Donald Trump has barely started his second presidency and he’s already hitting the ground running! Glenn and Stu review what he’s doing to quickly purge Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies from the federal bureaucracy and make sure they can’t be hidden somewhere else. Trump also put an end to affirmative action for federal contractors and universities, a massive shift towards prioritizing merit again: “They are going for the roots of these problems.” Glenn also highlights some other massive wins in the first few days of Trump’s return: The failed head of the Coast Guard was fired, Republicans are moving to revoke the FACE Act, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told US Embassies to stop flying Pride flags, and Trump has instructed departments to prioritize an “architectural renaissance” that focuses on “beauty”.
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: I'm looking through.
I don't even know where to begin. Let's start at some little things. The Trump administration, has ordered all federal employees in DE offices to be placed on paid leave and shut DEI down. Gosh, darn it, the office of personal management. The government's top human resources agency, notified all federal department heads in a memo. DEI programs must be notified by 5:00 p.m. today. Their administrative leave is effective immediately. Also, all outward facing media. Such as web pages and social media accounts, focused on DEI programs, all gone by 5:00 p.m. today.
Cancel all employee diversity trainings. Terminate any DEI-related contracts by 5:00 p.m. today.
Also -- now, listen to this. They are asking all agency heads, to ask employees, if they know of any effort to disguise DEI programs with coded or imprecise language, and report their findings back.
By January 31st, and any employee caught trying to skirt this, they will have, quote, adverse consequences.
I would like them to -- I would like it just to be known. You're going to be fired. But I guess adverse consequences could be more than fired.
STU: I like this too. This is the Thomas Sowell book, Thinking Beyond Stage One.
GLENN: Yes.
STU: That's what you have going on here.
They know what they're going to try with DEI. They're going to try to change the language.
They will try to hide it with imprecise things. They are going to do that. They already are looking for what the response will be with all of this, which is really, really positive.
GLENN: If anyone doesn't think Donald Trump was prepared. Look at just this week.
STU: You've never seen anything like this from any president. Whether you like it or not, you have to admit, he's coming in here with a real plan and attempting to execute it quickly.
In an overwhelming way. I tend to like a lot of the stuff he's doing. Even if you -- even if you look at this, because we've looked at this from the other side with a sort of, like, admiration in a way. Right?
Right? An annoyed admiration of what the left has done. They've built things. They've prepared with moments.
GLENN: Oh, yeah. This is the first time in my life. They've done --
STU: That's what it feels like.
GLENN: I will tell you, that I was talking to somebody, who is in on the planning yesterday.
And they said, that president Trump made a list of every campaign promise, that he made. He asked for everybody, remember what I said. Put it on the list. He made the list too.
And he is really checking it twice. And marking them off. When they do them, he is determined to keep every campaign promise.
So you want to know, left, what he's going to do.
Take him at his word.
STU: And all these.
To be clear. They attempted to do this.
Steve Bannon attempted to do this in the first administration. Came in with a big list. It has been well-covered. They just didn't get a lot of it done. They didn't know what they're doing.
GLENN: Oh, this time, they do. This time, they do.
GLENN: According to TheBlaze today, the new chairman of the FCC, who I love.
Chairman Brendan Carr has announced the ends of all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at the FCC.
He said, he was erasing DEI as a priority. The commission's strategic plan. He said, he would end DEI advisory group at the FCC. And any mention of the DEI in the Commission's budget.
Also, DEI will be excised from the performance reports at the FCC, as well as all economic plans.
Amen.
Now, let's go to Trump ending affirmative action for federal contractors, and universities.
He's just signed an executive order, rescinding Lyndon Johnson's executive order, of 11246, which established affirmative action and bans all federal contractors and publicly funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI. This is a massive shift, that came under Lyndon Johnson.
These guys, thank God. They -- they are going for the roots of these problems.
This is not somebody that is just, you know, cutting the hedges. These guys are going down into the soil, and pulling it up by its roots.
The Coast Guard, as soon as he took oath of office, just within hours, the head of the Coast Guard was -- was relieved of command.
The commandant of the Coast Guard. Admiral Linda Fagan, apparently, Department of Homeland Security first reported her ouster, a minute after midnight on Tuesday.
She was fired and told she was going to be fired right after he was sworn in.
Leftist outlets and everybody else was like, oh, you can't do that.
She's the first female leader of the military service. Yeah. And she sucked. Okay?
She sucked. She didn't address any of the threats of border security. She didn't hit any of her recruitment or retention goals. She did not adequately equip the Coast Guard stations in the Arctic. Why do you think we're going for Greenland? Because China and Russia are coming into the pole, over the Arctic. And she didn't protect that. She also mishandled the Operation -- Operation Fouled Anchor, which was an investigation into the coverup of sexual misconduct at the Coast Guard Academy, and excessive focus on DEI.
She said, one of her famous quotes. Something like, our diversity is our strength. Our diversity only makes us stronger.
Does it? Does it? Or does our unity make us stronger?
We can be diverse, but not in everything.
Not in everything. I would like to be diverse in thought. But not on principles. What do you think?
And I don't care about your skin color. Nobody does. Stop it!
Now, let's see. What else?
Republicans. I love this.
Chip Roy.
Thank you. Is making a movie to repeal the Face Act. He said, and Mike Lee is about to introduce it in the Senate. It has to get past the House. And then he will pick it up in the Senate.
Their case is, you don't need the Face Act. There is no constitutional right to abortion. So what constitutional right are they enforcing?
None. You don't have that right. So -- and you certainly have the right of speaking your mind, gathering and protesting, as long as it's lawful, and you're not, you know -- you know, doing anything. Breaking the law. And harassing people.
