NewsNation Chief Washington Anchor and On Balance host Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He gives you an early look at tonight’s 7 p.m. ET show. Subscribe to War Notes here.
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Scorched Earth
Trump’s destruction of DEI through the federal government and extending to organizations (colleges) with government funding represents one of the most rapid changes in public policy over the past 30 years.
- It’s stunning in its speed and violence of action.
- The head of the Coast Guard was removed from her post.
- All federal workers involved in DEI programs were placed on paid leave.
- Anti-DEI advocate Andrea Lucas now oversees the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
- Ordered an end to DEI hiring practices at the FAA.
- “Trump revoked a 1965 order banning discrimination in federal hiring,” headlines The New York Times.
- “Among its provisions is the elimination of any references to diversity, equity and inclusion in federal contracting and spending.”
- The list goes on and on.
- Facts matter: DEI is the teaching that America is inherently racist and only racism can combat the past ills – among some other really awful stuff.
- Its supporters are far more akin to neo-Marxists rather than classic liberals.
Look back: Politics is downstream of culture.
- We’ve reported for almost a year on the work by Robby Starbuck to eliminate DEI programs at America’s largest companies – and it has worked at:
- Cornered: Starbuck says DEI is “cornered” in a post on X:
- “I see a lot of people saying DEI is dead. It’s not. It’s cornered and in a position to die but we must be punishing and relentless in finishing this ideology off. No mercy. Mercy allows it to survive and grow anew to terrorize future generations. Lots of work left for us to do.”
Fun read: A former Facebook insider, Bärí A. Williams, writes in MSNBC about Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg’s abandoning of DEI initiatives:
- “Now that it’s not politically in vogue, Zuckerberg is abandoning the business use case for diversity and fact-checking, and he’s picked for his VP of global policy Joel Kaplan (who sat behind Brett Kavanaugh, his friend from the George W. Bush White House, at his Senate confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court). All are clear signs of Zuckerberg’s conservative philosophy.”
Watch tonight: Robby Starbuck joins us along with CK Hoffler to tell us how Democrats are fighting back.
Predictable Outcomes
Over the past 24 hours, President Trump got rightly shellacked for pulling John Bolton’s Secret Service detail and security clearance.
- At a news conference last night, Trump said, “I thought he was a very dumb person, but I used him well because every time people saw me come into a meeting with John Bolton standing behind me, they thought that he’d attack them because he was a warmonger.”
- Truth is: Iran put a hit out on Bolton because Bolton did what Trump ordered him to do, thus the Secret Service detail.
- The U.S. killing of Qasem Soleimani changed the Middle East for the better.
- It was a gutsy call by Trump.
- To this day, Trump talks about it
- But Trump wanted vengeance because Bolton said mean things about him in his book.
- The U.S. killing of Qasem Soleimani changed the Middle East for the better.
- For the record: John Bolton is a friend, a patriot of the highest order, a man of integrity and a friend of the show. He has criticized and praised Trump – he’s mostly criticized and occasionally praised Biden.
Zoom out: Trump’s pettiness often overrides his own interests.
- Grandmother’s saying: Cutting off your nose to spite your face.
The Bolton news allowed the media to ignore the thing Trump did that deserves praise.
Trump pulled security clearances for the 51 former intelligence officials who signed onto a letter saying Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation.
- Front page: As The New York Post put it: “Spies who lie.”
- These are people who used their security clearance for political purposes – and they were objectively wrong.
- Even worse: The Biden family knew – or should have known – that it was Hunter’s laptop and let former Secretary of State Antony Blinken organize the campaign to get the letter anyway.
- Important note: Blinken won’t answer whether he ever asked Biden about the laptop.
Whole story: Trump’s decision to revoke Bolton’s Secret Service detail is basically just a giant middle finger to Bolton – that’s it.
- Problem: It negates the righteousness of what Trump did in the first place – revoking the security clearances of the 51 letter signers who used our trust for political purposes because they hated Trump.
- Warning: Trump is riding high right now – that doesn’t mean he can afford unforced errors.
Watch tonight: Amb. John Bolton joins us – we’ll briefly touch on Trump’s pettiness, but more importantly we will look forward.
- Is Trump right to want a deal with Greenland for lithium and access to the Arctic?
- Danish Lawmaker Anders Vistisen told Trump to “f-ck off”’ over Greenland.
- Is American national security threatened as China (effectively) controls the Panama Canal?
- We’ll discuss what to do about it.
- Look ahead: Trump speaks to the world’s oligarchs at the Davos World Economic Forum tomorrow.
- Check out The Wall Street Journal’s preview of the event here.
Tune into “On Balance with Leland Vittert” weeknights at 7/6C on NewsNation. Find your channel here.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of NewsNation.