Darren Beattie

Darren Beattie is a former White House speechwriter for Donald Trump. Beattie has been a vocal proponent of various conspiracy theories, including the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. In his talks and interviews, Beattie frequently discusses the “globalist american empire,” which he defines as “the american state and its institutional apparatus [that] commands power domestically through propaganda narratives.” According to Beattie, “wokeness is the unofficial religion and ideology of the globalist American empire.”

In 2018, Beattie joined the Trump administration as a speechwriter under Vince Haley, head of speechwriting at the White House, and also worked for Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s hard-line immigration policies. Beattie was fired after publicity surrounding an “academic talk” he gave in 2016 to the H.L. Mencken Club, a far-right conference known for its ties to white supremacist ideology, and participated in a panel discussion with white nationalist Peter Brimelow, the creator of the website V-Dare, which publishes racist and anti-immigrant content. Beattie had refused to resign, saying he “stand[s] by [his] remarks completely.”

In 2019, U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz (FL) hired Beattie as a speechwriter, which was accompanied by its own controversy. In 2020, Politico reported that Gaetz used $28,000 in taxpayer funds to hire Beattie through a consulting firm, which House ethics rules prohibit.

In mid-November 2020 Trump tapped Beattie to serve a three-year term on the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad (CPAHA). While the commission is generally tasked with preserving cemeteries and buildings with historic significance in Europe, many of the sites over which the Committee presides are Holocaust memorials or places where Jewish people were murdered during WWII. A day after his appointment, Anti-Defamation League (ADL) chief executive, Jonathan Greenblatt released a statement saying, “it is absolutely outrageous that someone who has consorted with racists would even be considered for a position on a commission devoted to preserving Holocaust memorials [and] we urge the administration to rescind his appointment immediately.” In response, Beattie claimed “the ADL pretends to be an organization that protects Jews, but it really exists to protect Democrats. As a Jewish Trump supporter, I consider it an honor to be attacked by the far-left.” Beattie remained in the position until January 2022, when President Biden demanded his resignation along with the five other Trump appointees.

In May 2020, Beattie launched “Revolver News,” a site that Trump deemed “the new Drudge.” Beattie uses Revolver to publish numerous articles promoting conspiracy theories that the January 6th insurrection was incited by undercover FBI agents, along with acting as a propaganda vehicle for the MAGA movement. Beattie has also published articles claiming that the Democrats were on the verge of stealing the 2020 election and calling for Republican legislatures to put Trump in office.

In an interview with Breitbart, Beattie stated that “the National Security State is really the chief bottleneck to political progress and unless and until we put the National Security State in its place until we bring them to heal, unfortunately most of our politics will remain fake and performative.”

Beattie is prolific on social media platform X and recently opined on why J.D. Vance is Trump’s best option for Vice President, claiming that “simply picking a ‘diverse’ candidate is not the way to go” and Vance is unafraid to be “too extreme, or too ‘racist.’” Beattie has cast himself as centrist but has promoted the Big Lie about the 2020 election, railed against Covid policies, and implied that Taylor Swift is a Deep State plant to help reelect Joe Biden. During the January 6th insurrection, Beattie singled out prominent Black Americans and organizations, telling them to “learn [their] natural place… take a knee to MAGA… [and] learn [their] proper role in society.” Beattie has criticized the indictments against and conviction of Trump in the hush-money/2016 election trial, referring to the New York District Attorney as “affirmative Action Bragg” and calling on GOP prosecutors to retaliate by arresting and prosecuting George Floyd’s family members. Beattie has also claimed that the DOJ is indicting Trump to prevent his reelection, and held up the grand jury indictments of Trump based on evidence of crimes as proof of a dystopian effort on behalf of security and law-enforcement agencies to cancel out elections.

Prior to his time in the Trump administration, Beattie was a visiting professor in the political science department at Duke University, where he received his doctorate in Political Theory. He claims to have predicted Trump’s election as far back as July 2015, citing his refusal to apologize for his remarks on immigration. Before joining the Trump White House, Beattie wrote an op-ed for the independent student-run Duke Chronicle supporting Trump’s Muslim travel ban.