U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a ministerial meeting on political violence in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 16, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is often described as a traditional conservative in an administration dominated by far-right MAGA Republicans, Donald Trump loyalists and conspiracy theorists — a holdover from an era in which President Ronald Reagan, not MAGA, was the dominant influence in the Republican Party. But according to The New Republic's Malcolm Ferguson, Rubio catered to MAGA themes in a big way when, on Thursday morning, July 16, he hosted a "Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism" and focused heavily on "left-wing political terrorism."
The attendees, according to Ferguson, ranged from Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar to Trump allies who included FBI Director Kash Patel, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House adviser Stephen Miller.
Rubio told attendees, "This is what radical leftism is. They may wear various different slogans and ideologies across place and time. They can call themselves anti-capitalists, or anti-imperialists, communists, or anarchists, or Marxists. But the fundamental character is always the same.... It is a poisonous resentment cloaked in the language of equality, justice, liberation — an overwhelming need to tear down what greater men have built.... Through violence and through terror, they once again seek to impose their ugliness on all of us.”
During the event, Miller promoted Trump's National Security Presidential Memorandum directive, AKA NSPM-7 — which claims to address violence on the left.
Miller said of the memo, "It directs.… all of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to work together to disrupt, identify, defund, debank, arrest, and prosecute these political terrorists that are operating in our country. Left-wing political terrorism seeks, as its ultimate end, the overthrow of our system and form of government — and we've seen this has taken place…. many times, in many places, throughout the years.”
The Trump adviser continued, "Left-wing terrorism always ends in bloodshed, misery, and suffering. It only can travel in one direction. There's no point at which the left-wing terrorist is satisfied with his gains, and ceases progressing.... It always becomes a gulag, it always becomes the mass imprisonment of political enemies, the stripping of their rights and freedoms.… in order to establish complete and total control."
But Ferguson, in his New Republic article, emphasizes that political violence is hardly unique to the left in the United States.
"It's so interesting to watch these people wield what they see as this infallible moral compass, never once considering that they — and their predecessors — have created many of the conditions which have forced people to resist, whether it be abroad or domestically," Ferguson comments. "Furthermore, this blanket definition of left-wing terrorism is not rooted in reality; it's to serve their NSPM-7 agenda, to crack down on dissidents. Meanwhile, they continue to fully ignore the right-wing terrorism that this administration has not only ignored, but fostered."