Multiple Trump White House officials have ties to antisemitic extremists

President Trump campaigned on a pledge to fight antisemitism.

“Antisemitic bigotry has no place in a civilized society,” Trump said at an event in 2024.

However, the president’s critics question whether antisemitism may have found a place within his administration.

NPR has identified three Trump officials with close ties to antisemitic extremists, including a man described by federal prosecutors as a “Nazi sympathizer,” and a prominent Holocaust denier.

The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The Trump administration has used the fight against antisemitism as justification for the deportation of pro-Palestinian student protesters and funding cuts to universities.

Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, argues that the administration is using antisemitism as a pretext.

“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,” Spitalnick said.

The White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security

Paul Ingrassia, currently serving as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, has ties to multiple figures widely known for promoting antisemitism.

In 2023, Ingrassia repeatedly praised the controversial “manosphere” influencer Andrew Tate and worked on his legal team. Romanian authorities have accused Tate of human trafficking. Florida’s attorney general also opened an investigation into Tate and his brother, Tristan Tate. The two men deny all wrongdoing.

The top of Ingrassia’s Instagram page features a pinned photo of himself with Andrew Tate, who describes himself as a “misogynist.”

“The Tate brothers provide an opportunity for a better future – one that inspires, rather than degrades, men,” reads Ingrassia’s caption.

The Anti-Defamation League says that 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 seen at a June 2024 rally in Detroit led by Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier and white nationalist.

As Fuentes began his speech, his supporters chanted, “Down with Israel!”

“I don’t know about you,” Fuentes said at the rally, “but calling Donald Trump a racist only makes me like him more.”

Amanda Moore, a freelance journalist, spotted Ingrassia in the crowd and reported for The Intercept that he stayed for approximately 20 minutes.

“I’ve seen him at other events. I’m familiar with his social media,” Moore told NPR. “And for some reason, he chose to stand directly in front of me, so he was hard to miss.”

Livestream footage shows Ingrassia approaching Fuentes, smiling before he spoke as Fuentes’ supporters chanted, “We want Nick!”

On social media, Ingrassia has written that “dissident voices” like Fuentes belong in conservative politics. He wrote a Substack post titled “Free Nick Fuentes,” criticizing the platform X for banning Fuentes over hate speech. Fuentes’ X account was later reinstated.

(Trump dined with Fuentes, alongside Kanye West, who goes by Ye, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in 2022. Trump said he “knew nothing about” Fuentes. Ye has since recorded a song glorifying Adolf Hitler.)

Ingrassia also supported the Patriot Freedom Project, which advocates for people charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“The tragedy of Jan. 6, 2021, was not that it was an attack on our democracy, let alone an insurrection,” Ingrassia said at a Patriot Freedom Project fundraiser in January 2024. “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.”

The “Tim” whom Ingrassia referenced is Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, who was convicted of multiple nonviolent offenses for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 and was later pardoned by Trump.

Federal prosecutors described Hale-Cusanelli as a “Nazi sympathizer” who once went to work at a naval weapons station with a “Hitler mustache.” He also recorded a lengthy antisemitic video rant in which he compared Orthodox Jews to a “plague of locusts.”

Hale-Cusanelli denies that he is a Nazi sympathizer and calls himself a “satirist” and internet troll.

Ingrassia, responding to emailed questions from NPR, said, “I denounce any hateful or incendiary remark Mr. Hale made. But my advocacy for J6ers is not based on any particular remark, but on the principle that all Americans are entitled to due process and free speech.”

Ingrassia told NPR, “This narrative you’re trying to attach to me that I’m some sort of extremist is lacking in all credibility.”

He maintained that he unintentionally attended the Fuentes rally, which was across from a gathering of the conservative group Turning Point USA.

“I had no knowledge of who organized the event, observed for 5-10 minutes, then left,” he wrote, though he did not respond to questions about his stance on Fuentes’ antisemitic rhetoric.

Ingrassia also did not respond to a question about Andrew Tate’s antisemitic commentary.

The communications director for the White House Office of Management and Budget

Before joining the Trump administration as the communications director for the White House Office of Management and Budget, Rachel Cauley served on the board of the Patriot Freedom Project. The nonprofit group was founded in direct response to the arrest of Hale-Cusanelli on Jan. 6 charges.

Cauley also handled media requests for the group. In 2022, the founder of the Patriot Freedom Project gave a lengthy interview to the explicitly white nationalist website Counter-Currents. (The editor-in-chief of Counter-Currents authored a book called The White Nationalist Manifesto and has written about “Hitler’s Significance for Our Struggle.”) After that interview received wider attention online, it appeared to be removed from the website.

Later that year, Cauley attended part of Hale-Cusanelli’s criminal trial and sat with his supporters.

On social media, Cauley referred to the trial as a “clown trial” and said Hale-Cusanelli’s conviction was a “complete miscarriage of justice.”

Reached by phone this week, Cauley told an NPR reporter three times, “You can send me an email,” before hanging up.

She did not respond to subsequent emails.

An official at the Department of Justice 

Trump appointed conservative activist Ed Martin to multiple Department of Justice roles, after his nomination for U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, failed. Martin’s ties to Hale-Cusanelli played a key role in the collapse of his nomination to that role.

In August 2024, Martin praised Hale-Cusanelli as an “extraordinary man” and “extraordinary leader” and gave him an award for promoting “God, family and country.” (Martin also gave Ingrassia an award immediately after Hale-Cusanelli spoke to the gathering.)

In podcast interviews, Martin called Hale-Cusanelli an “amazing guy” and “great friend.”

Martin later denounced Hale-Cusanelli’s views, saying he was unaware of his past antisemitic rhetoric.

“I condemn his comments and views in the strongest terms possible,” Martin said in written testimony to the Senate. “I am not close with him.”

Martin’s history of interactions with Hale-Cusanelli, including at several events and in podcast interviews, have raised questions about the truthfulness of that testimony.

Other links within the administration

Ingrassia, Cauley and Martin are not the only Trump administration officials connected to antisemitic extremists.

Before becoming FBI director, Kash Patel appeared eight separate times on a podcast hosted by far-right conspiracy theorist Stew Peters, who promotes Holocaust denial. Peters posted a photo of himself holding Hitler’s Mein Kampf with the message “visionary leadership.” In recent days, he attacked the founder of Barstool Sports, Dave Portnoy, with antisemitic vitriol.

During Patel’s Senate confirmation hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked, “Are you familiar with Mr. Stew Peters?”

“Not off the top of my head,” Patel responded.

Peters disputed Patel’s testimony.

“Clearly, Kash Patel is lying,” he said in response to Patel’s Senate testimony. “He absolutely does know who I am.”

A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment.

At the Department of Defense, spokesperson Kingsley Wilson faced criticism from Jewish civil rights groups for sharing antisemitic conspiracy theories on social media, including references to the “great replacement theory” and the lynching of Leo Frank in 1915.

Historians widely believe that Frank was falsely accused of raping and murdering a 13-year-old girl, although antisemitic extremists and neo-Nazis continue to assert his guilt.

Wilson echoed those talking points in a 2023 post on X.

“Leo Frank raped & murdered a 13-year-old girl. He also tried to frame a black man for his crime,” Wilson wrote in 2023.

The Pentagon did not respond to NPR’s request for comment.

Spitalnick, of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, criticized the administration’s selective focus on alleged antisemitism among Trump’s ideological opponents while ignoring concerns within its own ranks.

“The ways in which the administration is exploiting the Jewish community’s legitimate fears and concerns about antisemitism is ultimately undermining Jewish safety,” said Spitalnick.