The White House has reportedly fired speechwriter Darren Beattie, a man who spoke alongside white nationalists at a conference for racists. According to the Washington Post, the administration reportedly pressured Beattie to resign after CNN investigated Beattie’s involvement at the 2016 H.L. Mencken Club Conference. When he refused, he was reportedly fired:
“Once White House officials were informed about CNN’s pending report, Beattie reportedly was confronted and urged to step down immediately. But he apparently refused to resign, arguing that he was not racist and that he had made uncontroversial academic points at the Mencken gathering. When it became clear that Beattie would not resign, the people familiar with the matter said, the White House terminated him.”
According to CNN, the White House “asked CNN to hold off on the story for several days last week” and “declined to say when Beattie left the White House.”
The conference, named after writer H.L. Mencken, a racist and anti-semite, has attracted white nationalists like Richard Spencer and is generally a very cozy spot to be racist in public. In 2016, Beattie, a Trump-loving visiting instructor at Duke University, spoke on a panel with white nationalist Peter Brimelow, who according to the Southern Poverty Law Center “regularly publishes works by white supremacists, anti-Semites, and others on the radical right” on his anti-immigrant website.
“In 2016 I attended the Mencken conference in question and delivered a stand-alone, academic talk titled ‘The Intelligentsia and the Right.’ I said nothing objectionable and stand by my remarks completely,” he told CNN’s KFile via email. “It was the honor of my life to serve in the Trump Administration. I love President Trump, who is a fearless American hero, and continue to support him one hundred percent. I have no further comment.”
“Mr. Beattie no longer works at the White House,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told CNN. “We don’t comment on personnel matters.”
The White House, which is very chill about keeping close company with white nationalists and implementing their preferred policies, apparently didn’t like the optics on this one. Plenty of other racists continue to work at the White House.