Marco Rubio's In-House Bigot

Plus: Inside the USAID purge. A personal plea.

For the moment at least, our trade wars have been put on hold, which might distract us from noticing the speed with which the world’s richest human is tightening his grip and slashing aid to the world’s poorest.

But we contrarians are not so easily distracted. So, I wanted to call your attention to a curious decision by the man that every single senator — including every single Democrat — just voted to confirm as Secretary of State.

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Perhaps you are old enough to remember this particularly horrific bad take.

You know the rest of the story. As it turned out Rubio was not the one the GOP had been waiting for. He couldn’t even save his own integrity.

But he’s gotten his reward; and now enjoys what passes for Strange New Respect in the Trump era. Because he is not as overtly awful as other nominees, (Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, and RFK Jr.) even Democrats have decided that he is the Least Noxious of the wretched hive. Last month his Senate colleagues voted 99-0 to confirm him as Secretary of State and he is apparently now also the acting director of USAID, the agency Elon Musk is garroting for sport. (More about that in a moment.)

**

So how is the cabinet’s Best Boy doing these days?

This week, he named a man named Darren Beattie to be acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs. This is the office that oversees public diplomacy abroad and the department’s spokesperson in DC.

He’s this guy:

He’s the guy who was once considered so toxic that he was fired by the first Trump administration after he attended a white nationalist conference.

He’s this guy: On January 6, 2021, as rioters attacked the Capitol, Beattie posted a series of racist tweets, declaring that black people (Tim Scott, Ibram X. Kendi, Kay Coles James, and BLM), must “learn [their] proper role in our society,” “learn their place” and “take a knee to MAGA.” (Beattie later deleted some but not all of those tweets.)”

Since then, he has bounced around in the more fetid corners of right-wing conspiracism. He founded a website that sold t-shirts reading: “It’s OK to deny 2020,” and one that calls January 6 an "FBI setup to frame Trump supporters as insurrectionists.”

He’s this guy:

On Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast last month, Beattie repeated his claims that the FBI knows who’s behind the pipe bombs left at DNC and RNC offices on Jan. 6 but “what they found out was profoundly embarrassing to the government and to the narrative that the Biden regime wanted to promote, and so instead of following that investigation further, they basically just killed it,” Beattie said.

And he’s this guy: After the Trump administration appointed Beattie to a three-year term with the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, the Anti-Defamation League objected, saying:

“It is absolutely outrageous that someone who has consorted with racists would even be considered for a position on a commission devoted to preserving Holocaust memorials in Europe.”¹

**

Back in 2022, scholar Laura K. Field examined his weird career: “How Darren Beattie Fails Upward in MAGA World.”

Beattie’s ouster from the Trump White House back in August 2018 came in the wake of revelations that he had participated in a conference alongside prominent white nationalists. According to reporting at the time, Beattie was asked to resign but refused on the grounds that he was not racist and had done nothing wrong—forcing the Trump White House to fire him.

In 2019, Beattie worked for a stint with Trump sycophant Rep. Matt Gaetz (where he was apparently paid via a contractual arrangement that sparked controversy). According to the byline on a 2019 article published by Claremont, Beattie was working on a “book in defense of Trumpist Nationalism.”

But as Field noted at the time, Beattie did what he needed to do to win back Trump’s favor:

Beattie’s website helped spread lies about Hunter Biden; it also played a role in seeding the Stop the Steal conspiracy; and Beattie exposed a vulgar and vicious racist side of himself on Jan. 6th.

Until not so long ago, such actions would have been disqualifying for engagement in mainstream politics. Not so nowadays.

Once upon a time, Marco Rubio would have distanced himself as far as humanly possible from this roach-infested bigot. But that Rubio is long gone.

Far from being repulsed, the New Rubio has just welcomed one of MAGA’s most toxic trolls into his inner circle and put him in charge of the “public diplomacy” of the United States of America.

