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michael barbaro

From “The New York Times,” I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” [THEME MUSIC] Of all the seismic changes that President Trump has made in his second term, perhaps the most overlooked and consequential is the speed with which he has upended 60 years of civil rights, much of it under the guise of attacking DEI. Today Nikole Hannah-Jones on the end of an era and the growing fear of what a post-civil rights government will mean for Black Americans. It’s Tuesday, October 21. Nikole, before we get started, I want to reestablish your background for listeners who maybe haven’t heard you on the show in a little bit. You are, I would argue, the preeminent authority on the subject of race and civil rights in this country, not just, I would say, at “The New York Times,” but in American journalism. You’re the creator of the “1619 Project” for which you won a Pulitzer Prize in Commentary. And so when we learned that you were looking into the Trump administration’s big moves around DEI — that’s their description of this — we were very eager to have this conversation with you. So thank you for making time for us.

nikole hannah-jones

Well, maybe I would quibble with the preeminent expert, but thank you for having me on.

michael barbaro

And here, I want to begin with an admission on our part. We had been trying to wrap our arms around these decisions that the Trump administration was making when it comes to DEI for quite some time, because I think it’s fair to say it was easy to see the big moves they were making and how wide ranging this effort was to root out anything, even mentioning the words “diversity, equity and inclusion.” But it was harder to understand what all of it was driving at, what this larger framework was that this fit into. But that’s exactly, as it happens, what you were trying to do. So where did your reporting begin?

nikole hannah-jones

So my reporting began really immediately looking at the executive orders that Trump rolled out on his first, second, third day of office. And seeing that, despite him saying he was running on an economic campaign and securing his victory on the idea of economic anxiety, that his very early policies were racial policies.

archived recording On his first day back in the Oval Office, Donald Trump signed an executive order ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in federal agencies. The president calls DEI programs illegal, immoral, and discriminatory.

"archived recording (donald trump)

This is a big deal, merit. Our country is going to be based on merit again. Can you believe it?

nikole hannah-jones

They were targeting what he was broadly describing as DEI. And one of the very first things Trump did —

archived recording President Trump revoked an executive order signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 — Which stipulates that employers can’t discriminate against job applicants or workers on the basis of race, gender, and other —

nikole hannah-jones

On his second day in office, he rescinded an executive order that Lyndon B. Johnson had issued as part of the civil rights movement in order to try to enforce against employment discrimination. And so what Trump does is he repeals that order, but he repeals that order by calling it illegal DEI. And my antenna immediately went up.

michael barbaro

Why?

nikole hannah-jones

Well, because it’s clearly not die. DEI is something different.

michael barbaro

And presumably didn’t even exist back when Lyndon B. Johnson was president.

nikole hannah-jones

Exactly. And so I was really startled that one of his very first acts was to rescind this executive order that’s trying to enforce civil rights law, but also that he was labeling it DEI and labeling DEI illegal.

michael barbaro

So once your antennae are up and your sense is that the president’s campaign to go after die is something else, what do you do? What do you see?

nikole hannah-jones

Well, this was day two. I’m a magazine writer, and so I don’t cover breaking news.

michael barbaro

You take your time in the best possible way.

nikole hannah-jones

I try to sit back and really see what’s the larger story that is unfolding here. So I’m just watching everything. And a lot is happening in those early days.

archived recording As of 5:00 this afternoon, every federal DEI office in the country got shuttered.