CNN's Erin Burnett runs cover for Antifa, falsely claims it barely exists and 'right-wing extremism' is worse

On Wednesday, the Trump administration held a roundtable with journalists who have been documenting and reporting Antifa activity specifically in the United States for at least a decade. President Trump and key leaders within his administration attended this meeting to hear first-hand accounts of the violence and mayhem caused by members of this group, but for CNN's Erin Burnett, Antifa barely exists and "right-wing extremists" are worse.

Burnett played a clip of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem discussing Antifa networks, saying that it's "just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TDA, as ISIS, as Hezbollah, as Hamas, as all of them." Burnett was incredulous, indicating that Hamas was more legitimate since they've been engaged in a two-year war against Israel. Hamas' efforts have been supported on American and international streets by Antifa, but Burnett didn't mention that.

"And ISIS? These are incredible things to say," Burnett said with a smirk. "And obviously I'm not going to sit here and defend anybody who considered themselves part of an Antifa movement, such that it is, but 'such that it is' is the operative part of that sentence. Antifa is far from a major sophisticated terror organization like Hezbollah, Hamas, or ISIS. In fact," she went on, "it's not even like far-right groups like The Proud Boys or Oathkeepers, which have national leaders like Antifa."

"There is no organized hierarchy to the group," Burnett went on. "And according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, compared to right-wing extremists, Antifa-linked violence is rare and limited." A study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in September reads "2025 marks the first time in more than 30 years that left-wing terrorist attacks outnumber those from the violent far right."

And the Center for Strategic and International Studies includes jihad, Islamic terror attacks as right-wing, even though those attacks, like those carried out against Israel by Hamas in 2023, are supported by the American left and not the American right. "Left-wing attacks are remarkably less lethal overall than jihadist or right-wing attacks," they write. Part of their definition of what constitutes "right-wing terrorism" includes "opposition to government authority, believing it is tyrannical and illegitimate." These are views held by Antifa and many leftists who march against the federal government's intervention in American cities.

The report does not include Tesla attacks as leftist violence, nor the firebombing of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's home, nor the assassination of Israeli embassy workers on the streets of Washington, DC. The report further leaves out the direct attacks on federal ICE agents, like those in which Antifa has been directly involved in Portland, OR. and other locations.

Burnett's entire narrative was debunked earlier on Wednesday by Jack Posobiec, Katie Daviscourt, Andy Ngo, Nick Sortor, Nick Shirley, Julio Rosas, Savanah Hernandez, Jonathan Choe, Brandi Kruse, James Klug, and Cam Higby. Each of them detailed not only their personal encounters with the domestic terrorists who are part of this group, but their research into their activities and gave insight into their organizational structure.

Burnett is right when she says that there is no designated leader of Antifa, but that is by design. The organization is not centralized and that is intentional. The group wears fully black, covering their faces and often their heads when they go out in the streets. They engage in tactics like "unarresting" their comrades when police move in. They have safe houses near protests, and they remain essentially anonymous on purpose.

In September, after the assassination of conservative leader Charlie Kirk by a leftist, PBS ran a report claiming that "Based on our own research and a review of related work, we can confidently say that most domestic terrorists in the U.S. are politically on the right, and right-wing attacks account for the vast majority of fatalities from domestic terrorism."

Looking up that research using the links provided, there are reports from the University of Dayton's Paul Becker. In 2007, he wrote a paper about "country hate music." In 2000, he wrote about "hate speech" on the internet, including a discussion of whether or not talk of "white racialism and white supremacy" should be permissible under the First Amendment. Again in 2007, he wrote a paper about "state-corporate crime" as regards a gas plant in Kentucky.

Going back to 1999, Becker detailed legislation in Ohio and PBS, apparently views that legislation passed by a Democratically elected body as "right-wing extremism." In 2019, he wrote about "white nationalism" as a "global terror threat," and has many papers discussing "white supremacy" and "extremist films."

But there appear to be only two instances of right-wing crimes mentioned, the horrifying dragging death of James Byrd in Texas and the murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. Shepard's death, while tragic, was later revealed not to be an anti-gay hate crime but vengeance about a drug deal gone wrong. This paper was published in 2001.

The research cited by PBS does not show what they say it does. Burnett does not cite right-wing extremist violence in her report, just the studies that, like the one done by PBS, are based on fallacies. Burnett parrots Antifa talking points in an attempt to downplay their impact and poke fun at a White House administration that takes domestic, left-wing extremism seriously.