‘Are You Really Surprised?’: Photo of Trump’s Young White House Interns Goes Viral for all the Wrong Reasons as Social Media Erupts
President Donald Trump wasn’t kidding about erasing all traces of any type of diversity, equity, or inclusion during his presidency.
He very publicly ordered all government institutions, any company that receives government contracts, and universities that receive federal funding to remove all DEI initiatives practically on day one of his second term in office.
But a new photo of his White House interns shows what that looks like in real time, and the photo is going viral for all the wrong reasons.
Almost every single intern appears white, every single one, with the possible exception of a couple of Latinos and a few men of Asian descent. There is not a single Black person or Native American in the group of almost 75 people pictured outside the White House.
Based on the internship program selection process detailed on the White House website, the idea that there are no qualified minorities with the appropriate credentials is hard to believe.
The selection process is described as “highly competitive,” and applicants are encouraged to “illustrate their qualifications, character, and commitment to public service.”
Perhaps the President’s anti-DEI policies and lack of diversity in his administration overall, among other anti-minority moves, such as his brutal immigration crackdown, are making people of color think twice about applying to work in the Trump White House.
Just half of Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, and under 35 years old as of 2023, are white, according to Statista, which means Gen Z is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse generations ever. And Gen Alpha, those born between 2013 and the present, is just 48 percent white, making it the first generation in the history of the United States that does not have a majority white population.
Yet the Trump White House is clearly not hiring interns of color, ignoring a huge population pool and adversely impacting government experiences for a generation of young Americans. Critics say the racism within the Trump internship program is shockingly obvious.
X user Covie pointed that out in a post that went viral. “So much diversity in this photo of White House interns. You have tall white people, short white people, white people with blonde hair, white people who are brunettes, white males and white females.”
And this isn’t the first time. During the first Trump administration, the president was also criticized for how white his interns were. But to be fair, given Trump’s policies then and now, people of color may not want to intern with a president whose opponents accuse him of overtly racist policies and even white nationalist leanings.
Of the President’s 91 spring interns in 2018, all except two were white, CNN reported.
And Trump won the 2016 election with the least amount of support from Black and Hispanic voters of any president in the past 40 years, according to HuffPost.
But what’s ironic this time around is the Pew Research Center reported that he actually increased his support among Hispanic voters in 2024 compared to 2016 and doubled the African-American vote from 8 percent in 2020 to 15 percent in 2024.
At least a picture of the interns in the spring of 2018 showed one Black face in the sea of white faces. In the latest photo, which has gone viral, there are no African-Americans.
“Is no one in the White House or Congress bothered by, not the paucity, but the absolute absence of black or brown persons in this group? Does this not tell you exactly who and what Trump & MAGA are?” X user Barry Moak wondered. Are you really surprised? Only the dumbest people around would even want to intern at this White House. Obviously it’s just a bunch of brainwashed maga kids,” one user wrote.
This X user may have said it best. “Damn, Trump is a full blown racist, and of course before anyone comes to say ‘qualification’, please don’t bore us or be a hypocrite. Even in his current cabinet, there are barely qualified vis-a-vis other way more qualified people.”
The post also drew racist comments from X users.
“I could walk up to them and feel perfectly safe,” one X user wrote. “They finished High School,” another person wrote.