US President Donald Trump has suspended diversity program employees by putting them on forced leave by Wednesday evening, while launching a violent charge against the bishop of Washington for his sermon in favor of immigrants and transgender people.
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Employees working in diversity programs, which Trump ordered closed, will be suspended by Wednesday evening, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt confirmed on the social network X.
She confirmed a message from the federal Office of Personnel Management that asks to notify “all DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility) office employees that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately.”
The administration “is taking steps to close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs,” continues the message, published on X Tuesday evening, while Trump has also called for the dismissal of more than a thousand officials of the former Democratic administration.
Shortly before, it was the Episcopalian bishop of Washington, Mariann Budde, who was in the crosshairs, the day after a sermon in which she expressed concern about the fear sowed by the American president among immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community.
“This pseudo-bishop (…) was a left-wing radical, who hates Trump fiercely,” he wrote early Wednesday on his Truth Social platform.
“She brought her church into the world of politics in a very thankless way. “She was mean in her tone and it was neither convincing nor intelligent… She and her church owe the public an apology!” he continued.
During the religious service at the Washington National Cathedral, the bishop urged Trump, seated in the front row next to his wife Melania, to have “mercy.”
“There are gay, lesbian, transgender children from Democratic, Republican or independent families, some of whom fear for their lives,” she said, adding that “the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.”
Invested on Monday for the second time as President of the United States, Donald Trump immediately issued decrees targeting illegal immigration and denying the existence of transgender people.
If the Republican remained impassive during the religious service, on Truth Social, he let go: “The service was very boring and uninspired. She’s not very good at her job!”
“Not aligned”
In the same vein, Donald Trump pledged to avenge the “betrayal” that, according to him, was the election of Democrat Joe Biden to the White House in 2020.
He said he had ordered his team to “actively identify and remove more than 1,000 people appointed by the previous administration.”
-People “who are not aligned with our vision to make America great again,” he said on Truth Social.
He assured that four people had already been “fired” – including former Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Mark Milley, one of his pet peeves, removed from an advisory role.
Admiral Linda Fagan, appointed by Joe Biden to head the US Coast Guard and the first woman to head one of the six branches of the army, was also fired.
The new administration also withdrew the police protection enjoyed by John Bolton, former White House National Security Advisor during the Republican’s first term, who became a fierce critic.
Asked about this, Donald Trump said that his former advisor was a “stupid” man.
He also defended his decision to pardon 1,500 people convicted of attacking the Capitol on January 6, 2021 in order to prevent Joe Biden from coming to power, or to commute their sentences for some.
Among the beneficiaries of this leniency are the leaders of two far-right militias, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.
“Their sentences were ridiculous and excessive,” said Donald Trump, who just before this attack had heated up his supporters with a speech about a “rigged” election – a false assertion that he maintains.
Massive investments in AI
On Tuesday, the Republican president, keen to return America to its “golden age”, praised the “Stargate” project to the press, promising investments of “at least 500 billion dollars” in technological infrastructure in the UNITED STATES.
It should generate “almost immediately more than 100,000 jobs,” assured the billionaire.
Stargate brings together the “cloud” (remote computing) specialist Oracle, the Japanese investment company SoftBank, and the generative AI start-up OpenAI, whose leaders were present at the White House.
SoftBank boss Masayoshi Son said the joint venture would “start deploying $100 billion immediately,” with the goal of reaching a total of $500 over four years.
“We couldn’t have done this without you,” said Masayoshi Son, whose company’s stock soared more than 10% at the close on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
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