The Trump administration has ignited criticism by giving a high-level State Department portfolio to a man whom Donald Trump’s White House fired in 2018 for speaking to a conference of white nationalists.
Darren Beattie is Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s pick for acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a position that would require Senate confirmation to be made permanent.
Beattie, who identifies on the social network X as a “proud Jew,” was fired as a speechwriter during Trump’s first term Beattie for appearing at a 2016 conference of the H.L. Mencken Club, which the Southern Poverty Law Center designates a “white nationalist hate group.” Trump later appointed him to a commission monitoring Holocaust memorial sites, from which he was removed during the Biden administration.
Now, Beattie is returning in a much more influential role. The undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs shapes communications coming from the State Department, including about extremism and terrorism.
“In plain terms, Darren will be shaping America’s messaging to counter terrorism and combat violent extremism, something he’s been doing at Revolver for years now,” the right-wing news site Revolver, which Beattie founded, said in a post announcing that he would be taking a leave of absence to serve in the State Department.
“I have been given the great honor of serving once again in Trump’s administration, this time in the Department of State,” Beattie wrote in a statement published on Revolver explaining his departure. “Helping Secretary Rubio and my esteemed colleagues in the State Department fulfill President Trump’s agenda will require every ounce of my focus and energy.”
News of Beattie’s appointment drew rapid criticism from those alarmed by his track record of consorting with white supremacists, derogatory comments about women and minorities and promotion of conspiracy theories — including about the assassination attempt on Trump last year and about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot by Trump’s supporters.
ADL response
“Darren Beattie has no place in a role representing American values abroad as Acting Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs,” the Anti-Defamation League said on the social network X. “Throughout the years, Beattie has participated in several conversations and events organized by notorious racists, antisemites and white supremacists and has continuously promoted an array of conspiracy theories, including those related to the Jan. 6 insurrection and the ‘Great Replacement’ theory, embraced by antisemites and white supremacists.”
Beattie, whose doctoral dissertation at Duke University focused on the Nazi philosopher Martin Heiddeger, relished the criticism, according to a report in Jewish Insider, which also uncovered criticism by Beattie of Israel in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack. Beattie fits into the isolationist flank of the Republican Party that is now playing an influential role US foreign policy.