President Donald Trump has justified his attacks on universities by citing his campaign pledge to fight antisemitism, but multiple individuals serving at high levels in his administration have ties to neo-Nazis and white nationalists.
The Trump administration has deported pro-Palestinian student protesters and cut university funding after the president claimed "antisemitic bigotry has no place in a civilized society," but critics told NPR that at least three administration officials have close ties to antisemitic extremists.
"If the administration were serious about countering antisemitism, first and foremost they wouldn't be appointing people with antisemitic and other extremist ties to senior roles within the administration," said Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.
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Paul Ingrassia, currently serving as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, has repeatedly praised "manosphere" influencer Andrew Tate, who was charged in Romania with human trafficking, and worked on his legal team.
"The Tate brothers provide an opportunity for a better future - one that inspires, rather than degrades, men," Ingrassia posted as a caption to a photo pinned to the top of his Instagram page of himself with the self-proclaimed "misogynist."
In addition to his alleged abuse against women, the Anti-Defamation League says Tate "has leaned heavily into unabashedly antisemitic rhetoric, perpetuating Holocaust revisionism, spreading conspiracy theories about Israel, praising Hamas, performing Nazi salutes and encouraging people to embrace and openly engage in racism."
Ingrassia was also spotted at a June 2024 rally in Detroit led by Holocaust denier and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who also dined with Trump himself at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 with rapper Kanye West, who has since praised Adolf Hitler and recorded a song glorifying the Nazi dictator.
"This narrative you're trying to attach to me that I'm some sort of extremist is lacking in all credibility," Ingrassia told NPR.
The White House liaison claimed he unintentionally attended the Fuentes rally, which was near a Turning Point USA gathering, and denounced "hateful or incendiary" statements by Jan. 6 rioter Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, who was described by prosecutors as a "Nazi sympathizer" who had a Hitler mustache.
"The tragedy of Jan. 6, 2021, was not that it was an attack on our democracy, let alone an insurrection," Ingrassia said at a January 2024 fundraiser for the pro-rioter Patriot Freedom Project. "But rather, it was an opportunity for the deep state to finally remove its mask and begin prosecuting and jailing innocent American citizens like Tim, like so many of the people here today."
Conservative activist Ed Martin, who Trump has appointed to multiple Department of Justice roles, lost his bid to become U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia over his ties to Hale-Cusanelli, whom he praised as an "extraordinary man" and "extraordinary leader" and gave him an award for promoting "God, family and country."
"I condemn his comments and views in the strongest terms possible," Martin said in written testimony to the Senate during his failed confirmation process. "I am not close with him."
However, his denials were viewed with skepticism after more details were revealed about his extensive interactions with Hale-Cusanelli, including several events and in podcast interviews.
Rachel Cauley, now the communications director for the White House Office of Management and Budget, handled media requests for and served on the board of the Patriot Freedom Project, which was founded in direct response to Hale-Cusanelli's arrest, and she sat with the Jan. 6 rioter's supporters during his criminal trial.
"No one is going to get a fair trial in DC," Cauley posted on X after his May 2022 conviction. "Every American should be incensed about this clown trial. Complete miscarriage of justice."
Cauley told NPR's reporter three times to send her an email when asked to comment on her contacts with Hale-Cusanelli, but she never responded to that message.
Other administration officials have contacts with antisemitic figures, including FBI director Kash Patel, who has appeared eight eight separate times on a podcast hosted by Holocaust denier and Hitler admirer Stew Peters, although he denied knowing him in his Senate confirmation testimony.
Clearly, Kash Patel is lying," Peter posted in response to Patel's Senate testimony. "He absolutely does know who I am."
Department of Defense spokesperson Kingsley Wilson faced criticism from Jewish civil rights groups for posting antisemitic conspiracy theories about the "great replacement theory" and the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank, which led to the revival of the Ku Klux Klan.
"Leo Frank raped & murdered a 13-year-old girl," Wilson posted in 2023. "He also tried to frame a black man for his crime."
Historians widely agree that Frank was falsely accused of rape and murder, but antisemitic extremists and neo-Nazis continue to insist he was guilty, and critics say these Trump officials' views and relationships to right-wing extremists expose their fight against campus antisemitism as a sham.
"A bunch of people who really ought to know better have been toddler gullible about the ludicrous pretense that Trump’s assault on universities has anything at all to do with combatting antisemitism," wrote writer and blogger Julian Sanchez.
