Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who is currently helping to carry out Donald Trump’s deportation efforts, often using dubious accusations of antisemitism — recently sat for an interview with Michael Benz, a former State Department official-turned-MAGA influencer who has a history of promoting antisemitic hate speech.
Rubio’s antisemitism accusations have targeted a number of legal U.S. residents, including Columbia University students Mohsen Mahdawi and Mahmoud Khalil, the latter of whom Rubio has claimed would create a “hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States” if allowed to remain in the country. Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, a visa holder, has also garnered headlines recently as a target of the State Department, despite an internal memo that reportedly found no evidence to link her to antisemitism or support for terrorism.
When Rubio sat with Benz, it was primarily to boast about his dismantling of the United States’ ability to counter the spread of disinformation online. The State Department posted an apparent transcript of the interview here. Rubio opened with the line, “We ended government-sponsored censorship in the United States through the State Department,” even as he is trying to remove international students for their speech.
Here’s how NBC News described Benz’s online history in 2023:








