covering the border crisis month after month. And we all knew the solution to that. We all knew why it was happening. It's because, well, it's racist to have a border. Well, actually it's not, but OK. And so, it required you to come back into office and to fix the problem, but it's no longer just a border issue, it's a nationwide issue. And that's one of the reasons why you got elected back into office because, thankfully, the American people said we're not going to deal with it anymore. But unfortunately, there's a lot of people, as we've seen, who are willing to take to the streets to do violence. And that's a scary thing because typically when I was -- in 2020, I was covering Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, I was over in Chaz, and that was to be expected. But now because the issue of immigration, illegal immigration is so widespread, riots can happen anywhere, attacks can happen anywhere.

So, that's why it was weird kind of going back to my home state to cover this violence. I mean, just after the Dallas shooting, they were chanting outside Broadview, shoot ICE, you know, shoot those F-ers. So, I'll just leave that. Thank you so much again for having this. This is very dangerous. We don't work for companies that have billions of dollars. We're running and gunning often on our own. We became friends, a lot of us are friends because we would see each other all the time and we became friends because we wanted to have someone watch our back while we're out there, because like I said, we're just out there. But we'll continue to do it because it's an important topic, it's an important issue. The American people deserve to know what's happening in these chaotic situations and we're more than happy to do it. So, thank you, sir.

Trump: Great job. Thank you very much. Katie, please.

Katie Daviscourt: Hi, Mr. President, it is an honor being here today. And I first wanted to start by thanking you guys for designating Antifa a terrorist group is exactly what this group is. It's a long time coming. I'm an investigative journalist from Seattle. I work for the Post Millennial alongside Andy Gno and Jack Posobiec. I have been infiltrating Antifa cells in Seattle and Portland for the past decade. I know their inner workings and Antifa uses extreme political violence to crush the civil rights of their political enemies and believes that violence is justified by any means necessary. But today I want to focus on what is happening in Portland at the ICE facility.

I've been covering this for the past four months and this is a call out to corporate media who has completely ignored this story or has falsely reported on it. This is nothing short other than a sustained attack on the United States, which is being supported by Democratic elected officials. The Portland Police Bureau has completely abandoned several blocks outside the ICE facility, giving away their jurisdiction to a terrorist group who has spent the past four months harassing, assaulting and intimidating anyone they perceive to be against their cause. Not only have federal agents been relentlessly assaulted for more than 100 consecutive days, black clad anarchist militants concealing their identities behind black facial coverings have been assaulting reporters just for trying to cover their crimes. Today I am sitting here with a black eye and a concussion after being violently hit in the face with a metal pole while reporting outside the ICE facility just this past week.

After the attack, I immediately went to three Portland police officers who refused to detain the suspect. I took the time to chase down the suspect in the streets, had her held for 35 minutes. I was waiting for Portland police to come, and they never came. Then that's what opened my eyes to what this group is actually doing. I watched 20 Antifa militants help my assault suspect escape into an Antifa safe house that is one block away from the ICE facility. And this safe house is where Antifa affiliated protesters are conducting paramilitary operations. It's where they are resting, they're showering, they're eating to continue this occupation.

I have staked out this safe house and have observed shift changes. This group is highly organized. It is being funded through mutual aid groups, and they have no plans of stopping. Residents living across the ICE facility have been held hostage by Antifa. They are begging for federal intervention. The city refuses to help. And they want you, President Trump, to come in and restore law and order. I want to stress the importance of taking this situation seriously because when I first started reporting on this occupation, I went undercover in black bloc. I talked to these Antifa militants. I lasted for about a month. They believe that ICE agents are the Nazi Gestapo who need to be killed. They told me that directly. And I think that if this situation is not taken as seriously as it is, it's just a matter of time before someone gets killed. And thank you for having me.

Trump: Thank you, Katie. It's pretty incredible. The only question nobody can answer is why? Why are they doing this? They're like insurrectionists. They're terrible people, but you really wonder why? Why are they doing it? What are they -- what are they gaining other than they're obviously paid? They're paid a lot of money. Go ahead, please.

Savanah Hernandez: Mr. President, if I can answer that question, the reason why they're doing it is because the same media that's sitting in this room with us has declared all of us at this table Nazis and fascists and they've been doing this for years. This is why Antifa feels emboldened to attack us now. Almost every single person at this table has been threatened with a steel bat. We've been assaulted, we've been harassed, we've been threatened and that is in huge part due to the media. So my message right now is for you guys because two years ago in -- or back in 2020, by the way, I was censored for my reporting on Antifa here in Washington, DC. You were talking about how safe it is now, Mr. President, it wasn't so safe back then then.

Back in 2020, I watched as a father was being mobbed and surrounded by Antifa members as his terrified, crying children looked on in the -- or the police here did nothing. I watched as a woman had her hair violently ripped out of her skull simply for waving an American flag on the streets of Washington, DC. And by the way, if you guys try to go and find any of this footage, you won't find any of it because Twitter deleted all of it because our president shared my reporting and they deleted my entire account immediately after. So now if you want to know what happened in 2020, all you're going to see is the media headlines that said that it was fiery but mostly peaceful. Thanks for that one CNN. The reality is that it was an extremely violent period of time. And for the last ten years, Antifa has been wrecking havoc on law abiding and innocent American citizens and it needs to end.

