Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the German domestic spy agency for designating the Alternative für Deutschland party an “extremist” group.
Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Verfassungsschutz, claimed Friday that the AfD was trying to “undermine the free democratic basic order” — opening up the ability to greater surveil the group. The move drew backlash from the Trump administration, with Rubio and others voicing their concern on social media.
“Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes. Germany should reverse course,” Rubio said in a post on X.
The message was reposted and quoted by Vice President JD Vance, who expressed a similar statement.
“The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it. The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt—not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment,” he said.
AfD leader Alice Weidel also quoted the message in a post.
“Right! The spy agency works for the ruling government, which is responsible for illegal mass migration, sky-rocketing criminal rates, highest taxes, highest energy prices. Since the AfD is the strongest party in polls now, they want to suppress the opposition & freedom of speech,” she said.
The AfD became the single most popular party in Germany for the first time last month, with its share of the vote growing slightly since. It is the first time since the founding of the modern German Republic that a party other than the Christian Democratic Union or Social Democratic Party took the top spot in polls.
The AfD came second in the February federal elections with 20.8% of the vote, taking 152 seats in the 630-seat Bundestag.
Department of Government Efficiency de facto head Elon Musk, an open backer of the AfD, also criticized the decision.
“Banning the centrist AfD, Germany’s, most popular party, would be an extreme attack on democracy,” he warned in a post on X.
The Trump administration’s open bashing of the German government’s decision could further harm the already tense relations between the two nations.
The Verfassungsschutz justified its decision to designate the AfD as an extremist group by claiming the party didn’t consider citizens of a “migration background from predominantly Muslim countries” as equal to native Germans.
“The party’s prevailing understanding of the people based on ethnicity and descent is incompatible with the free democratic basic order. It aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society, subject them to unconstitutional discrimination, and thus assign them a legally devalued status,” a statement from the agency read.
The Trump administration’s opposition to the move is predictable not only due to free speech concerns but also due to a number of stances it shares with the AfD, particularly on immigration.
The Verfassungsschutz’s designation of the AfD as “extremist” largely centered on its rhetoric surrounding immigration, rhetoric that wouldn’t be controversial in the Trump administration. Evidence cited by Der Spiegel included Weidel’s use of the “right-wing extremist term ‘remigration,’” though the term is commonplace among mainstream right-wing and populist parties across Europe. While not as commonly used in the United States, the term can often be used interchangeably with deportations.
GERMAN INTELLIGENCE DESIGNATES AFD ‘EXTREMIST’ GROUP AFTER BECOMING COUNTRY’S MOST POPULAR PARTY
The agency also cited incidents in which party officials dressed up as deportation pilots or handed out airplane-shaped gummy bears during the federal election campaign.
The designation of the AfD as an extremist group may also boost talks to ban the party altogether, as some senior German party officials are suggesting and Musk warned about. Such a move would further draw the ire of the Trump administration.