The White House
Title 42 to end Thursday
Activists sharply criticize new U.S. asylum rules
A rule that closed the Southern border to most asylum seekers and migrants because of the COVID-19 pandemic will expire on Thursday at 11:59 p.m. ET.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in March 2020 implemented Title 42.
The Biden-Harris administration in April 2022 announced it would terminate the previous White House’s policy, but Republican attorneys general from Texas and more than a dozen other states filed a federal lawsuit.
The U.S. Supreme Court last December ruled Title 42 must remain in place. The Biden-Harris administration a few weeks later announced the COVID-19 public health emergency — and Title 42 — would end on Thursday.
“Title 42 exacerbated already dangerous and often deadly situations for LGBTQI people seeking asylum,” San Diego Pride Executive Director Fernando Z. López told the Washington Blade on Tuesday. “It’s tenure caused additional strain on direct services, legal aid and community organizing resources that were felt on both sides of our cross-border region.”
Abdiel Echevarría-Caban, a South Texas-based immigration attorney who the LGBTQ+ Bar in 2021 recognized as one of its 40 best LGBTQ lawyers who are under 40, on Tuesday said Title 42 “needed to end a long time ago, given the country was open to accept travelers through all our airports.”
“It did not make sense to keep enforcing the policy when we have public health safety protocols in place already,” he said. “The use of a public health mechanism to deter asylum seekers at the Southwest border from seeking protection was barbaric, wrong and a misuse of public policy.”
Echevarría-Caban further detailed the impact Title 42 had on LGBTQ and intersex people and other asylum seekers from vulnerable groups that he and other lawyers represented.
“Here, at the Southwest border, we had to request exemptions for people, especially women, children and LGBTQIA people, who were sent back to Mexico, and were exposed to further danger at the streets in Mexico, exposed to cartel violence, extortions, kidnapping and rape,” he said. “Here, in the United States, we have obligations under the Convention Against Torture. The United States was an active party in the development of our current international human rights and refugees system.”
The Associated Press notes the U.S. on Thursday will begin to deny asylum to migrants who don’t seek protection in a country through which they traveled or apply online before they reach the Southern border.
The Department of Homeland Security last fall created a humanitarian parole program for Venezuelans that it expanded to Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans in January.
A senior administration official on Tuesday said the Biden-Harris administration plans to “expand the family reunification parole programs” to Central American countries that include Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras and to Colombia.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was born in Cuba, on April 27 announced the U.S. will open more than 100 “regional processing centers” throughout the Americas. A senior administration official on Tuesday said they “will facilitate a broad range of legal pathways, lawful pathways to the United States and eventually Canada and Spain as well.”
“Again, our goal is to add these centers to the set of legal pathways that already exist and that the administration has rolled out over the last two years,” said the official.
Another senior administration official said the U.S. has “a robust set of consequences for noncitizens who, despite having these options available to them, continue to cross unlawfully at the border.”
They said the U.S. on Thursday will begin to return them to Mexico under Title 8 after it reached an agreement with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government. (Mexican prosecutors have announced they will charge the director of the country’s National Immigration Institute after a fire at an immigration detention center in Ciudad Juárez, a border city that is across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, killed 40 migrants on March 27. The Associated Press reported a security camera inside the facility recorded two guards who did not try to help the migrants who were inside the cell in which the fire began. The guards, according to the Associated Press, eventually walked away.)
“It also includes the circumvention of lawful pathways rule that we will be posting for public inspection tomorrow (Thursday) morning, and that rule will place significant conditions on asylum eligibility for individuals who do not take advantage of these robust lawful pathways that we have established, who do not schedule their safe and orderly presentation at the border using our CBP One mobile application, and who do not claim asylum in one of the countries that they travel through,” said the official.
The official further noted the U.S. will begin “significantly expanding … our use of expedited removal at the border.”
“This is our traditional Title 8 consequence for individuals who are encountered between ports of entry,” said the official.
TransLatin@ Coalition President Bamby Salcedo on Wednesday told the Blade it is “unfortunate that instead of moving forward, we continue to go backwards.”
“The elimination of Title 42 will impact all of us, but specifically LGBTQ asylum seekers,” said Salcedo. “It is incomprehensible that this administration is taking this step. It’s about moving forward and bettering the lives of people, not taking away the gains that we have earned with hard work, blood and tears.”
Immigration Equality Legal Director Bridget Crawford in a statement also sharply criticized the Biden-Harris administration over its new rules for asylum seekers and migrants once Title 42 ends.
