(The Hill) — Sunny Hostin, a former federal prosecutor for the Department of Justice who now co-hosts “The View” talk show, called President Trump a “DEI” hire on Tuesday.
While “DEI” normally stands for “diversity, equity and inclusion,” Hostin said that when applied to Trump, it actually stands for “didn’t earn it.”
Pointing to Trump’s promise to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s “dream a reality” in his inauguration speech on Monday just hours before revoking DEI programs in the federal government, Hostin called out the president’s “hypocrisy.”
“The irony of it. Martin Luther King not only wanted racial equality, he wanted economic equality, and that is something that people tend to miss,” Hostin said.
She added, “I want to remind people that he said that Black Americans deserved reparations for the injustices they faced. He argued that reparations were a form of justice, in fact, not charity.”
Hostin continued by quoting King’s famous saying, “It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel just to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.”
The second-term president, Hostin said, has only ever been “given everything that he has.”
Sunny Hostin: Trump is ‘didn’t-earn-it hire’
“You’re talking about a man who didn’t become the president of the United States because of merit. He had no political experience whatsoever. He had no business experience,” the talk show host said.
“He is, if anything, a DEI hire,” Hostin concluded. “A didn’t-earn-it hire.”
DEI programs and policies have been a divisive issue around the nation, particularly since the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling to overturn affirmative action in college admissions.
During the 2024 campaign season, Republicans including Trump vowed to end DEI programs. Many argued such programs are discriminatory.
Since Trump’s election, companies including Walmart, Tractor Supply and McDonald’s have rolled back DEI promises.
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On Monday, Trump rescinded an executive order signed by former President Biden that provided agencies with “information, resources and a methodology to assess” DEJ and in the workforce.
Trump’s order, however, asks the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management to terminate “all discriminatory programs” in agencies, according to the incoming White House officials.
The order will also direct the assistant to the president for domestic policy to have monthly meetings with deputy secretaries to assess DEI programs and figure out ways to end them.
