Trump’s pick for antisemitism task force previously blamed him for incidents targeting Jews
Leo Terrell, a civil rights attorney and Fox News host, rebranded as ‘Leo 2.0’ in 2020 and threw his weight behind Republicans
Leo Terrell campaigns for Donald Trump in Urbandale, Iowa on Dec. 10, 2023. The civil rights attorney and longtime liberal once blamed Trump for rising antisemitism before undergoing a political conversion to “Leo 2.0.” Photo by Getty Images
By Arno Rosenfeld February 3, 2025
Leo Terrell, the civil rights attorney picked Monday to lead a new Department of Justice task force to combat antisemitism, blamed President Donald Trump for rising antisemitism as recently as 2020.
“There has been a rise in antisemitic violence this year during the Trump administration, there’s a rise in antisemitic violence in New York, Trump’s home state,” Terrell said during an appearance on Fox News in early 2020.
But months later, Terrell had undergone a political conversion.
“My Jewish American friends,” he posted on Twitter shortly before the 2020 presidential election, “there is no way you can support Joe Biden who has failed to denounce the anti-somatic [sic] remarks of Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton.”
Who is Leo Terrell?
Terrell, who is Black, first rose to prominence in 1990s Los Angeles as one of O.J. Simpson’s loudest public supporters and subsequently leveraged a local talk radio show into regular appearances as a liberal guest on conservative cable television shows before he underwent a political conversion into what he calls “Leo 2.0” and became an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump on Fox News.
“He’s sort of a new name to a lot of people,” said Dov Hikind, the former New York state lawmaker and founder of Americans Against Antisemitism. “But not to me.” (Hikind is rumored to be under consideration for Trump’s special envoy to combat antisemitism.)
The two became friends after connecting on X, formerly Twitter, where Terrell has posted hundreds of times in support of Israel and about antisemitism since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 sparking a war in Gaza.
“Jews are treated as second class citizens in America!” Terrell said in a representative post in December 2023. “SHAMEFUL.”
Terrell has also become a staunch opponent of Al Sharpton, the preacher and Black civil rights leader despised by some in the Jewish community for his role in the 1991 Crown Heights riots. “Al Sharpton shut up,” he said in one video while wearing a red Leo 2.0 hat, which he sells online for $30. “You are no friend to the Jewish community.”
Terrell said in a text message that he was not available for an interview Monday.
About face for civil rights attorney
Leo 1.0 had defended Sharpton during regular appearances on Fox News.
“I have no problem with Al Sharpton,” Terrell said during a 2015 appearance after host Sean Hannity asked whether he was comfortable with Sharpton visiting the White House. “This obviously feels like a race card issue.”
And while Media Matters, a liberal watchdog group, has stated that “Terrell made a career at Fox News arguing that systemic racism doesn’t exist,” he initially gained fame as an NAACP attorney in Los Angeles.
“Blacks have historically been treated unfairly in the criminal justice system,” Terrell told the Boston Herald in 1995, when he was profiled as one of a growing number of Black legal commentators appearing on national television.
The year prior Terrell had warned that a ballot initiative was likely unconstitutional as it sought to “save” California from a growing number of immigrants by requiring schools to report undocumented students to the police.
Terrell’s first break with the liberal establishment appears to have come in 2003, when he endorsed Carolyn Kuhl, who then-President George W. Bush had nominated to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Democrats successfully filibustered Kuhl’s nomination and Terrell’s support for her ruffled feathers with the NAACP, who downplayed Terrell’s long-standing connections to the organization.
“They were trying to make me goose-step with them,” Terrell said at the time. “I felt embarrassed to call myself a member of the NAACP. I was proud to quit.”
A liberal legacy
But Terrell continued to serve as a liberal foil for conservative cable news hosts, including Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Bill O’Reilly until, he says, he heard President Joe Biden say in a May 2020 radio interview: “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black.”
“What has happened to the Democratic party?” Terrell asked in an op-ed for Fox News in August 2020. “I don’t even recognize it anymore — not since they allowed all policy decisions to be made by extremists within the Black Lives Matter and Antifa movements.”
(“Black Lives Matter is a legitimate political group,” Terrell had said on the channel in 2015.)
Five months after he announced his switch to supporting Trump, Fox signed him to a paid contributor role. The announcement stated that Terrell had previously held leadership positions at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and with California’s Statewide Commission Against Hate Crimes.
And by 2023, Terrell was echoing Trump’s comments about how Jews should vote. “No Jewish American in his or her right mind should vote Democrat,” he wrote in November 2023.
While he was still a Democrat, Terrell was invited on Fox News for a short debate with Candace Owens over “the left’s antisemitism problem.” Terrell blamed Trump for rising antisemitism while Owens, who was at the time a mainstream conservative pundit but has since embraced antisemitic conspiracy theories, defended the president and blamed Democrats.
The following day he posted on Twitter: “There has been an increase nationally in anti-Semitic violence during the Trump’s administration. Why Candace?”
Concern over antisemitism related to Israel
Since Oct. 7, 2023, Terrell has become fixated on antisemitism related to the protests against Israel. “He’s just a great guy and a real mensch and cares deeply, deeply, deeply,” said Hikind. “I never asked him like, ‘Where does this come from?’ — that of all the people in the world, he’s going to be playing this role in the Justice Department — but he’s just a good guy.”
Hikind said he was not sure exactly how Terrell was selected to lead the inter-agency task force on antisemitism, but said that Terrell was close with Trump and that the two golf together.
The Justice Department said that the task force was created in response to Trump’s executive order on antisemitism last week, in which he called on the attorney general to identify new laws that could be used to fight antisemitism related to Israel, and to consider intervening in private lawsuits alleging antisemitism.
Terrell has regularly shared posts from organizations like StopAntisemitism that publicize the names and faces of individuals they believe espoused antisemitism, usually related to criticism of Israel. “America knows your first and last names,” he wrote in one post aimed at a group of law students. “We will make sure you remain unemployed forever!”
He also invoked his experience as a civil rights lawyer to call on the Biden administration to do more to protect Jews.
“You have an affirmative obligation under the law to protect the Jewish community 24/7,” Terrell said on X in December 2023. “You are required under the law to take all necessary steps for the Jewish community to celebrate Hanukkah.”
Since Trump named Terrell senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Justice Department in January, he has been vocal about his plans to target universities he believes have allowed antisemitism to fester.
Above a video of pro-Palestinian demonstrators outside the gates of Columbia University two weeks ago, Terrell wrote: “Attention Board of Trustees of all colleges and universities allowing antisemitic behavior to take place. You have a fiduciary duty to protect Jewish students! Expect a letter from me in the immediate future! Leo Terrell Senior Counsel, Department of Justice.”
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