President Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who continues to deflect questions regarding his sharing of military information on open platforms and with people without appropriate security clearance, addressed students of the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on Wednesday.
Hegseth boasted that the DoD is “giving wokeness the boot. We’ve said goodbye to the harmful effects of woke culture and so-called diversity, equity and inclusion programs,” and added, “DEI is dead at DOD.”
President Obama’s former U.S. National Security Advisor (and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations) Susan Rice responded to Hegseth’s declaration of DEI being dead while speaking with political pundit Brian Tyler Cohen.
As seen below, Rice attacked Hegseth’s qualifications to run the department: “If you’re a white, Christian, cisgender, macho MAGA man, you can be as dumb as a rock and be deemed qualified to serve as Secretary of Defense. That’s apparently what we’ve learned from this episode.”
.@AmbassadorRice on Hegseth attacking DEI while showing his own incompetence: "If you're a white, Christian, cisgender, macho MAGA man, you can be as dumb as a rock and be deemed qualified to serve as Secretary of Defense. That's apparently what we've learned from this episode." pic.twitter.com/qw3oB4mscu
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) April 23, 2025
Rice added: “DEI has been used as a slur to suggest that anybody who might be a woman, might be a person of color, might be a religious minority, might have a disability, might be a veteran, or of native descent, anyone who has benefitted, in any way, shape or form from the notion that we all should be treated equally and that we should be and be viewed on the basis of our merits and not discounted because we happen to be a woman or happen to be a person of color.”
She added: “Anybody who fits the mold of somebody who is not a white, Christian cisgender male is by definition, in this administration, deemed inferior.”
Keep using “cisgender” it lets us know you haven’t learned anything.
— Terry Schilling 🇺🇸 (@Schilling1776) April 24, 2025
Terry Schilling, president of the conservative organization American Principles Project, who advised the 2024 Republican National Convention platform committee on social and family issues (pushing an anti-DEI message) — and who is a white, Christian male (see below with wife and six children) — replied to Rice: “Keep using ‘cisgender’ it lets us know you haven’t learned anything.”
We had a blast at the White House Easter Egg Roll!
— Terry Schilling 🇺🇸 (@Schilling1776) April 21, 2025
President Trump knows how to throw a party. pic.twitter.com/ThHv1eXXvE
Note: After the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage was a constitutional right in 2015, American Principles Project shifted the focus of its advertising campaigns on restricting transgender rights, particularly among young people, as a way to turn out voters for conservative candidates.
In 2023, Schilling said “We knew we needed to find an issue that the candidates were comfortable talking about,” and reported that the issue had driven in thousands of new donors to the American Principles Project.
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