Leftists triggered after Deb Haaland rightly labeled a ‘DEI hire’

Fox News host Laura Ingraham took aim at Joe Biden’s far-left Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, a former New Mexico congresswoman, during a recent episode of “The Ingraham Angle,” referring to her as “another DEI hire of the Biden administration.” 

The term “DEI” stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion—an approach embraced by woke organizations to hire people merely based on their skin color, gender, sexual orientation, or any other “diversity” factor while largely ignoring relevant qualifications.

The segment began as Ingraham and her guest, ex-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, discussed the devastating wildfires sweeping through the Los Angeles area. Thousands of acres have been scorched, forcing mass evacuations, with drought conditions and high winds worsening the crisis. 

McCarthy highlighted the challenges firefighters face, saying, “Could you imagine a poor fireman coming in there and trying to put out a fire with no water? Gavin Newsom fought President Trump. He came in and changed the biological opinion. People know this in California – the little delta smelt – to bring the water down.”

Ingraham shifted the conversation to Haaland, who oversees agencies critical to managing public lands and natural resources. “And Deb Haaland, we gotta call her out too because she’s the interior secretary,” Ingraham stated. “Another DEI hire of the Biden administration. I’m sure she is a lovely person. She is completely incompetent. Completely incompetent. Totally.”

This is not the first time Haaland has faced criticism from conservative figures for her failures and complete lack of knowledge. 

Her confirmation hearings were also a trainwreck, where she had trouble forming coherent sentences or giving direct answers, constantly repeating vague terms like “I understand” or “I appreciate what you are saying” without formulating tangible answers to give any information that could help senators understand her qualifications.

Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) plainly asked Haaland, “Did you or do you now support the Biden action of shutting down the Keystone Pipeline his first day in office?” She refused to answer the question, responding, “I have to respect it, uh, Senator. He is the president of the United States, and I realize that, um, these are some of the things that he talked about when he was running for office.” Not until Sen. Risch had to press three more times did he get a vaguely discernible answer from Haaland, where she finally said, “I will tend to support President Biden’s positions. I assume you could take my answer as a yes.” 

During one line of questioning by Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Haaland was asked why she made the statement that she would vote to legalize marijuana to account for lost jobs in the oil and gas industry due to extreme government regulation. She claimed her argument was merely one about “diversify[ing] our funding streams.” 

Barrasso pressed her, “Is selling marijuana among what the Biden administration calls ‘better choices… to give jobs to displaced oil and gas workers?” Haaland said she didn’t know Biden’s position on the legalization of weed. Barrasso clapped back, “Well, we know what your stance is on replacing the revenue from the energy jobs… And your preference is to turn to drugs is what you’ve recommended to the voters.” 

During another exchange, Haaland had difficulty answering basic questions about oil and gas pipelines on federal lands from Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), ultimately admitting she didn’t know the answer to the question.

In 2022, Haaland got wrecked over her failure to answer basic questions about oil leasing, telling a Republican senator, “I’m not an economist” to justify her lack of knowledge. She ended up furiously scribbling notes to hide her complete ineptitude.

In 2023, a Republican congressman proposed reducing her annual salary to $1, a move that ultimately failed. Earlier, she was involved in a heated exchange with Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), who accused her of pursuing an “agenda for radical climate change.”

The leftist website Mediaite reported on Ingraham’s comment, trying to paint Haaland as a historic figure due to her being “the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary.”