Now, I'm with Turning Point USA. It's an honor to be here, Mr. President. Thank you guys so much. You know everybody in the administration for giving us a seat at the table because the media has not only been demonizing us for so long, but immediately after the brutal assassination of our founder, Charlie Kirk, our Turning Point USA chapters have seen an uptick in violence across the nation as Antifa chapters that are embedded in our universities go and target them. It's been extremely difficult to report on the ground and for a long time I was afraid to go to Portland because I knew that the only people who would have my back like Julio said were one of my friends on the ground because there is no police force there. I was terrified to go because I knew if I got shot or stabbed and I have been assaulted.

I've been mobbed and robbed in Austin, Texas by Antifa that nobody would come to help me. So my plea to the entire administration, especially to the DOJ is every single radical left winger who is in front of the Ice facility in Chicago, in New York, in Portland, please make sure that you use the full force of the law to come after each and every single one of them because it is us being soft on left wing violence that has fomented all of, you know, the terror that we have seen in this country. And it is the left wing getting away time and time again with assaulting law-abiding American citizens that has led us to this place. So truly to the Americans that I speak to on the ground, they feel completely abandoned by their state and local government. So please step in. You have Americans begging for the National Guard and to the media over here please report on the truth.

Please do your jobs. I'm an American citizen. Everybody at this table simply views ourselves as American citizens who have an iPhone and the will to actually tell the truth. So please take your job seriously and tell the truth to the American people and thank you for letting me be here on behalf of Charlie to continue his legacy of cleaning up the country. Thank you, Mr. President.

Trump: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Wow, you feel very strongly.

Hernandez: I can see I'm mad, I got beat up so many times, Mr. President. My friends have gotten beaten up and I want to cry right now from happiness because we have been completely ignored for so long. For almost ten years we've been getting assaulted on the streets. I have watched children cry as their parents have been attacked on the streets. That should not be happening at our nation's capital. So please again the DOJ, please utilize the full force and go after each and every single one of these people.

Trump: Fantastic, thank you very much. Great -- great job. Impassioned. That's important because you should feel like that. Please, go ahead.

Seamus Bruner: Mr. President, thank you for having us here --

Trump: -- Thank you.

Bruner: -- and bringing together this panel of brave, brave journalists. Uh, everybody on this side of the room and, uh, no one can speak to the violence better than these people here. So, uh, I think we know that this is not just a story about violence and chaos as you alluded to, Mr. President, this is a money story. And at the Government Accountability Institute, my colleague and I -- Peter Schweizer and I and our team, we follow the money and we followed it to the top of what we call the protest industrial complex, Riot Inc. Uh, and we found a network of NGOs. It's not just the Soros network, the Open Society network, it's other funding networks, the Arabella funding network, the Tides funding network.

Uh, Neville Roy Singham and his network, Foreign Cash, and it's also big left-wing funders. Some of them are not citizens of this country, uh, Mr. Hans-jürg Vis of Switzerland. They're pouring money into this entire ecosystem. And so I want to share three money facts with you about what we call Riot Inc. Number one, like -- like any corporation, rioting has many divisions, it doesn't just have the Antifa boots on the ground division. It has PR divisions, it has marketing divisions. It has a very well-funded legal division to get these boots on the ground back on the streets as quickly as possible. Um, but it does have those investors that I mentioned.

Number two, we have identified dozens of radical organizations, not just the decentralized Antifa organizations, but dozens of radical organizations that have received more than $100 million from the Riot, Inc investors. These would be the lawyer groups. These would be the groups that advocate for calling good honest Americans, fascists, etc. Uh, and then three, I think the most shocking thing is that we have found that more than $100 million in U.S. taxpayer funding has flowed into these funding networks, including at least $4 million to these very groups themselves, not just Antifa types. But, uh, there was an event in Atlanta called Stop Cop City.

Over 60 rioters were charged with domestic terrorism. These groups received money for that from both the billionaire class as well as taxpayer money. So uh, one other thing, this money helps fund the decentralized crowdfunding platforms. Uh, these are ways that Antifa, the John Brown Gun Club of Elm Fork, which had links to that attack on the ICE facility, the Socialist Rifle Association. And just because they don't have LLCs or EIN numbers doesn't mean they can't get paid. Some of these funding platforms, crowdfunding platforms are funded by this network that we call rioting. So again, I want to thank you for your leadership for the whole cabinets cabinet's leadership on this. We're going to keep following the money and appreciate everything you're doing, sir.

Trump: Do you know the name of any of the funders? Do you know the names? Because if you do, I'd like you to give them to Kash or Pam.

Bruner: Absolutely.

Trump: Or Kristi.

Noem: Yeah, we'll -- we'll do that.

Trump: As soon as you can. That's all of you because you probably know the names after a certain period of time, you tend to find out. But these are people that do not have good intention for the country and it's treasonous probably. So if you could -- if you very important, if you could do that, it would be great. Nobody would know better than you. You'll figure it out. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Nick Shirley: Yeah, my name is Nick Shirley. I'm 23 years old. I'm 100 percent independent YouTube journalist. And over the past year or so, I've been able to go to 15 countries. I've hung out with people in the gangs of Brazil in the favelas and the prisons of CECOT. But yet the most dangerous places I have been -- have been here in the United States unfortunately and I've had the opportunity to show people about the protest Antifa here in the United States. And there's nothing organic about what they are doing here in the United States. I've watched people be bussed in from states. I've watched the same lady at a protest in Atlanta, be bussed to the protest in DC and then in New York City, uh, there's nothing that is honest about what they are doing. And they have signs -- I've seen the same signs here in DC and in London as well.

