(José Niño, Headline USA) Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes have been named by the White House as possible domestic terrorists, according to Trump’s top counterterrorism official Sebastian Gorka, Ken Klippenstein reported on his Substack.
Gorka, a former right wing influencer who now serves as a National Security Council principal, has been making rounds on conservative media explaining the meaning behind the President’s new National Counterterrorism Strategy. The strategy identifies three priority groups for the administration, including narco-terrorists, Islamist terrorists, and “Violent Left-Wing Extremists.” The document makes no mention of right-wing extremists.
However, Gorka’s remarks make clear that those on the right are not immune.
Asked by Breitbart editor in chief Alex Marlow if there’s any “right-wing terror” or “right-wing extremism” threat, Gorka replied by pointing to Carlson and Fuentes, both of whom have become vocal critics of the Trump administration, arguing they are not actually conservatives anyway.
“I’m not sure that Nick Fuentes or Tucker Carlson are conservatives,” Gorka said. “If you are lauding Sharia law, if you are saying that there are Muslim states that seem to be better qualitatively than America in terms of freedom and prosperity, I’m not sure that means you’re part of the conservative movement. So if you remove those individuals and you understand that they’re not conservatives, what’s left?”
Klippenstein notes that Gorka’s charge that Carlson lauds Sharia law is “to put it lightly, ridiculous.”
What Carlson actually said was that Gulf countries display a “self-confidence” that results in a “welcoming attitude” toward visitors of different faiths.
“So you’ll be sitting at dinner in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and you’ll say, you know, I just, I’m really kind of pro-Jesus, like I’m a Christian. They’ll be like, ‘That’s so great!'” Carlson remarked. “No, they’re Muslims. It’s a country governed by Sharia law! — [laughs] — I mean, and they’re like, ‘That’s great!'”
Klippenstein argues that none of this is actually about extremism. It stems from the fact that both Carlson and Fuentes recently broke with Trump over the Iran war.
Carlson has called Trump’s Iran war “the single biggest mistake Trump, or any American president, has made in my lifetime” and slammed the strikes as “reprehensible and immoral,” insisting the war “doesn’t serve American interests in any conceivable way.”
When Trump ordered strikes on Iran, Fuentes posted on social media “NO WAR WITH IRAN. ISRAEL IS DRAGGING US INTO WAR. AMERICA FIRST.”
Klippenstein describes the tactic as a “terrorism two-step” in which the administration first strips someone of their conservative credentials, redefines them as foreign affiliated and dangerous, and then targets them. He compares this to the “No True Scotsman” fallacy.
In a separate interview with actor Dean Caine, Gorka boasted about the lack of negative media coverage of the counterterrorism strategy.
“I did a kind of press call when we released the strategy. 50 articles were written that day about the press call. Only one of them from those putzes at Politico was even slightly negative… We are moving so fast, they just can’t keep up with us, which is delicious,” Gorka said.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
