White House national security spokesperson John Kirby sidestepped questions about whether antisemitic protesters in the United States are “domestic terrorists.”
This week, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy pressed Kirby about whether people in the U.S. who are making violent antisemitic threats are domestic terrorists.
“I don’t know about classifying people as domestic terrorists for that; I mean, that’s really a question better left to law enforcement. I’m not aware that there’s been such a characterization of that,” Kirby responded.
Doocy went on to argue that the ongoing war in the Middle East raises the risk of an attack on the U.S. “to a whole other level.” He asked Kirby whether the Biden Administration is at all concerned that a terrorist attack is possible on U.S. soil.
“Peter, we are always concerned about the potential presence on U.S soil of terrorists coming from a war overseas,” Kirby said. “That’s something we’re always worried about.”
The reporter cited data from Customs and Border Protection that said militants associated with the Israel-Hamas war have been encountered at the U.S. border.
“There was a bulletin last week, the CBP [Customs and Border Protection] in San Diego said militants associated with the Israel-Hamas war may be potentially encountered at the southwest border,” Doocy said. “So, is there any heartburn around that? Six hundred thousand known gotaways, just in the last fiscal year. Is there any heartburn about leaving the border in such a condition that one of those 600,000 could be a terrorist?”
However, Kirby insisted that the Biden Administration is “constantly monitoring” the situation at the border, calling on Congress to approve additional funding to be allocated to the southern border.
Since Biden entered office, there have been more than 2.4 million apprehensions at the southern border in the fiscal year 2023. Amid the October 7 attack on Israel, concerns that a terrorist attack could happen at any time in the U.S. has heightened.