“We are astonished by the administration’s callous disregard of the dangers President Biden’s asylum ban imposes on LGBTQ refugees. In the final rule — scheduled to go into effect once the Title 42 policy is lifted — the administration doesn’t meaningfully address or fix problems with the ban we identified in the notice and comment process. Instead, using circular logic, the administration dismisses our concerns, and doubles down on the illegal implementation of the ban,” said Crawford.
“This ban is a travesty that will cause LGBTQ refugees (and others) with strong, meritorious asylum claims to be sent back to countries where they will be persecuted or killed,” added Crawford. “By implementing this ban, instead of humane solutions that would effectively and compassionately manage the border, President Biden has broken his promise to protect LGBTQ asylum seekers and refugees.”
The Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration works with Jardín de las Mariposas, a shelter for LGBTQ and intersex migrants in the Mexican border city of Tijuana.
ORAM Executive Director Steve Roth on Wednesday said even though his organization “is glad to see an end to Title 42, an unlawful, Trump-era policy, we are deeply concerned about the new barriers to asylum put forward by the Biden administration.”
“President Biden’s restrictions on asylum will have especially harmful and dangerous consequences for vulnerable LGBTIQ refugees and asylum seekers, leaving them in places where their safety will be at risk,” said Roth. “The administration’s new border policies will continue to deny many LGBTIQ refugees their legal right to seek asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.”
Echevarría-Caban said the new policies will “pose more obstacles, and contrary to what is expected, it will increase the immigration court backlogs.”
“Our government needs to understand that we cannot use domestic law to weaponize immigration proceedings to avoid compliance with our international obligations or due process,” he told the Blade. “Due process is the core of our legal system, without it, who are we as a nation?”
Vice President Kamala Harris is among the administration officials who have publicly acknowledged violence based on gender identity and sexual orientation is among the factors that prompt LGBTQ and intersex people to leave Guatemala and other Central American countries.
Sources in Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez and other Mexican border cities this week have told the Blade that tens of thousands of migrants have arrived in their respective cities before Title 42 ends. It is not clear how many of them identify as LGBTQ or intersex, but violence in these cities remains commonplace. (The State Department currently advises U.S. citizens not to travel to the Mexico’s Tamaulipas state in which the border cities of Matamoros and Reynosa are located because of “crime and kidnapping.” The State Department also advises U.S. citizens to reconsider travel to Mexico’s Baja California, Sonora and Chihuahua states — which border California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas respectively — because of “crime and kidnapping.”)
Paloma de los Ángeles Villegas Pacheco, director of Trans Igualdad, a transgender rights organization in Ciudad Juárez, on Tuesday told the Blade there “is disinformation” among LGBTQ and intersex migrants who are in the city.
“They think that they are going to be able to access the legal asylum process,” said Villegas. “It will be more difficult for them to enter (the U.S.) once Article 42 ends. The impact will be worse for them.”
Altagracia Tamayo is president of Centro Comunitario de Bienestar Social (COBINA), a group that works with LGBTQ and intersex people and other vulnerable groups in Mexicali, a Mexican border city that borders Calexico, Calif., in California’s Imperial Valley.
Tamayo said roughly a quarter of the 600 migrants who are currently living in the two shelters that COBINA operates are LGBTQ. Tamayo, like Villegas, told the Blade there is “uncertainly” around the end of Title 42.
“The problem is that they think they are going to open the borders … they think they are going to receive them,” said Tamayo. “Article 8 is going to impose many, many restrictions.”
A fire destroyed a COBINA shelter in July 2021. Tamayo told the Blade her organization struggles to support the migrants who live in COBINA’s two remaining shelters.
“The heat is coming,” she said. (Summer temperatures in Mexicali frequently exceed 110°F) “We don’t have enough food to give them three meals a day. It is one of the problems of so much waiting, for so many months. It’s definitely very complicated.”
Mayorkas ‘clear-eyed’ about post-Title 42 challenges
Mayorkas on Wednesday during a press conference in D.C. said his agency is “clear-eyed about the challenges that we are likely to face in the days and weeks ahead, which have the potential to be very difficult.”
“Even after nearly two years of preparation, we expect to see large numbers of encounters at our Southern border in the days and weeks after May 11,” he said.
Mayorkas, nevertheless, stressed the end of Title 42 “does not mean our border is open.” He also reiterated the Biden-Harris administration’s immigration policy.
