Gabriel Nadales recently spoke to Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney, where he praised President Trump for tweeting his intention to designate Antifa a “domestic terror organization.” In an address in Cape Canaveral, Trump said the memory of George Floyd was being dishonored by rioters and anarchists, led by Antifa and other radical left groups.
Nadales concurs, telling Varney: “Antifa’s acts are the very definition of domestic terrorism.”
He pointed out that a lot of what we’re seeing is clearly not people peacefully protesting the actions of one bad police officer. He added: “If you look at some of the violence, it’s being instigated by anarchists and Antifa activists, not by the peaceful protesters who are rightfully angered by what happened.”
Nadales, who grew up in California, was part of Antifa in 2011, and he has said it’s the most violent group he’s ever been part of.
He said it’s a lot different now than it was back then, and although he declined to talk about everything he was involved in, he said they’ve become more emboldened lately. The places where we’ve seen a lot of violence recently, like Chicago and St. Paul, are places where Antifa has gone unchecked, according to Nadales.
He told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that college campuses essentially let Antifa “work under their noses,” with some allowing them to openly recruit people in broad daylight.
Last year, there were reports that the radical leftist group set up a recruiting table on the University of Florida campus, where they invited students to an event that would connect them with other far-left groups.
According to Campus Reform, an event they were touting, Radical Rush, contained rhetoric condemning police and the American government. One flyer said the police kill thousands of people each year, tear families apart, and create “racist militias.”
Nadales said: “We don’t allow ISIS to recruit on college campuses, and we should not allow Antifa to do that, either.”
He also pointed out that the group’s name is misleading in the sense that it hides its true intentions. He said that although they claim their goal is to fight fascism, they essentially consider anything that doesn’t adhere to their radical leftist agenda as “fascism.”
Many believe that Antifa is working with criminals and looters to incite riots in places like Minneapolis, New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
After Trump’s tweet, Attorney General Bill Barr expressed a similar sentiment, saying that “the violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly.”
However, some experts believe that Trump will not be able to define Antifa as a terrorist organization because they don’t exist as a distinct entity. Instead, it’s used more as an umbrella term to describe a range of far-left and anarchist groups.
Nadales supported this notion, saying it’s a complex movement and that not everyone will be wearing black masks and participating in riots.
When asked if he believes they’re capable of moving around the country and stockpiling things like bricks and Molotov cocktails for riots, he said yes. He pointed out that the governor of Minnesota said lots of people had been coming from out of state to protests and riots there.
Nadales said there’s a lot of anger right now, and some of it is justified. Of course, not everyone participating in peaceful protests is part of Antifa, but he believes that a lot of the violence we’re seeing is coming from them. Unfortunately, he has said in the past that he believes they’ll only become even more aggressive if they’re not stopped.
Sources for this article include: