MAGA show host and conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck claims he’s providing expert advice to the FBI for the Trump administration’s mounting crusade against left-wing activists.
“Dead-a-- serious” was how the former Fox News host described his discussions with bureau agents about “antifa.”
Conservative voices have increasingly used the catch-all term to posit the existence of a nefarious left-wing organization since last month’s assassination of Charlie Kirk, with President Donald Trump even “designating” it a domestic terrorist group. In fact, the term describes a decentralized movement comprising largely discrete, autonomous actors.
“They sat in my living room. Three agents sat in my room on Saturday afternoon for almost two hours,” Beck said during Monday’s episode of The Glenn Beck Program. “We dove in head first, and we analyzed the antifa network and we went from the street thugs to the support groups, eventually to the funding.”
Beck, who rose to fame as a Fox News host, left the network in 2011 amid declining viewership of his show, partly over the controversy of him calling President Barack Obama a “racist” with a “deep-seated hatred for white people,” and then launched his own outfit, Blaze Media.
Over the years, he’s repeatedly used that outlet and appearances on other conservative platforms to push bogus claims mischaracterizing the antifa movement as a structured organization, as well as claiming violent left-wing activists have created “autonomous zones” in cities across the country or sparked wildfires in California and Oregon.
Beck said Monday he took the alleged visit to his home as evidence that “the FBI is turning over every single stone.”
“Finally, we have an administration and an FBI director that is willing to go in deep, not surface, but deep,” he said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you Donald Trump, Kash Patel, and all of the agents at the FBI.”
FBI Director Kash Patel is no stranger to conspiracy theories himself. A former podcast host, he’s praised proponents of the widely debunked QAnon theory, supported Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election being stolen, and pushed unsubstantiated allegations of the Democratic Party receiving funding from Chinese state actors.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the bureau for confirmation of Beck’s visit from FBI agents. If true, it wouldn’t be the first time the MAGA administration has met with conservative influencers to discuss the perceived threat of antifa.
Late last week, Trump held a White House meeting where he discussed members of the anti-fascist movement “carrying out a campaign of violence” against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The 79-year-old president was joined at the event by several top administration officials, including Patel and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and appeared to be struggling to remain awake during the discussions.