“We will once again process people at our Southern border using our immigration authorities under Title 8 of the United States code,” said Mayorkas. “Our overall approach is to build lawful pathways for people to come to the United States and to impose tougher consequences on those who chose not to use those pathways.”
“We are taking this approach within the constraints of a broken immigration system that Congress has not fixed for more than two decades and without the resources we need, personnel, facilities, transportation and others that we have requested of Congress and that we were not given,” he added.
The White House
As house Democrats release Epstein photos, Garcia continues to demand DOJ transparency
Blade this week sat down with gay House Oversight Committee ranking member
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have released new photos from Jeffrey Epstein’s email and computer records, including images highlighting the relationship between President Donald Trump and the convicted sex offender.
Epstein, a wealthy financier, was found guilty of procuring a child for prostitution and sex trafficking, serving a 13-month prison sentence in 2008. At the time of his death in prison under mysterious circumstances, he was facing charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to traffic minors.
Among those pictured in Epstein’s digital files are Trump, former President Bill Clinton, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, actor and director Woody Allen, economist Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, entrepreneurs Richard Branson and Bill Gates, and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
One photo shows Trump alongside Epstein and a woman at a Victoria’s Secret party in New York in 1997. American media outlets have published the image, while Getty Images identified the woman as model Ingrid Seynhaeve.
Oversight Committee Democrats are reviewing the full set of photos and plan to release additional images to the public in the coming days and weeks, emphasizing their commitment to protecting survivors’ identities.
With just a week left for the Justice Department to publish all files related to Epstein following the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which requires the Justice Department to release most records connected to Epstein investigations, the Washington Blade sat down with U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the Oversight Committee to discuss the current push the release of more documents.
Garcia highlighted the committee’s commitment to transparency and accountability.
“We’ve said anything that we get we’re going to put out. We don’t care who is in the files … if you’ve harmed women and girls, then we’ve got to hold you accountable.”
He noted ongoing questions surrounding Trump’s relationship with Epstein, given their long history and the apparent break in friendship once Trump assumed public office.
“There’s been a lot of questions about … Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. They were best friends for 10 years … met women there and girls.”
Prior to Trump’s presidency, it was widely reported that the two were friends who visited each other’s properties regularly. Additional reporting shows they socialized frequently throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, attending parties at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and Epstein’s residences. Flight logs from an associate’s trial indicate Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet multiple times, and Epstein claimed Trump first had sex with his future wife, Melania Knauss, aboard the jet.
“We’ve provided evidence … [that leads to] questions about what the relationship was like between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.”
Garcia stressed the need for answers regarding the White House’s role in withholding information, questioning the sudden change in attitude toward releasing the files given Trump’s campaign promises.
“Why is the White House trying to cover this up? So if he’s not covering for himself … he’s covering up for his rich friends,” Garcia said. “Why the cover up? Who are you hiding for? I think that’s the question.”
He confirmed that Trump is definitively in the Epstein files, though the extent remains unknown, but will be uncovered soon.
“We know that Trump’s in them. Yeah, he’s been told. We know that Trump’s in them in some way. As far as the extent of it … we don’t know.”
Garcia emphasized accountability for all powerful figures implicated, regardless of financial status, political party, or personal connections.
“All these powerful men that are walking around right now … after abusing, in some cases, 14‑ and 15‑year‑old girls, they have to be held accountable,” he said. “There has to be justice for those survivors and the American public deserves the truth about who was involved in that.”
He added that while he is the ranking member, he will ensure the oversight committee will use all available political tools, including subpoenas — potentially even for the president.
“We want to subpoena anyone that we can … everyone’s kind of on the table.”
He also emphasized accountability for all powerful figures implicated, regardless of financial status, political party, or relationship with the president.
“For me, they’re about justice and doing the right thing,” Garcia said. “This is about women who … were girls and children when they were being abused, trafficked, in some cases, raped. And these women deserve justice.”
“The survivors are strong.”
Deputy White House Press Secretary Abigail Jackson issued a statement regarding the release the photos, echoing previous comments from Republicans on the timing and framing of the photos by the Oversight Committee.
“Once again, House Democrats are selectively releasing cherry-picked photos with random redactions to try and create a false narrative,” Jackson said.
“The Democrat hoax against President Trump has been repeatedly debunked and the Trump administration has done more for Epstein’s victims than Democrats ever have by repeatedly calling for transparency, releasing thousands of pages of documents, and calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends,”
In a press release on Friday, Garcia called for immediate DOJ action:
“It is time to end this White House cover-up and bring justice to the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful friends. These disturbing photos raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world. We will not rest until the American people get the truth. The Department of Justice must release all the files, NOW.”