It's a big organization -- incorporation that they're running and people may wonder like what's the threat to us as Americans if we go. Well, you'll be labeled as a fascist. You'll be labeled as a Nazi. And they'll wish death upon you because they wish death upon me. And just last week in Portland, Oregon, I watched a lady get trapped in her car surrounded by Antifa and her sister messaged me after seeing the video. She said the only reason I think my sister was safe is because you were there recording. I also was chased out by a member of Antifa who said he would smoke me. And next thing, he knew a DHS sniper had lasers on his chest. If he was not there, who knows what would have happened that day. These people are very dangerous and people wonder how they're able to do it. It's the -- the reason is because these -- these cities are not enforcing the law.

And why should these people be worried if the law is not being enforced And we are not far right, nor are we far wrong, we're just right. And the truth about what's happening here in America with these groups is very dangerous. And I thank you, Mr. President and your administration as well for acknowledging that.

Trump: Thank you very much. It's too bad. You have to go through it.

Shirley: I know it's crazy, right, Mr. President?

Trump: Well, you're going to get to the bottom of it. So it's a very important thing you're doing. Thank you very much. Please, Cam.

Cam Higby: Yeah, I've just got something very short. I'm attacked every time I do my job. When I leave my house to go to work. I am violently assaulted. I've had guns pulled on me. I've been bear sprayed, I've been beaten down, I've been almost killed. If every time you showed up to work masked militants tried to kill you, because that's how we feel, that's our lived reality. And you guys go and tell us that we're liars, the riots aren't that bad, right? I've never seen any of you guys on the ground. In fact, I've never seen anybody representing the companies you work for on the ground. You guys come to us for interviews that never get published. Stop saying we're lying, we're not -- we risk our lives every day to do the job that you guys are too afraid to do.

Trump: What network would you say is the worst if I could ask? [Laughter]

Higby: Oh, man, that's a really tight spot.

Trump: Honestly, it's a simple question and just --

Higby: There's a lot of people in this pool. And I would say, I'm not talking about Fox. I'm not talking about Newsmax or any outlet that resembles them. So, I'll let you guys put the pieces together on who I'm exactly talking.

Trump: Who would you say, which network?

Higby: MSNBC for sure.

Trump: Oh, they're terrible, I agree.

Higby: CNN probably close.

Trump: Yeah, yeah, I'd rate it that way. Yeah, MSNBC, that's Brian Roberts, that he allows that to happen is a disgrace. And CNN is second. I would say CNN is not quite as bad as MS.

Higby: MSNBC is not really a news site anymore.

Trump: Oh, MSNBC is sick, they're sick.

Rojas: Well, sir, it's also just the stories that they publish about the ICE enforcement operations that are so heavily slanted that it's no longer, as I was saying, no longer just Antifa, but Americans that are becoming radicalized. So, they've been very irresponsible with how they've been reporting on --

Trump: Who is that?

Rojas: MSNBC. For example, they're --

Trump: Would you rate them the worst?

Rojas: Probably. They ran a story --

Trump: Who would you rate second?

Rojas: Well, they ran a story about an operation in Southern California about how a father of three Marines was arrested, and they made it seem like they just did it because he's brown. But there's video of that same man charging at the agents with a weed whacker. Now I've worked with weed whackers back in the day and you don't want to be on the receiving end of one of those. So, that's why he was arrested, but the story was presented as if it's a brown guy just simply being arrested. And I've been around ICE agents and you know I'm a citizen. So, I feel fine, but it's just -- that's why, it's not just Antifa, it's not happening in a vacuum --

Trump: No, it's working in conjunction -- I think they work in conjunction with some of the media. I think ABC is very bad. I think NBC is very bad and CBS has a new owner. So, we have hope for CBS. CBS has a great new owner in my opinion. But I will tell you, ABC is terrible. NBC is terrible. NBC, MSNBC too -- you know they changed it. They moved it over legally so they couldn't be tainted by the words MSNBC. But they are absolutely terrible, a lot of them. What about independents, independent networks?

Rojas: They're a little bit better, but I would say that we're an example of how you don't need to be part of a super large company to be able to do just basic journalism. All you've got to do is sit and record and you'll let the story play out and that's why that's why they hate us. That's why Antifa turns on us.

Trump: Well, I watched a level of dishonesty that's incredible where answers are changed -- like just before the election, an answer was changed by Kamala. She gave a horrible death-defying, election-defying answer and they took the answer out and they replaced it with another answer that she gave five minutes later having to do with a different subject, but at least it wasn't election defying. No, the level of dishonesty with the media is incredible, whether it's on Antifa or many of the other groups. You know, you're talking about Antifa and I know that's close to your heart because that's the one that's most affecting you. But there are others that are as bad or almost as bad as Antifa having to do with different people, different sections of the world. But it's terrible, we're not going to let it go on in this country. We're not going to let it go on. And a big problem is not all of them, but some of the networks out there -- and you do wonder why, you really do. OK, please. Go ahead, yeah.

