Under Trump’s Conservative Christian CIA Director the Matthew Shepard Foundation Is Out, Tony Perkins Is In
‘Pompeo Has Consulted With Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council’
President Donald Trump is turning federal government agencies into replicas from the 1950’s, complete with upside down agendas on diversity, and a disturbing injection of far right wing Christian conservatives and their values. For example, there’s Ben Carson. Rick Perry. Betsy DeVos. Jeff Sessions. And Mike Pompeo.
Pompeo is Trump’s Director of the CIA, and according to various reports, he has actively been working to squelch diversity programs while remaking the CIA into a reflection of his personal brand of Christian evangelicalism.Â
A former Tea Party Republican U.S. Congressman from Kansas, Pompeo resigned after being re-elected a third time to head the CIA, a position for which he is remarkably unqualified. Under President Barack Obama, Pompeo’s predecessor, John Brennan, had worked at CIA for 25 years, and in the intelligence community for far longer.Â
Pompeo has none of that background, (although he did sit on the House Intelligence Committee.)
But he does have strong anti-LGBT and anti-diversity beliefs.
This past summer Judy and Dennis Shepard, who founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation, “had been invited to the CIA to talk about diversity and LGBTQ rights, joining a long line of guest speakers at the covert overseas spy agency including lawmakers, former officials, authors, and celebrities,” as Foreign Policy’s Jenna Mclaughlin reports.
The Matthew Shepard Foundation is named for the late 21-year old whose tragic and horrific 1998 anti-gay murder ultimately led to, under President Obama, a federal hate crimes law bearing his name.
“The schedule was set,” Foreign Policy notes of the speech by the Shepards, “and the details arranged, but in the 11th hour, the senior leadership shut down the event. The seventh floor, where the director’s office sits, had the Shepards’ speech canceled, questioning what value it would bring to the CIA mission.”
The cancelation is now under investigation by the CIA’s Office of General Counsel, and had “left employees disheartened — particularly those invested in the diversity reforms that were emphasized during the tenure of John Brennan, the former CIA director.”
The CIA described the reasons for the cancellation as “materially false,†though confirmed the event had been scheduled. “As we explained to the Shepards, CIA decided on a Pride month event with a national security focus and the event with Senator [Tammy] Baldwin achieved that goal,†an agency spokesperson told FP.
Notably, Director Pompeo did not attend the Pride event.
“Questions about his commitment to diversity continued to dog Pompeo,” Foreign Policy notes.
During his very first all-hands speech to the CIA workforce, Pompeo cheered the officers and analysts, pledging to support them. But on the issue of diversity, Pompeo’s response raised concerns. According to two sources familiar with the speech, he was repeatedly asked about his commitment to diversity. After the third question, he visibly lost his temper. He snapped back, saying he didn’t know what people wanted him to do besides seek out the best person for the job, one source who was present at the speech recalled.
“He didn’t seem to understand the need for a workforce that reflects America,†another source familiar with speech noted.
Director Pompeo is a Christian extremist who as a Congressman said, “Jesus Christ our Savior is truly the only solution for our world.”
He takes part in the White House’s weekly bible study group, led by a right wing extremist pastor whose own ministry declared him “not biblically qualified for spiritual leadership.” The group is sponsored by Vice President Mike Pence. It reportedly meets during business hours.
And he opposes same-sex marriage.
Enter Family Research Council president Tony Perkins.
“As part of an effort to expand chaplain services to CIA employees,” The Washington Post reported last month, “Pompeo has consulted with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled an anti-gay hate group.”
Pompeo in fact has a long history with Tony Perkins. As a Congressman he appeared with Perkins on his daily radio show and on a Family Research Council podcast. He’s spoken at FRC’s annual Values Voter Summit.Â
Perkins and Pompeo were among the national co-chairs of candidate Donald Trump’s Pro-Life Coalition.
Pompeo makes no effort to hide his strong Christian identity.
“We will defend our Christian values and American exceptionalism with all our heart,†Pompeo said at a 2015 ‘God and Country’ rally, The New York Times reports.
The battle for those values, he said, is “a never-ending struggle†— never ending, that is, “until the rapture.â€Â
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