The senate must be so proud of itself.

Inside the USAID Purge

You’ve undoubtedly read a lot about the gutting of the USAID agency at the hands of Elon Musk. Over the weekend, Musk shut down the agency, but not before railing against it as a “criminal enterprise” and announcing: “Time for it to die.”

**

I wanted to share an email I received about what is happening…and what it means. It’s powerful stuff. Out of concern for retaliation, the author’s name is withheld.

Friends,

I’m reaching out with a simple but urgent request.

I need to make you aware of how our colleagues are enduring a deliberate strategy aimed at instilling fear and despair, specifically targeted at USAID. This is surely a test run for their eventual approach with the civil service at large, so many more you know may be impacted similarly down the road. The objective isn’t just to reduce the workforce - it’s to create a toxic, hostile environment that pushes people to fearfully resign, with the purpose of avoiding the responsibility of doing layoffs themselves. So this is not a call to help us protect our jobs; it's to restore humanity in the downsizing process to come.

Over the recent period, the tactics employed have been designed to sow chaos and terrorize employees. Below is a summary of what has transpired, and I’m asking for your help in spreading the word about how federal workers and contractors - people who dedicate themselves to serving our country - are being treated.

Recent Developments:

• Sowing Seeds of Paranoia: Beginning last week, communications to staff and contractors made strong implications that their actions and history were being reviewed and monitored for perceived violations of the administration's policy agenda, even if they took place before the administration began. They created systems to have staff report on each other, and promised adverse consequences for failure to comply or report.

• A Full Stop of Operations: On the end of the day last Friday, USAID imposed a sudden freeze on all programmatic activities and spending, with no prior notice, perfectly timed to create confusion at the close of business.

• Decapitation of Leadership: On Monday, 60 senior staff were placed on administrative leave for a supposed violation of the freeze. Staff was left leaderless as they continued to receive aggressive communications. The claim was quickly determined to be bogus and they were all cleared yesterday however the person overseeing the process of reviewing the evidence against them was subsequently put on leave when he refused to fire them without cause because it violated due process--see my last bullet.

• A Manipulative “Buyout” Offer: On Tuesday, all Federal employees received an email reminiscent of Elon Musk’s 2022 letter to Twitter staff, offering a bogus buyout with no guarantee or legal binding - designed to push people into resigning out of fear and uncertainty.

• Arbitrary Contractor Layoffs Due to Lack of Funds: Thousands of contractors, who were performing vital roles within USAID, were laid off with no severance, leaving major offices and projects severely understaffed. The Agency has also lost technical talent and historical knowledge. Some of these contractors had served at USAID for decades.

• Illegal Retaliation: Yesterday, the Director of Employee and Labor Relations stood up against illegal instructions to fire employees without due process, only to be removed from his position in retaliation. All other staff are keeping their heads down over fear any misstep can be used to justify a similar fate.

Why This Matters:

The actions being taken at USAID, which will eventually be applied to the broader federal workforce, go beyond politics. They are not aimed at making the government more efficient or effective. Instead, they are about deliberately creating an environment of fear, anxiety, and despair. The emotional toll has been immense. The intention is to cause stress, tears, and deep uncertainty about our futures. We’ve been left in a state of constant fear of losing our jobs, our livelihoods, and our ability to support our families. The deliberate intention is clear: to cause panic, resignations, and internal collapse without having to take responsibility for the cuts.

Regardless of political affiliation, we simply need the world to know what is happening to those who dedicate their lives to public service. If workforce reductions are necessary, we can accept that, but the way it’s being done - through intimidation, manipulation, and cruelty - is unconscionable. It is also not legal. This must be more widely understood.

While we will be okay eventually, for now, we are just asking for basic decency. Please help us spread the word about this inhumane treatment of the federal workforce.

[Name withheld]

Monday dogs

The three amigos.

Tug of war.

1. The Biden Administration promptly fired him.