Jonathan Choe: Mr. President, thank you again. My name is Jonathan Choe; I am an investigative reporter for Frontline's Turning Point USA. I'm also a senior fellow at Discovery Institute in Seattle. And I cover far left extremism as well as the homeless drug crisis in America. And I find it oftentimes those worlds intersect. And hot off the presses, what I wanted to bring to your attention today is a report from a Capital Research Center here in DC in conjunction with Discovery Institute. They just put out this study right now. And what it shows is that Antifa is heavily embedded in the homeless and housing nonprofit sector.

In many cases, the homeless industrial complex is running cover for Antifa. Antifa is benefiting from American tax dollars and they're essentially being used as the muscle. Let me give you an example. There's a group called Stop the Sweeps in many US cities right now, they get in front of encampment sweeps. What they're doing quietly is they're bringing in Antifa militants to manufacture a crisis to make the police look bad. Another group right now that is behind Antifa and working with Antifa very closely, based on the research that we have right now that we're going to give to you and your team, are the Democratic Socialists of America, also known as DSA.

Again, these far-left progressive groups tend to be aligning themselves with Antifa. So finally, in closing, what I wanted to thank you again, Mr. President is that a few months ago, earlier this year, you put out an executive order on homelessness and the drug addiction crisis in America and that's sent the entire homeless industrial complex on the run. You have absolutely moved the needle and changed the game. But what's also come out again is that there is a connection, a deeply embedded connection with the homeless housing nonprofit game in America connected to Antifa and the far-left activists. And finally, I just wanted to say that all of our resources at Turning Point USA and Discovery Institute are at your disposal, and we will continue again to carry on the legacy of Charlie Kirk. He would have wanted us to pursue and chase the story.

Trump: Well, he was a good friend of mine, as you know, and he helped us get elected. Us, it really is us. It's even some of them, but not too many of them, not enough of them. And did you notice when we mentioned CNN and MSDNC, the cameras went off -- two of the cameras immediately went off, but they're not going to cover it anyway. The problem we have is that this is a very important meeting, but you'll see very little press about it. These are major statements being made by major people, including the people right here, and you're not going to see too much about it. They don't like to cover this kind of thing. It's very dishonest what's going on there. I think the press is a big a big factor. Please, go ahead. Thank you, James.

James Klug: Mr. President, thank you so much for having us all here to bring attention to this matter. You did mention MSDNC, CNN and a handful of those other outlets that have been lying about various things, but especially what ICE -- the brave men and women over at ICE have been doing. I was talking to Antifa members in Portland the other day and a lot of these people genuinely believe -- they buy these lies and they genuinely believe that they're fighting against literal Nazis and not brave men and women that are putting their lives on the line to basically enforce basic immigration law, right, that everyone seemed to agree with up until maybe a few years ago, a handful of years ago.

So, once again, thank you so much for having me. My name is James Klug. While my primary job is traveling around the country, having conversations with Americans about various political topics and issues, I have had a lot of run ins with Antifa over the last five years. And I do think that Antifa is a primary reason why many conservatives are afraid to go out and protest and make their voices heard and maybe bring friends and family to a demonstration and exercise their First Amendment right, because they are literally deathly afraid. And I talk to these people all the time, they're afraid of militants showing up in black bloc and hurting them and their families. And I have witnessed -- I have personally witnessed Antifa assaulting hundreds of police officers. I've witnessed them firebombing police departments and federal property. I've witnessed them making death threats against federal agents, police officers, journalists.

I think I've witnessed every single person here maybe -- maybe not personally, but I've seen them get hunted down and attacked. And so, this is a group that is responsible for a good percentage if not a majority of the violent riots in 2021 and 2020 when Democrat mayors had kind of a hands-off approach with these left-wing militants. Just as a quick reminder for everybody, we're talking about dozens of murders that happened in those riots. We're talking about billions of dollars of damage to property in communities all over the country. We're talking about thousands of officer injuries. So, this isn't just like some little thing that they're -- oh, they punch a journalist here and there.

No, they're responsible for a lot of damage and a lot of people that have unfortunately died and are basically suppressing people's voices. And so, what I do want to talk about is to get this footage -- almost every single person in the room here to get this footage, you have to go undercover because you are at risk of being beaten or worse, you have to go undercover. You have to film low key to capture them committing crimes. This is stuff that the mainstream media was not doing and has not been doing. They'll show when Antifa is maybe -- it's a little bit more peaceful and they'll show when it's more mellow, but they'll remove the cameras when things get violent and it's actually dangerous to be here.

And I have personally witnessed legacy media vans showing up at a riot 300 yards away, getting out of the vehicle, filming for 30 seconds, saying something like fiery but mostly peaceful full packing up and to add insult to injury, you have Democrat politicians that are saying it's just an idea, right? That's all this is. So it's just an idea. After all of this chaos, it's just an idea. Well, that idea has threatened to kill me and many of my friends that are here today. So, Mr. President, thank you so much for bringing this to the forefront. And, uh, it's definitely making a big change. I really appreciate you.

Trump: Uh, one question, so why is it there are numerous groups. I mean, Antifa is terrible, but you have other groups that I guess probably are almost as bad or just as bad, uh, not one other group was mentioned. I'm sort of surprised at that. Uh, you just come into contact with Antifa. It seems to be that you mostly come into contact with Antifa. Please.

