Darren Beattie, who has called for the U.S. government to promote sterilizations of “feral” and “low-IQ” Americans by offering free Air Jordans and said in 2024 that “competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work,” is rising through the ranks of the Trump administration.
Beattie has been working as a senior State Department official — despite being fired from his speechwriting job during the first Trump administration for appearing at a conference attended by known white nationalists — and this week was appointed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to lead the U.S. Institute of Peace.
NOTUS asked 85 Republican lawmakers who sit on the foreign policy and spending committees in each chamber of Congress — who oversee and determine funding for the State Department — about Beattie’s role in the agency and his recent appointment. Just one office responded with a statement.
“Ultimately, Mr. Beattie will answer to Secretary Rubio and his priorities,” said a spokesperson for Rep. Young Kim.
Beattie has also argued repeatedly that NATO allies are “far worse” threats to the United States than Russia and China and has praised China’s repressive tactics as effective crime control. He has said that white people in western countries face worse conditions than Uyghurs, an ethnic group in China the State Department has said is suffering genocide.
Kim, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, “will continue to conduct oversight to ensure the administration firmly supports Uyghurs, Taiwan, and other freedom-loving people,” the spokesperson said.
In private, some Republican lawmakers are more willing to speak candidly about Beattie’s role in the Trump administration.
“Wow!” responded a senior House Republican, who spoke with NOTUS anonymously in order to be frank, when told of Beattie’s appointment to the Institute of Peace.
“How is he qualified?” this lawmaker added.
Retiring Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska quipped to NOTUS this week that “if I fired someone once I’d likely not hire him again.”
Beattie has spearheaded some staff cuts at the State Department this year and works in a role responsible for representing American foreign policy to the world. His appointment as acting president of the U.S. Institute of Peace comes as the Trump administration is fighting court battles to shut down the organization, which is funded by Congress.
“We look forward to seeing him advance President Trump’s America First agenda in this new role,” a State Department spokesperson told NOTUS. The State Department did not make Beattie available for an interview.
But Republican lawmakers who spoke with NOTUS in person this week had little to say about Beattie’s work, and some said they didn’t know who he was.
“Who?” Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, responded when asked about Beattie’s appointment to USIP.
“I am not familiar with the background,” Sen. Thom Tillis said.
And Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota likewise said he didn’t know Beattie.
When Rounds was informed that Beattie argued “competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work,” the senator replied, “I think you should be competent, period.”
“Competency, I’m fine with. When we start talking about the color of someone’s skin, I’m not going there,” Rounds said. “I don’t like that type of approach.”
Michael Sobolik, a former GOP Senate staffer who now works on China policy at the Hudson Institute, told NOTUS that “the official running the State Department’s public diplomacy, Darren Beattie, amplifies Beijing’s fake news.”
“Personnel is policy, so it’s enormously problematic when personnel advance the policies of America’s enemies,” he said.