(Photo courtesy of the U.S. House Oversight Committee)
The White House
White House deadnames highest-ranking transgender official
Rachel Levine’s portrait altered at HHS
Admiral Rachel Levine — the first transgender person ever confirmed by the U.S. Senate and the highest-ranking trans official in American history — had her official portrait in the Humphrey Building altered, with staff replacing her correct name with her deadname, the name she has not used since 2011.
NPR first reported the change, and an HHS spokesperson confirmed to the outlet that Levine’s portrait had recently been altered. A digital photograph obtained by NPR shows Levine’s former (male) name typed on a placard beneath the portrait, placed under the glass of the frame.
Levine served as a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps under the Biden-Harris administration and was appointed the 17th assistant secretary for health.
During her tenure, Levine oversaw the Commissioned Corps and helped lead national public-health initiatives, including the federal COVID-19 response and vaccination strategy; efforts to address rising syphilis infection rates; HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs; and strategies to combat the opioid epidemic, particularly through expanded harm-reduction approaches for the communities most affected.
The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to publicly deadname Levine is widely viewed within the trans community as demeaning and disrespectful. The move comes amid a series of federal policy reversals targeting LGBTQ Americans, particularly trans youth seeking gender-affirming care.
Those actions include: weakening workplace protections for LGBTQ employees; limiting restroom access; downgrading gender-identity discrimination cases; pressuring hospitals to end gender-affirming care; cutting HIV research and prevention funding; removing LGBTQ crisis resources; restricting access to trans-inclusive medical policies for veterans and young people; supporting trans sports bans and threatening funding for teams that include trans athletes; and forcing schools and universities to eliminate DEI and LGBTQ offices, inclusive curricula, gender-neutral bathrooms, and books or training materials addressing LGBTQ issues.
The Trump–Vance administration has also expanded federal censorship by removing LGBTQ language from surveys, agency websites, Smithsonian materials, and human-rights reports; blocking Pride recognitions; creating federal communications that misgender trans women; imposing passport and travel barriers for trans Americans; lifting protections for trans service members; limiting benefits and care for LGBTQ veterans; and pressuring states, universities, and hospitals to end trans-inclusive policies under threat of losing federal research, education, or Medicaid funds. The administration has additionally deported LGBTQ asylum seekers to unsafe conditions, removed LGBTQ issues from global human-rights reporting, and escalated anti-trans rhetoric at public events.
These actions stand in stark contrast to Levine’s public-health record. As assistant secretary for health, she worked to expand LGBTQ+ health data collection, promote equitable vaccine distribution, strengthen national health-equity initiatives, and reduce care disparities experienced by historically underserved communities, including LGBTQ populations. Within HHS, she led councils and task forces dedicated to reducing structural barriers to care and improving community outcomes.
Before joining the federal government, Levine oversaw health and safety for nearly 13 million residents as Pennsylvania’s physician general from 2015–2017 and as Pennsylvania secretary of health from 2018–2021.
Asked by NPR about the alteration of her official portrait, Levine responded that it had been an honor to serve as assistant secretary for health, adding: “I’m not going to comment on this type of petty action.”
The White House
Trump’s shocking East Wing amputation—and the painful fallout Americans won’t ignore
Gay Social Secretary Jeremy Bernard talks about importance of civility
Since Jan. 20, 2025, life in Donald Trump’s divided America has been a series of jaw-dropping split-screen scenarios, flashing at an even faster pace since the resounding anti-Trump, pro-affordability Democratic electoral victories on Nov. 4. But while the weeks before Thanksgiving have injected hope that the No Kings marches, the rule of law, and the 2026 midterms will uphold democracy, Trump’s violently oriented MAGA and Christian National base and his committed Project 2025 backers continue remaking the federal government and fighting the culture wars.
Luxuriating in his own narcissism, Trump ordered the clandestine demolition of the East Wing on Oct. 23 to make way for his 90,000 square foot ballroom. He apparently didn’t care about the national shock at the brutal amputation of America’s beloved cultural arm that balanced the hard political arm of the People’s House.
“This isn’t a real estate deal. This is a living, breathing building. It actually hurts, as a citizen. It’s us. It’s our home. This doesn’t belong to anybody except the blood, the sweat and the tears of every president,” new D.C. resident Roseanne Siegel told NPR.