Kruse: There's a lot of overlap and I would say that for instance, Jonathan brought up the Democratic Socialists of America. They're basically the same thing. I mean there's a lot of Democratic Socialists of America who are out there in black bloc, you know, hiding their faces. And so I think we use -- and I do understand. For the record, I do understand the challenge, as Andy pointed out, with Antifa as a graspable entity, I do. Um, but at the end of the day, when you look at behavior, you prosecute behavior, right? We're not prosecuting ideas or ideology, you're prosecuting behavior. So whether you can prove that this amorphous thing is Antifa or someone has a patch that says Antifa, it doesn't matter, you know, did they assault someone?

Did they assault a federal agent? Uh, were they engaged in rioting? What is it? And so, it's -- they're always using that, oh, well, they don't call themselves Antifa, even though some of them literally do, it's called Rose City Antifa. How long has it been around in Portland, Andy?

Ngo: Since 2007.

Kruse: They call themselves Antifa. In Seattle, I was outside the federal building and they were yelling, there's no police here. This is Antifa land and at the same time Democrats like our governor are Antifa is an idea, um, but yeah, I think Antifa can overlap with a lot of other entities and organizations.

Trump: Ok, very good. Thank you.

Sortor: You know, President Trump, I just wanted to add this real quick because you were asking which mainstream media outlet is the worst. What I think it's any of them that decided to call Kilmer Abrego Garcia, Maryland dad. Because when I'm out there on the street talking to these people, you know, they call Maryland, dad is this, this human -- he's actually a human trafficking, uh, uh, MS-13 gang member that's illegally in the country. But the amount of people on the street that I spoke with that thought that he was a US citizen that was being deported to Uganda is -- is dangerous. These people genuinely believe based on what comes out of the, the garbage standing over here that you guys are deporting US citizens. So that's what's causing these problems.

Trump: That's also when you have a governor like, uh, Pritzker in Chicago where you have, uh, Illinois, which is in a lot of trouble. Chicago's there, you know, potentially great city. Again, it's not great now, but it could be great again. That's why we have to get there soon because eventually you can't do that. Um, what makes a man like that say that things are wonderful.? Why doesn't he say we love that President Trump is going to come and help us clean up Chicago and make it safe again as opposed to fighting us and pretending that there weren't 50 murders and 200 shootings and all of that? Why? Uh, why is that? Uh, go ahead, Nick.

Sortor: Despite you -- despite you despite the administration, that's -- that's simply what it's about at this point because you know, if you go and talk to some of these citizens -- like, I'll use Portland as an example, again because I've been there for so long now. You talk to the neighbors that live in the apartments next door to the ICE facility. They are -- they there are veterans with PTSD that live there and they're here all night long, screaming, fireworks being lit off by these rioters. Children crying because they can't sleep at night and they're scared of -- of -- of all the noise outside and they can't leave, they can't -- I -- they got a lease, you can't just just leave.

These people aren't wealthy individuals and that's one of the major problems and these people are afraid to come out and speak out and they're getting no help from their government at all. They've been begging for the noise ordinance to be enforced outside of their apartment complex for months now in the city of Portland has ignored them every single time. The victims are, as I said, they're afraid, but the governments aren't doing anything because they -- they want to spite the administration. It's all political. And the politicians make you feel like uh like you're foolish like there's something wrong. How could President Trump be saying that about Chicago and yet the night before you see that you know, 11 people were shot, five people died and you have them talking about like it's a wonderful situation. It's -- they make you feel guilty.

Trump: And a lot of people don't get over that. They just don't get over it. I think they convinced the people. Do wealthy people leave to or not places like Portland? Are the wealthy people leaving People that can leave, are they leaving?

Kruse: I think that they're moving to the areas that have been gentrified. I mean, the Oregon governor when she was saying we don't need Trump here, she's walking around. It's a very tight shot. If you notice that and she said Portland's just fine. You know, look at me and they'll focus on the couple areas of Portland.

Trump: But she was saying that and there were explosions in the background.

Kruse: Yeah, I mean there was a reason --

Trump: -- I mean, the explosions in the background, anybody have anything else to say over here?

Unidentified: Yeah, well, just a second.

Trump: And then we'll get -- should we be taking questions or is it just a waste of time because they can ask questions. But well, there's Brian, he's good. But you know what ? Uh, in a way it's a waste of time because if you give a great answer, they don't put it on. If you give a horrendous answer or even if you get a -- give a great answer, they make it sound like it's not a great answer. They're very dishonest. Go ahead, Nick.

Shirley: Yeah, and I think part of that dishonesty comes from what they see. For instance, I've never been asked to go on any other show besides Fox News. My clips go viral everywhere, but they've never even asked. Like, CNN's never asked, MSNBC's never asked. And a lot of times when I go to hotels, I'll stay and I'll watch like --

Trump: Fortunately, their ratings are terrible.

Sortor: They are terrible.

Trump: MSNBC is dying and CNN is dying like a dog and poor CNN. It's so pathetic.

Shirley: It is very pathetic.

Trump: Do you ever see their anchors in the evening? Nobody ever heard of them. Where do these people come? You could -- I could take anybody off the street in Washington, DC they'd do a better job.

