Members of Congress and Jewish civil rights organizations are criticizing the new deputy press secretary at the Department of Defense, Kingsley Wilson, for a series of online posts and past political commentary she made before joining the Trump administration.
Over the last several years, Wilson posted and commented prolifically on podcasts in her position at the right-wing think tank the Center for Renewing America. Wilson praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, promoted theories widely seen as antisemitic, excoriated Republicans in Congress who supported Ukraine, frequently used a slur for people with intellectual disabilities and also appeared to support political violence.
Now that Wilson is serving in the Pentagon, her comments have raised new scrutiny.
Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, told NPR Wilson's hiring was "one of the more concerning examples I've seen over the last few months of extremists being given prominent roles in the federal government."
Among Wilson's comments that drew the toughest criticism were those regarding Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was lynched by an antisemitic mob in Georgia in 1915.
Historians widely believe that Frank was falsely accused of raping and murdering a 13-year-old girl, and the state of Georgia granted Frank a posthumous pardon in 1986. But many antisemitic extremists continue to argue that Frank was guilty. In 2023, neo-Nazis protested the Broadway musical "Parade," which dramatizes Frank's trial and lynching.
"Leo Frank raped & murdered a 13-year-old girl. He also tried to frame a black man for his crime," Wilson wrote in 2023. She repeated the same sentiment in a post last year.
Spitalnick said that Wilson's comments about Frank are especially notable, because they so closely align with neo-Nazi talking points.
"This is something that is a deep cut in terms of the sorts of antisemitic ideas that neo-Nazis and others latch on to," Spitalnick said. "So for someone who is now in a senior role in the federal government to have directly and explicitly engaged in this sort of conspiracy theory tells me that she is frequently trafficking in these neo-Nazi and other antisemitic spaces."
"Anyone who posts antisemitic conspiracy theories lifted right out of the neo-Nazi playbook should not be in public office," wrote the American Jewish Committee on X, calling Wilson "unfit" for her job.
Mother Jones and Jewish Insider first reported many of Wilson's comments, including her stated belief in the "great replacement theory," which the Anti-Defamation League describes as a "racist conspiracy theory" amplified by white nationalist groups. The "great replacement theory" poses that societal elites, often cast as Jewish leaders, are orchestrating mass migration to the United States in order to displace white people and seize power.
Republican U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer told Politico that Wilson's comments were "horrible" and "just not appropriate."
Wilson is not the first Trump administration official whose online commentary has attracted criticism. Marko Elez, an employee working with the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, resigned over racist posts he had written in recent years. "Normalize Indian hate," one post read. "Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool," Elez said in another.
Soon after his resignation, the Trump administration rehired Elez, who is 25 years old. Vice President JD Vance wrote, "I obviously disagree with some of Elez's posts, but I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life."
Seen in that light, Wilson's history of extreme rhetoric "should be shocking, but it's certainly not surprising," said Spitalnick, "because this administration has over and over again normalized platformed and emboldened extremism."
The Department of Defense did not respond to NPR's request for comment.
NPR has identified additional comments that raise questions about Wilson's views and the Pentagon's decision to hire her.
In a 2023 interview on the right-wing channel One America News, Wilson said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy "should be arrested on sight for what he has done to the American taxpayer."
By contrast, Wilson has praised Putin. Last year, Wilson touted Putin's "encyclopedic knowledge of his people's history," calling it "beyond impressive." At the same time, she has attacked U.S. intelligence services, which include her current employer, the Department of Defense.
"The American intelligence apparatus is more evil than Vladimir Putin," Wilson posted in 2022, months after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Wilson also criticized U.S. defense contractors for their role in providing military equipment for the Ukrainian war effort.
"The U.S. Military Industrial Complex genocided an entire generation of Ukrainian men because PUTIN BAD" she wrote in 2024.
Among Wilson's other targets are Republican leaders in Congress.
In one podcast interview from 2024, she said House Speaker Mike Johnson was "weak-willed" and lacked "testicular fortitude," because he supported U.S. aid to Ukraine, adding that continuing to provide military support was "an un-Christian thing to do."
"Mini-Mike Johnson is an embarrassment," she posted later that year.
"DEPORT Lindsey Graham & ship him to Ukraine!" she posted regarding the Republican U.S. Senator from South Carolina over his support for that country.
Wilson is 26 years old and comes from a political family. Her father is Steve Cortes, a former Trump campaign adviser. Like many young right-wing activists, she appears to have adopted a deliberately edgy and often trolling online persona. The Trump administration's media strategy has also shunned mainstream news organizations, while embracing figures who were once on the fringe.
Over the course of several posts, Wilson used a slur for people with intellectual disabilities to attack former Vice President Kamala Harris, members of NATO and libertarians.
And she has seemed to justify political violence.
In the fall of 2022, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, a conservative, called for his supporters to "be peaceful" after he lost his reelection campaign.
Wilson responded online, "I'm so tired of being the 'good guys.' Our ancestors answered violence with violence."
The following year, she wrote, "There can be virtue in violence."
In other posts, she has expressed support for colonialism, the Confederacy of the United States and a belief that the U.S is based on "blood and soil."
"Colonialism was a humanitarian venture," Wilson wrote of Haiti in 2024.
Wilson called Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who fought to preserve slavery, "One of the greatest Americans to ever live." She also praised "Pickett's Charge," an infantry assault by the Confederates during the battle of Gettysburg in 1863, as one of the most "daring" ever attempted.
In 2023, Wilson wrote that "America is quite literally based on blood and soil."
According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the phrase "blood and soil" was "an early Nazi slogan used in Germany to evoke the idea of a pure 'Aryan' race and the territory it wanted to conquer. The concept was foundational to Nazi ideology and its appeal." Some white nationalists have since adopted the rhetoric of "blood and soil" to advocate for restricting immigration, and the slogan was used at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.
Wilson has also frequently expressed opposition to immigration.
"American communities across the country are being conquered by an invading horde of Third World migrants," Wilson wrote in 2024. "Foundational Americans, who were never asked or consulted, are being made strangers in their own country."
"I think it's totally fair for us as American citizens to say, 'Not all cultures are equal. I recognize that some cultures don't assimilate well into my culture. And I don't want more of those people here,'" Wilson said on a right-wing podcast in 2024.
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