“For historians and for Americans who love their history, this is a big blow,” said ABC News presidential historian Mark Updegrove.
According to an Oct. 30 poll from the Washington Post, ABC News, and Ipsos, 56 percent of respondents disagreed with Trump’s move while 28 percent favored it. An earlier Yahoo/YouGov poll found 61 percent of respondents rejected Trump’s ballroom plan while 25 percent supported it.
Trump lied. “It won’t interfere with the current building,” Trump said last July about his ballroom plans. “It will be near it, but not touching it. And pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of. It’s my favorite He was dishonest about his intent in terms of we’re not going to touch anything, like it’s going to be close, but not touching,” Kevin Wade, a 52-year-old tech tourist from Texas, told Reuters. “And then now we’re completely demolishing it.”
The East Wing emptiness is now a tourist attraction, a PTSD imprint that — with the rapid developments leading up to Thanksgiving — may inspire a turning point in Trump’s presidency.
On Tuesday, Nov. 18, after a 43-day government shutdown to avoid this moment, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 471-1 to compel the Justice Department to release all files on convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Meanwhile at the White House, Trump gleefully hosted Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who US intelligence believes approved the gruesome 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The president scolded ABC News journalist Mary Bruce for embarrassing “guest” MBS with “a horrible, insubordinate” question about Khashoggi’s murder. “Whether you like [Khashoggi] or didn’t like him, things happen.”
In Bob Woodward’s 2020 book, “Rage,” Trump reportedly bragged about shielding MBS: “I saved his ass,” getting Congress “to leave him alone.”
Meanwhile, after the House vote, Epstein survivors huddled at a news conference, holding up photos of themselves as teenagers and young women, asking if Trump is innocent, what is he hiding? Why won’t he release the files now? Suddenly, thrilled survivors learned that the U.S. Senate had unanimously passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act and sent it to Trump for his signature.
Cut to Trump hosting a black-tie dinner for MBS with lots of rich men who do business with the Saudis. The next morning, he announced that he had signed the Epstein bill, with a 30-day deadline.
“It was a remarkable turn of events for what was once a far-fetched effort,” AP reported. “Trump did a sharp U-turn on the files once it became clear that congressional action was inevitable.”
Trump needed a distraction.
Early Tuesday morning, Nov. 18, U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) posted a 90-second video on her X account calling on U.S. servicemembers to not obey unlawful orders.
“The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution,” said Slotkin with five other fellow military veterans — U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), and U.S. Reps. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.). “Don’t give up the ship.”
The Uniform Code of Military Justice says troops who disobey a direct order will be punished. But servicemembers and officers also have an obligation to reject any order they deem is unlawful, a reference to the “I was only following orders” Nazi defense during the Nuremberg trials.
There is cause for concern. In his first term, Trump asked about shooting unarmed civilians protesting the murder of George Floyd. In his second term, Trump has threatened to use the Insurrection Act to deploy troops, “unleashed” police, federalized National Guard, and masked and violent ICE and Border Patrol agents in American cities.
“The president was enraged,” Trump’s 1st term Defense Secretary Mark Esper told NPR. “We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at [Joint Chiefs of Staff] Gen. [Mark] Milley and said, ‘Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?’ … It was a suggestion and a formal question. And we were just all taken aback at that moment as this issue just hung very heavily in the air.”
Trump found his distraction on Thursday, Nov. 20, reposting a Washington Examiner story about the Democratic lawmakers’ video, adding that it was “really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???” In another post he said it was “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH.”
Trump also reposted a @P78 comment: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!” Bomb and death threats against the Democratic vets “surged.” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump was ‘lighting a match in a country soaked with political gasoline.’”
Cut to Friday. 34-year-old New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met with Trump, who had vilified the Democratic Socialist. But inexplicably, the meeting turned into an Oval Office lovefest, with an almost giddy Trump, 79, saying it was “OK” that Mamdani had called him a fascist. He promised to help the city.
That night, longtime Trump and MAGA loyalist U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) announced she’s resigning from Congress, effective Jan. 5, 2026.
Greene criticized Trump over “America First” and health insurance policies but a major split occurred when she sided with Epstein survivors over him. Trump called her a “traitor” and vowed to back a primary challenger.
“Loyalty should be a two-way street,” Greene said in her 10-minute video. “I refuse to be a battered wife hoping it all goes away and gets better.”
No one knows what’s coming next.