Shirley: And it's not hard to show what's going on these days. You literally have an iPhone and you can post it on --

Trump: -- They don't believe in the star system, you know, it's just one of those things, right. Ok. Nick, you finished? Nick, are you finished Nick? Good job.

Shirley: Yeah. Thank you very much.

Trump: Thank you very much. Well, you've been through hell, I tell you that, but you're really incredible patriots, incredible people. Go ahead. Please, Brian. Brian, go ahead.

Question: I'm so thankful for each and every one of you here right now and I'm very grateful that my network, Real America's Voice has partnered up with many of you. Jack Posobiec, you have a show on a network. Many of you, Savanah, have appeared on a network as well. So thank you for being here. My question is this.

Question: In terms of following the money, I would just notify that the City of Austin is clear to vote tomorrow to basically waive $120,000 fee so that a No Kings, basically an anti-Trump rally can occur in their city. They're bypassing the fees, rolling it to the taxpayers. So my question is to you, what can the people of Austin, Texas do right now to make sure that their tax dollars don't fund a No Kings anti-Trump rally coming up?

Trump: Well, you just tell me, I would love to do something about that, bring a lawsuit, do something. You know, the best thing you can do is have honest elections because the elections are totally rigged in. So many of these places, you know, you take a look, the people, they're all loving you, they -- they can't breathe. They love so much every one of them. You don't see one negative. Then all of a sudden you lose the election by 20 points. The elections are so rigged and we proved that in 2020 more than any other time. But even the last election, there were areas that I won by much more. We won in a landslide, but I actually won in more of a landslide than we thought.

I said you got to get out, make it too big to rig and the -- fortunately the people made it too big to rig. They tried, they tried. But the biggest thing you can do is have honest elections and if you don't have -- and you need great media. You need great -- you need borders -- you need borders, you need -- wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You need borders, you need honest media, you need honest elections and you have a great country and you need -- and you need all three of them. Yeah, go ahead.

Question: [Inaudible] at times to allow these radical groups that you talked about inside here. So thank you for

Note: [Crosstalk]

Trump: I would like you to make a big deal though if they're waving a fee, but I guarantee they wouldn't wave it if it was a -- it's not Trump. If it were a conservative rally, they wouldn't be waiving it. So maybe you can look into that, Pam? Todd? That sounds like a -- that sounds like one for Todd, Pam. Go ahead, Todd. Good luck.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Do you have proof that Antifa actually --

Trump: -- Who are you with? Who are you? What network?

Question: I'm with Al-Arabiya. It's an Arabic network based in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, but I am the foreign puller today. Mr. President, you said that you might go to the Middle East on Sunday. Do you mean Egypt and Israel? And would you consider going to Gaza to see what things

Note: [Crosstalk]

Trump: I would -- yeah, I would -- I might do that, I may do that. We haven't decided exactly. I'll be going to Egypt most likely. That's where everybody is gathered right now and we appreciate that very much. But I'll be making the rounds as the expression goes. I probably will. Go ahead.

Question: Mr. President, just to clarify, you said you might go to Gaza. You're saying --

Trump: -- Who are you with?

Question: I'm with -- I'm representing the TV pool, but I'm with NBC, sir.

Trump: That's too bad. Go ahead.

Question: Well, just to clarify, you said you might go to Gaza. And then the second question I had, earlier today, you said the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois should be jailed. Have you asked the Justice Department to look at possible charges?

Trump: No, I've seen the law and when you have a group of people where the police call off the safety for ICE officials, I've understood that, and I've read it today in numerous journals, that that's illegal. What they did is the -- I guess it was ICE, Kristi, right? They were under threat, and the police were helping beautifully, and it was fine. And then all of a sudden, a woman was on the line saying everybody move back, move back, get out, get out. And they were given an order by the second person in the police department. And the governor knew about it; the mayor knew about it. I understand that's a criminal offense. Do you want to comment on that, Kristi?

Noem: Yes. Sir, we're seeing that kind of pattern happen with local law enforcement and state law enforcement, not just in Illinois but also out in Oregon too. In fact, in Portland, I was there yesterday, but some of the ICE officers were telling me that as they drove by the rioters that were saying kill ICE agents, Molotov cocktails, melt ICE, that the Portland police were cheering them on and had their fists in the air cheering on the rioters that were threatening their lives. So, in Chicago, we had a 10-car caravan trail our ICE officials and pin them down and those ICE officials to get out of their vehicles, a woman tried to ram them and run them over and they -- shots were fired to get them to safety. So, it's happening on a regular basis. And any elected official that allows this to happen and gives cover to those kinds of individuals who are perpetuating murder should absolutely be prosecuted in my opinion.

Note: [Crosstalk]

Trump: Daniel?

Question: Thank you.

Trump: And by the way, we have Marco Rubio. Marco, come on up here, please. He's going to bring a little stability to this group, come on up. Does everybody know Marco Rubio? Is there anybody that doesn't? Some of the reporters don't. That's why they shouldn't be reporters.

Marco Rubio: Which job is he here for today, sir?

Trump: Come on up here, Marco, anything we should know about the Middle East?

Rubio: That's what we're hoping to talk to you about here, Mr. President, once they leave.

Trump: [Laughter] He's doing a good job. He was born for this job. I can tell you. Daniel, please.

