The study Burnett uses to justify her claims that right-wing extremism is worse cites rising left-wing extremist violence and includes Islamic terror as “right-wing.”
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.”