US Secretary of State Marco Rubio promoted an interview this week with a conservative influencer who has praised Hitler online, in the latest example of a Trump official conversing with a white nationalist figure.
Michael Benz, who served in the State Department in Trump’s first term, revealed in 2023 that he was the author of “Frame Game,” an alt-right account that has for years posted rants about “the Jewish influence in the West” and promoted the idea that Jews have orchestrated a mass ethnic replacement.
“Let me be clear: I am extremely proud of this,” Benz, who is Jewish, told NBC News after being questioned about the links between himself and the account. He described Frame Game as “a project by Jews to get people who hated Jews to stop hating Jews.”
Speaking to Rubio on Wednesday in a talk released by the State Department, Benz quizzed him on how the department would be changing its approach to free-speech issues under Trump. Benz praised the secretary for what he called “restoring free speech and America’s role as the beacon of free speech,” while Rubio criticized what he described as “disinformation” produced by the news media.
Under Rubio, the US State Department has engaged in sweeping revocations of international student visas, in an initiative the secretary has described as part of the administration’s fight against antisemitism. He revoked one student’s visa for writing a student newspaper op-ed critical of Israel, and in another case, he has argued that “otherwise lawful” speech could still be prosecuted if it enabled antisemitism.
On Wednesday, Rubio also announced that he was shuttering what had been known as the Global Engagement Center because it had taken actions to restrict freedom of speech in the United States and elsewhere. He also accused it of wasting US taxpayer money.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio listens as President Donald Trump meets with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, April 14, 2025. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP)
The center has been a frequent target of criticism from conservatives for calling out media and online reports that it said are biased or untruthful. At times, it has identified US websites and social media accounts that it argued were amplifying misinformation, particularly related to the Russia-Ukraine war.
The center was first established in 2016 by executive order during the administration of US president Barack Obama. It remained operational during Trump’s first term when it released a special report on Russian disinformation and propaganda.
Benz and Rubio did not discuss Jews or antisemitism in their talk about free-speech issues.
Instead, the two men praised Darren Beattie, who became the State Department’s senior public affairs official in February.
Beattie, like Benz, was a Jewish first-term Trump official with extremist links. Benz alleged that Beattie, who had been fired from the first Trump administration after the Anti-Defamation League criticized his appearance at a white nationalist-adjacent conference, had been “targeted” by a “network” being “paid through the State Department through grants and contracts.”
Rubio agreed with this assessment, adding that “Darren will be big involved” in future State Department efforts to “document what happened” during the Biden administration.
Darren Beattie, a senior US State Department official who had been fired from the first Trump administration after addressing a far-right gathering, speaks at the National Conservatism conference in Miami on September 12, 2022. (YouTube screenshot, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
In August 2017, around the time of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where one counter-protester was killed, Benz, as Frame Game, wrote a long blog post in which he promoted Holocaust skepticism and anti-Israel sentiment. He also stated, “If I, a Jew, a member of the Tribe, Hebrew Schooled, can read Mein Kampf & think ‘holy s**t, Hitler actually had some decent points.’ Then NO ONE is safe from hating you once they find out who is behind the White genocide happening all over the world.”
The following year, Benz joined the Trump administration first as a speechwriter for Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. He moved to the State Department in 2020, and during the Biden administration launched a conservative free-speech organization.
Benz has also held several interviews with avowed white nationalists, and has been promoted by white nationalist leader Richard Spencer, while YouTube issued several extremism warnings on his content. He has also garnered the ear of US President Donald Trump’s top advisor: Elon Musk has promoted and replied to Benz’s posts on Twitter in the past, on a range of subjects including Ukraine and elections.
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