Question: Thank you very much. I have two questions for you, if that's OK. Seamus talked a little bit about the money aspect of this. Do you believe if you go after where the money is coming from with Antifa -- in regards to Antifa, do you believe that would be similar to cutting the head off the snake, so to speak?

Trump: It would help. You know, I don't know that it would be totally complete, but it would certainly -- you'd knock out 75 percent, 80 percent, 85 percent. These people -- a lot of them don't believe it. When they -- I watch them, I say I can almost tell a pro by they're like professionals. That's all they do, and they get paid by somebody. I think it would knock out a lot of it, yeah, not all of it, maybe, but a lot of it.

Question: And then a follow up to that is a lot of the people who we've listened to over the last hour, they've emphasized that Antifa, it's not necessarily this big organized thing. It's a bit ambiguous, it's disorganized, I think that's one of the words that Andy used. What are the challenges of going after a group that makes it intentionally difficult to go after and find? That could be for you, the attorney general, anyone up there.

Trump: Well, they're smart people and they deceive. A lot of them are crooked people, a lot of them have been staying out of trouble their whole lives and they've been bad from the day they were born frankly. But these are sick people. Pam, go ahead, please.

Bondi: Well, they're smart, but they're not smart enough. They -- oh, my microphone's broken. They're smart, but they're not smart enough. They have been covered by these liberal cities for so many years. And that's why we're all working with Treasury, with all these different departments to find the criminal conspiracy.

Trump: I'm just given --

Note: [Crosstalk]

Trump: Yeah, I was just given a note by the secretary of state saying that we're very close to a deal in the Middle East and they're going to need me pretty quickly. So, we'll take a couple of more questions. Please.

Note: [Crosstalk]

Question: Thank you, sir. I also have two questions for you, if I may. Have you given any more thought to possibly suspending habeas corpus to not only deal with these insurrectionists across the nation, but also to continue rapidly deporting illegal aliens?

Trump: Yeah, it's been suspending who.

Question: Habeas corpus.

Trump: Oh, I don't know. I'd rather leave that to Kristi. What do you think?

Noem: No, sir. I haven't been a part of any discussions on that.

Trump: All right, go ahead.

Note: [Crosstalk]

Question: [Inaudible] in the ceasefire?

Trump: This is CNN speaking, by the way, so.

Question: Are you personally participating --

Trump: This is one of one of the worst reporters that you'll ever see. I don't even want to take a question. It's a waste of time. Go ahead.

Note: [Crosstalk]

Question: How will you decide which workers get back pay and which workers do not?

Trump: Well, we're going to see. Most of them are going to get back pay and we're going to try and make sure of that. But some of them are being hurt very badly by the Democrats and they therefore won't qualify.

Note: [Crosstalk]

Trump: Go ahead, please.

Question: What will the administration do to foreign Antifa organizers and funders who are located overseas?

Trump: Go ahead, in the yellow, please.

Question: Mr. President, so the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday. You've been nominated by many world leaders.

Trump: By many, many countries, that's right.

Question: Countries as well as the hostage families. Do you think you will win?

Trump: I have no idea. I mean, look, I did settle -- Marco would tell you we settled seven wars, we're close to settling an eighth, and I think we'll end up settling the Russia situation which is horrible. 7,000 people died last week by the way in Russia -- between Russia and Ukraine. I think we'll settle that.

Trump: So, I don't think anybody in history settled that many, but perhaps they'll find a reason not to give it to me, you know. Perhaps they will.

Note: [Crosstalk]

Question: Thank you so much, Mr. President. Going to the shutdown quickly, what is your position on the extension of healthcare subsidies, which is what Democrats are asking for?

Trump: All I want to do is very simple. I want to get the country open and then we're going to discuss that, and we'd like to -- Obamacare is a horrible mess and it has been from the beginning. We want to make it better, stronger, even if it costs more money, it costs more money, we want to make it better. The Democrats want to make it worse. The Democrats want to improve healthcare for illegals coming into our country, many of them coming in from prisons and mental institutions and drug dealers. They want to give them healthcare. We don't want that for our people because that's going to destroy the healthcare that we already have. We'd like to make Obamacare better, better for people, less expensive and better healthcare. Yes, ma'am.

Question: I'm wondering if you've been briefed on the organization and funding of Antifa and, if so, what have you learned?

Trump: Mr. President, I have been and they have pretty good knowledge, but they're going to have a very good knowledge. And I really asked these very brave patriots that we're surrounded with today to let us know because I think you probably have some pretty good ideas. And even if you're not sure, let us know and we'll figure it out, OK, if you could do that.

Note: [Crosstalk]

Question: Can you specify --

Trump: You're from Italy?

Question: No, I'm from France. Can you specify how close we are to the deal? Would that be announced today or tomorrow? And do you want to see the hostages released before you travel to the region?

Trump: No. I think I'll probably go maybe before the hostages are released or shortly thereafter, pretty much shortly thereafter. Yeah, please.

Note: [Crosstalk]

Question: in the negotiations?

Trump: Go ahead, who are you with? Who are you with?

Question: Center Square. I had the honor of asking you originally if you would designate Antifa a terror organization. And I stand here before you today and I'm echoing what Andy said over here. Are you going to work with your administration as the Secretary of States here? Are you going to work with the administration to designate a foreign terrorist organization?

Trump: You mean it a terror?

Question: Antifa.

Donald Trump: Antifa.