But for the LGBTQ community, there are other important split screens amid Project 2025 erasure – such as U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.)’s key role as ranking member of the House Oversight Committee focused on transparency and justice for Epstein survivors.
And while Trump was threatening Democratic lawmakers with death on Thursday, Pete Williams, a former NBC News correspondent and press secretary for Vice President Dick Cheney, spoke at Cheney’s funeral at the National Cathedral. Williams told the mostly old-fashioned Republicans how he offered to resign in 1991 when the Advocate was about to out him as gay. Cheney — who loved his semi-out lesbian daughter Mary — said no and checked on him after the story was published. During the horrific AIDS crisis in the early 1990s, ANGLE (Access Now for Lesbian and Gay Equality) fundraised and worked to elect pro-gay politicians. In 1991, longtime gay politico David Mixner introduced ANGLE to his friend, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, whom the group helped elect as president.
Gay people were not welcome at the White House until Clinton, other than one historic visit on March 26, 1977. Decades later, when ANGLE’s Jeremy Bernard was being interviewed by first lady Michelle Obama for the job of Social Secretary, he recalled how difficult it was to get through the East Wing visitors’ entrance during Clinton’s administration.
“I said to Mrs. Obama, ‘It takes a lot to get in these doors. And I think it’s very important for people to feel very welcomed,’” Jeremy says during a recent conversation.
The first lady agreed and “wanted to make sure as many people that never had been to the White House and never thought they would be, got the experience to do it.”
Bernard worked for Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008, then as White House Liaison to the National Endowment for the Humanities before serving as Senior Advisor to the US Ambassador to France. On Feb. 25, 2011, he became the first male and first openly gay person to serve as Social Secretary.
“Jeremy shares our vision for the White House as the People’s House, one that celebrates our history and culture in dynamic and inclusive ways. We look forward to Jeremy continuing to showcase America’s arts and culture to our nation and the world through the many events at the White House,” Obama said in a press release.
“My office was in the East Wing, and I had what I thought was the best office. I looked over toward the South Lawn, but I also had the roof of the East Colonnade below me. I had a window that actually would open like a door, and you could walk out onto the roof as if it was a patio,” Bernard recalls, noting that he was warned to call the Secret Service before going out to avoid getting shot.
“I was so shocked,” Bernard says about the East Wing being demolished. “When I first heard there were bulldozers, I was like, well, what is it they’re knocking down from it?” — finding out later, “the whole thing” was gone.
He felt “some self-sorrow” and “numb” remembering his office. “It really is a part of history, not just for those of us that worked there, but for virtually everyone – whether you were there for a state dinner, a holiday party, or a reception for St. Patrick’s Day, LGBT celebration — whatever it was, everyone came through the East Wing.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said it well, Bernard says. “Compared to what ICE is doing and all that, it may not rank up there, but it’s symbolic of what’s happened in our country.”
Michelle Obama said it well, too. “We always felt it was the people’s house,” she told CBS “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert. “I am confused by what are our norms? What are our standards? What are our traditions? I just feel like, what is important to us as a nation anymore? Because I’m lost.”
And, Michelle Obama continued, “I hope that more Americans feel lost in a way that they want to be found again, because it’s up to us to find what we’re losing.”
“The West Wing was work — sometimes it was sadness, it was problems. It was the guts of the White House,” she said. “The East Wing was where you felt light.”
Bernard and Lea Berman, social secretary in the George W. Bush White House, have some suggestions in their book “Treating People Well,” subtitled “How to Master Social Skills and Thrive in Everything You Do.”
“It was important to us to see that despite our differences in how we viewed policy, Lea and I and Lea’s husband — who is an operative in the Republican Party — were very close,” Bernard says.
“I think about what this must be like for kids,” Bernard says. “We always looked at these presidents as a certain type of person.”
But now people hear Trump say, “’I hate my enemies. I want revenge.’ What is that teaching kids?” Bernard asks. “The president of the United States is saying that. I think it’s really frightening. We can’t let that stand.”
“I think we’ve got to go back to the way we were brought up about how you treat other people,” Bernard says. “It’s really important that we focus on the more positive characteristics of human beings … Most communities are very different and we celebrate that. But you can only celebrate it with civility.”
Karen Ocamb is a veteran LGBTQ journalist and former news editor for the Los Angeles Blade. This article was originally posted on her Substack LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters. Her extended conversation with Jeremy Bernard, who talks more about the East Wing, ANGLE and the Obamas, is embedded in the post.
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