Former Trump staffer fired for attending white nationalist conference tapped for top State Dept. position
Darren Beattie also invoked the antisemitic trope that George Soros orchestrated efforts to oust President Trump
Darren Beattie on Dec. 21, 2020. Photo by Gage Skidmore
By Jacob Kornbluh February 3, 2025
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to pick a former White House official fired in 2018 for speaking at a white nationalist conference to a top State Department position.
Darren Beattie, who served as a speechwriter during President Donald Trump’s first term and has promoted conspiracy theories related to the Jan. 6 riots on the Capitol, was chosen as acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs until the position is filled, ABC News reported Sunday evening. The office oversees public diplomacy abroad and the department spokesperson in Washington, D.C.
Beattie, who is Jewish, was listed as a speaker at the 2016 H.L. Mencken Club Conference, a conference popular with white nationalists and named after the early 20th century journalist whose posthumously published diary revealed racist and antisemitic views. Richard Spencer, one of the most prominent white supremacists in the U.S., participated in past conferences. Beattie refused to resign when it was made public in 2018 and was subseuqently fired by the White House.
He later went to work for former Rep. Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, whose years in the House were marked by allegations including sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. Gaetz was also accused of trafficking in antisemitism.
In 2020, Trump appointed Beattie to the Commission for the Preservation of American Heritage Abroad, dedicated to maintaining sites across Eastern Europe connected to the Nazi Germany-led extermination of six million Jews during the Holocaust. Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, condemned it as “absolutely outrageous” at the time. Beattie was fired by the Biden administration.
Beattie’s PhD thesis, reportedly focused on the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, a former member of the Nazi Party. Beattie acknowledged Heidegger’s Nazi affiliation as “highly troublesome” but maintained that his philosophy remained worthy of study.
Beattie also suggested that George Soros, the Holocaust survivor and billionaire Democratic donor who has long been the target of antisemitic tropes, was behind attempts to remove Trump from office.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