Question: A foreign terror organization?

Trump: Well, has that been done? Pretty close, right? Would you like to see it done?

Posobiec: Yes, Mr. President.

Trump: Do you think it would help?

Posobiec: They have foreign links all across western Europe.

Trump: I'd be glad to do it. I think it's the kind of thing I'd like to do, if you'd like. Does everybody agree? If you agree, I agree. Let's get it done, OK? Let's get it done. Marco will take care of it.

Question: Mr. President.

Trump: That's international you mean, international. Sounds good to me. Steve, are you OK with it?

Stephen Miller: Yes, it's true. There are extensive foreign ties, and I think that would be a very valid step to take.

Trump: Good, I think so too. Good, I think it's a good point. Thank you.

Note: [Crosstalk]

Question: On the shutdown, we are now about one week away from military service members missing their paychecks.

Trump: We'll always take care of our military.

Question: Would you encourage Congress to pass a standalone bill to pay our service members?

Trump: Yeah, that probably will happen. We don't have to worry about it yet. That's a long time. You know what one week is for me? An eternity. One week for me is a long time. We'll take care of it. Our military is always going to be taken care of. Yeah, please, blue dress, blue.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Rebecca with Blaze News. I'm curious to know -- you're talking about the money funding these Antifa organizations and somebody brought up Roy Singham, I think it was you, who by the way is married to one of the co-founders of Code Pink, this infamous left-wing organization. I'm curious to know the administration's --

Trump: Who is that? Who is that?

Question: Roy Singham, he's married to --

Trump: Did you say they're here?

Question: No, he's not. A journalist brought him up, but --

Trump: Oh, I see. OK. OK, good. Good bring up. Go ahead.

Question: He's somebody who's been reported on extensively, and I'd love to know what the administration is going to do to actually bring consequences to some of these names. You mentioned --

Trump: Well, I don't know the name, but I would like to ask Pam to take a look at it. You know, a lot of the best information we find are through you and other people like you. So I'd like you to look at it, Pam.

Note: [Crosstalk]

Trump: In the back, please.

Question: Thank you so much. President Trump, it's been actually very compelling proof that Antifa did infiltrate on January 6th, dressed up like Trump supporters and incited violence. Is that something that you would want the new J6th committee at Congress to look into?

Trump: Well, I've heard that. They dress up like, you know, they're fresh out of MAGA, but they have nothing to do with MAGA. And they make trouble and they try and blame it. And yeah, we know some of that and we will be acting on some of that. We've seen it. We've seen it. So I think -- you could stay a little longer, but you know, the problem is although you have some very honest journalists in here. You also have some mostly largely dishonest journalists, like MSDNC and CNN. I think they're very dishonest, unbelievably, like a waste of time even talking to them. But I have to go now to try and solve some problems in the Middle East. Although I'm very well-represented by our Secretary of State. He could probably do an even better job than me, but who knows, we don't want to take any chances.

So we're going to go and do that. If you'd like, Pam, would you like to stay for another five minutes, 10 minutes, while we have all these great people? And I'll let Pam and Kristi take over and get some good points out. I just want to thank the people around the table in particular. You've been amazing. You've been brave. You're a real patriots. You're real patriots. And at some point, we're going to have to look into, at least in certain cases, rewarding you with some very important medals and honors, OK, as we have done and will be doing with Charlie Kirk. You know, Charlie is getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is our highest award outside of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

And I think they're sort of even, one's civilian and one military. But unfortunately, the civilian sometimes is military also because of what we have to go through and the streets of this -- of this country. I can only tell you this. We have a great nation. We have a nation that's right now the hottest in the entire world. We're the hottest nation in the world, despite all of the things we've been saying today. But that's going to make your job easier, because nobody's doing better than we are. Financially, we're -- we've never done better. We've had, I think, 58 stock market increases since I've been top, you know, meaning record increases.

We have never seen anything like it and we're going to keep it going. That makes it a little bit easier for what we're doing. I guess, maybe it also makes some people crazy because they don't want to see us do well. But we're the hottest nation anywhere in the world and we were a dead nation one year ago. I say it all the time. We were a dead nation, now we're the hottest nation in the world. And that's said to by every leader. One of the reasons that we have every country already signed up, or just about to sign, every country in the world on this whole mess we have going over with Hamas in the Middle East and all of the things you see, is they respect our nation.

A year ago, you wouldn't have been able to get it. You certainly couldn't have gotten it with Biden. He didn't know where the hell he was. But a year ago, you wouldn't have been able to have a situation like this. So I just want to thank the people around this table and certainly the officials around the table because they've been incredible. They've been brave. And I watched yesterday, Pam. And I watched a little bit, I thought it was so good, I rounded up and I watched it late in the evening because I thought you were fantastic yesterday.

Bondi: Thank you.

Trump: You really -- look, you had some wonderful Senators, some great politicians asking you very fair questions and you had some real -- real slimeballs, but I thought you were amazing.

Bondi: Thank you, President Trump.

Trump: So thank you very much. And Kristi, thanks for the great job. Kash, thanks for the great job. Always my man down there. He's the silent type, but he's a hell of a lawyer. Thank you all. And we're going to get -- we're going to get peace in the Middle East. That's what we want to do. Thank you very much, everybody.

Transcript courtesy of CQ Factbase