Julio Rosas, a journalist currently with Blaze Media and formerly of Townhall, participated in a White House summit focused on Antifa. During the event, Rosas addressed President Trump and discussed his experiences covering Antifa-related events, particularly highlighting the group’s activities during riots in 2020 and recent incidents in Portland.
Rosas stated: “Thank you Mr. President for having us here, and not to sound like a broken record but it needs to be said that Antifa is real. It’s real, it’s a threat, I just saw them last weekend over in Portland while they’re causing mayhem over there.
And the reason why they’re such a big problem is because we have Democrats and a lot of people in the mainstream media refusing to acknowledge that they even exist, right? So how can we as a country begin to address it if we have large swaths of these people who are supposedly decision makers and people who are supposed to inform, they don’t want to say that it exists?”
He also posted his full statement from the roundtable on social media: “Antifa is real. It’s a real threat…Sustained political violence is not a ‘both sides’ issue. All of the violent protests I have covered just this year have been because of people on the Left.”
In an article published on Substack, Rosas wrote about what he described as an underreported relationship between Antifa and law enforcement in Portland. He argued that local police were criticized for not intervening outside an ICE facility where protests occurred. According to Rosas, some residents took legal action against the city due to concerns about safety near these protests, but a judge ruled that local police were not required to manage crowds outside federal buildings.
Following continued unrest at the courthouse in Portland—primarily at night—federal intervention was ordered by President Trump through deployment of Oregon National Guardsmen. This decision came after criticism of city and state responses and led to increased tensions among protestors.
Rosas’s reporting aligns him with other journalists like Andy Ngo who focus on coverage of protest movements and critique mainstream media’s approach toward groups such as Antifa.
