The Trump administration continues to undercut anti-terrorism efforts in the U.S. Had Donald Trump explicitly stated, during last year’s presidential election, that he would broadly dismantle agencies and initiatives meant to combat terrorism, it’s possible some of his voters may have had second thoughts. Regardless, as my colleague Steve Benen laid out in a blog last week, that’s precisely what his administration has been doing since he took office.
The latest example is the Invent2Prevent program, a program launched during the Biden administration to encourage high school and college students to devise ways to combat targeted violence and terrorism. The program features a competition in which students from around the country vie to see who can come up with the best ideas.
Last year’s winners included students who developed programs to combat racism and antisemitism, as well as targeted violence and bullying toward women, the radicalization of veterans and the spread of hate speech online. Now, the webpages for the program include a notification saying “outdated information ... may not reflect current policy or programs.” That’s because the program — which cost the government only a little over $1.5 million — is no more.
“President Trump was given a mandate by the American people to eliminate wasteful government spending, and that is exactly what we are doing,” Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said via a press release posted on the agency’s website. “This program was not only wasteful, it was also using public money to support an openly partisan and political organization.”
McLaughlin specifically cited the organization Eradicate Hate, which tracks the financing of extremist groups. In recent years, conservatives have sought to undermine efforts to combat the rise of hate speech and violent extremism. McLaughlin claimed the Invent2Prevent program is being killed because it “used tax money on initiatives to foster ‘inclusive environments in schools,’ promote DEI, and expose grade school children to sexualized topics like LGBTQ issues.”
The gross conflation of “LGBTQ issues” with sexuality aside, it seems the administration doesn’t mind making certain Americans less safe, especially when they can frame it as anti-DEI. And the end of the Invent2Prevent program continues a pattern of pro-extremist behavior from a president who pardoned throngs of domestic terrorists in one of his first acts in office.