But certainly can gather. And so they now want to take the Face Act and get rid of it.
Do you know what that would mean? Do you know how great that is? And it's happening through Congress. And the Senate.
So they're being. They're hitting on all fronts so far. The Trump administration told all of the State Department, through Marco Rubio, all of the State Department, every embassy, you are no longer allowed to fly the LGBT Pride or BLM flags at the embassies. You can fly the POW flag, but that's it.
It's the flag of the United States of America, and that's the only other flag you're allowed to fly. Is POW.
I think that's fantastic. I mean, we're in countries now, where they do not want to hear the preaching from the United States of America.
Especially in places like Africa. Uh-uh. They don't want to hear that.
STU: It's common sense. You know, it's not -- even if you completely support every one of those causes. Why on earth, would we be hanging the flag of them, in our foreign embassies? It makes no sense.
GLENN: Right.
STU: It's an American political issue. What does that have to do with this?
GLENN: So Marco Rubio issued the statement, starting immediately, only the United States of America flag is authorized to be flown or displayed at US facilities, both domestic and abroad. And featured in US government content. So, in other words, you can't put any of those markings now on any of our websites.
The flag of the United States of America united all Americans under the universal principle of justice, liberty, and democracy. These values are the bedrock of our great country, and are shared by all American citizens past and present.
The US flag is a powerful symbol of pride, and it is fitting and respectful that only the US flag be flown or displayed at US facilities both domestically and abroad.
Anyone who transgresses this new policy, will face disciplinary action, including termination of employment, contract, or reassignment to their home agency.
Now, this stands in -- Linken said, that for May and June, the rainbow flag had to be flown at all US embassies all over the world for Pride month.
STU: Wait. May and June.
GLENN: Yeah. He announced this on May 17th, which is the international day against homophobia and transphobia.
And so they --
STU: Of course, it is obviously, Glenn. We all know. December 25th and May 17th. The big holidays.
GLENN: Right. And so they have that, May 17th. And he's like, just put it up on May 17th.
And just don't take it down until the end of June.
So now you get a month and a half. A month and a half.
Right. So that will not happen anymore. Let me show you how deep this is going.
Donald Trump, remember, is a real estate guy. He's also a builder. And somebody in this administration understands Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson said, if you want your society and your civilization to live on, you must embed its value values in its architecture.
Okay? Well, ugly, brutalist, and Soviet-style architecture, is everywhere.
If you've gone to Washington DC, there's some beautiful architecture, and then there's all that ugly new architecture.
That just means nothing.
It's just brutalist.
Donald Trump has just -- issued another executive order, on his first day.
Asking the heads of departments to provide recommendations on how to advance the cause of an architectural renaissance in America.
That would see all the federal buildings prioritized butte, over anti traditional hang-ups or egos of radicals.
Toward the end of his first term, he issued an executive order, mandating the new federal building should not only be designed to serve the American people. But should be designed to uplift and beautify public spaces, inspire the human spirit, ennoble the United States, command respect from the general public. And as appropriate, respect the architectural heritage of the regions of the United States. Joe Biden immediately cancelled that. You know, we have architect fights now?
And so they have now taken the design. The Jay Edgar Hoover Building is a really good example of this.
Just ugly and meaningless, and so they rescinded Trump's order. And started to put into place, all of these, you know, new plans for new buildings. And Trump just stopped it. Said, sorry!
We are not going to build ugly buildings any more. They mean nothing. And they're Soviet in style. It's not happening. That's how deep this is going. That's how well-thought out this is.
STU: They have for a long time.
Because he does, like, a little bit of that ceremony. Right? He talks about big parades. This -- whatever it is, celebration of our -- in 2026, is a big one that he's talking about.
This has been important to him for a while.
And, again, like it's a great illustration of how well this stuff has been thought out.
GLENN: It should be important to all of us.
You know, I lived through the bicentennial. I remember it.
Okay? That bicentennial stuff, it was out by 1972. We knew the logo. You remember that red, white, and blue star logo? That rounded star logo.
I don't know if you were old enough to remember it.
STU: I was born -- I'm a bicentennial baby, Glenn. My mom used to tell me --
GLENN: Okay. So it was out -- congratulations, that's icky.
Let's talk about your mom creating you.
STU: That's when I was born, not conceived, weirdo.
GLENN: Well, anyway.
STU: She didn't tell me, hey, by the way, oh, it was a wonderful night, all about it. That wasn't part of the analysis.
GLENN: Oh, I've got to tell you, sometimes when the kids get really out of control, I start down that road. They shut up really quickly. They shut up really quickly and run.
STU: I bet they do.
GLENN: But we had -- by 1972, we were talking about the Bicentennial, and it was a big buildup. Here we are, 18 months away. Not even that. We're fifteen months away from the 250th birthday. There's no logo. There's nothing.
There's nothing. There's a lot of plans out there. But we haven't even started that.
He believes in not being embarrassed by the United States. We talked about this yesterday. With renaming Mount McKinley, Mount McKinley again.
Exactly -- he is the exact opposite of Michelle Obama.
Michelle Obama said, and Barack knows. We are going to have to change our traditions.
STU: Our history.
GLENN: Our history. Do you have it? Go ahead, and play that again.
VOICE: And Barack knows, we will have to make sacrifices. We will to have change our conversation.
We will to have change our traditions, our history. We are going to have to move into a different place.
GLENN: He knows that. And he is systematically dismantling it.
I'm telling you, this guy, if -- if they can keep this going, and withstand the -- just the stupid attacks from the left, and the media. That is coming.
He's going to be remembered as an Abraham Lincoln.
He's going to be a refounder of this country.
And I for one, am thrilled.
