A top State Department official who was fired in President Trump's first term for appearing at a conference attended by white supremacists, and who has a history of incendiary statements about race, has been picked to run the US Institute of Peace. Darren Beattie will keep his current job while serving as acting president of the independent nonprofit, which Congress funds, the department said. The Trump administration tried earlier this year to dismantle the organization, which assists global efforts for diplomatic solutions to conflicts, the New York Times reports. The announcement of Beattie's new assignment said, "We look forward to seeing him advance President Trump's America First agenda in this new role."
Among Beattie comments that have drawn attention are:
- White power: "Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work," he posted on his social media accounts in October. The nation's ideology is based on "coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men," he posted, per Reuters. Beattie also has expressed support for white nationalist views."
- Comparison: "America treats rural whites far worse than China treats" Uyghurs, Beattie posted in October. He said in 2021 that China isn't "genocidal." The Chinese government has denied abusing the Uyghur people, but the US determined during Trump's first term that the repressions amounted to genocide. China has sent members of that and other religious and ethnic minority groups to internment camps.
- Taiwan: China's takeover of the democratically governed island is inevitable, Beattie said, assessing that it's "not worth expending any capital to prevent." Last summer, he posted that the change "might mean fewer drag queen parades in Taiwan, but otherwise not the end of the world."
Beattie was a speechwriter in Trump's first administration when he was fired after appearing on a panel with the founder of an anti-immigrant site at a conference attended by white nationalists. Trump brought him back this term for the job at the State Department, where he's responsible for "public diplomacy outreach, which includes messaging to counter terrorism and violent extremism," according to the department's website. Several dozen House Democrats opposed his appointment to that job in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio in February, per Politico. They objected to Beattie's "white nationalist loyalties and public glorification of our adversaries' authoritarian systems."
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