As the Trump administration and Republicans across the country push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies across the board, the executive director of a top consumer advocacy group spoke to Fox News Digital about what companies and institutions are doing to skirt those efforts.

‘Over the last few months, we’ve sort of seen a phase shift in the ways that they’re trying to keep this DEI grift going,’ Consumers’ Research Executive Director Will Hild told Fox News Digital about companies, organizations, hospitals and other entities that are attempting to rebrand DEI and environmental, social and governance in the Trump era. 

‘At first, they just pushed back on, tried to defend DEI itself, but when that became so obvious that what DEI really was was anti-White, anti-Asian, sometimes anti-Jewish discrimination in hiring and promotion, they abandoned that,’ Hild said. ‘Now what they’re trying to do is simply change the terminology that has become so toxic to their brand. So we’re seeing a lot of companies move from having departments of DEI, for example, to ‘departments of belonging’ or ‘departments of inclusivity.’’

Several major companies have publicly distanced themselves from DEI in recent months as the new administration signs executive orders eliminating the practice while making the argument that meritocracy should be the focus. 

However, FOX Business exclusively reported in April on Consumers’ Research warning that some businesses appear to be rebranding the same efforts rather than eliminating them. 

‘It is the exact same toxic nonsense under a new wrapper, and they’re just hoping to extend the grift because a lot of these people, I would say most of the people working in DEI are useless,’ Hild told Fox News Digital. 

‘They are mediocrities who have managed to get very high-level positions that they’re not qualified for by running this DEI grift, and they’re desperate,’ he continued. ‘They can’t just move into running logistics for Amazon because that takes actual competence and intelligence and if you’re in a DEI department, you probably don’t have either of those things. So they are desperate to keep this grift going so they can justify their own existence. So they’re changing it into a new wrapper.’

Hild, who spoke to Fox News Digital at the State Financial Officers Foundation conference in Orlando, Florida, also explained some of the other issues Consumers’ Research is focused on going forward, including fighting ‘woke’ hospitals in three different areas.

‘One is net zero pledges and activities that raise costs for consumers, patients having to pay more because these hospitals are investing millions, sometimes tens of millions of dollars, into green boondoggle projects that have nothing to do with the treatment of patients and the improvement of their health, but they do raise prices,’ Hild said.

Secondly, Hild said that his group is concerned about DEI quotas at hospitals.

Hild explained that the third and ‘worst’ issue is transgender surgeries and procedures being forced onto children.

‘Pushing of radical left transgender ideology onto kids, and not just pushing it ideologically and rhetorically, but pushing it physically, and what I mean by that is the injection of damaging, lifelong damaging hormones into children to, quote, unquote, change their sex, which is impossible, and even worse, the actual surgical application, removal and mutilation of their genitals, which is a grotesque violation of the Hippocratic Oath,’ Hild said.

Consumers’ Research has been actively involved in launching advertising campaigns against hospitals across the United States, including a recent campaign against Henry Ford Health in Michigan, calling out what it says are situations where hospitals are putting ‘politics over patients.’

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Institute of Peace, writing in a ruling that the removal of its board members and the takeover of its headquarters by members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are actions that are ‘null and void.’ 

The response this week from U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell comes after the Institute filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in March calling for ‘the immediate intervention of this Court to stop Defendants from completing the unlawful dismantling of the Institute and irreparably impairing Plaintiffs’ ability to perform their vital peace promotion and conflict resolution work as tasked by Congress.’ 

‘The Administration removed the Institute’s leadership, including plaintiff Board members and its president in contravention of statutory limitations, and had personnel from a newly created federal office, called the Department of Government Efficiency, forcibly take over the Institute’s headquarters on March 17,’ Howell wrote in her ruling. ‘With a newly installed USIP president, the Administration then handed off USIP’s property for no consideration and abruptly terminated nearly all of its staff and activities around the world.’

‘Congress’s restrictions on the President’s removal power of USIP Board members are squarely constitutional, and the President and his Administration’s acts to the contrary are unlawful and ultra vires. The actions that have occurred since then – at the direction of the President to reduce USIP to its ‘statutory minimums’ – including the removal of USIP’s president, his replacement by officials affiliated with DOGE, the termination of nearly all of USIP’s staff, and the transfer of USIP property to the General Services Administration, were thus effectuated by illegitimately-installed leaders who lacked legal authority to take these actions, which must therefore be declared null and void,’ she added. 

The Institute of Peace is an independent, national institution funded by Congress that was established in 1984 under the Reagan administration to promote peace and diplomacy on the international stage.  

‘Congress has endorsed USIP’s important work by continuing to fund the Institute through appropriations bills signed by seven different Presidents from both major political parties, including the current President during his first term in office,’ Howell said in the ruling.  

‘In a drastic and abrupt change of course, within the first month of his second term, President Trump unilaterally decided that USIP is ‘unnecessary,’ issuing Executive Order 14217 to this effect, and then his Administration rushed through actions, including removal of Board members, to reach the professed goal of reducing all of USIP’s operations and personnel to the bare minimum to perform only mandated statutory tasks, while ignoring the broader statutory goals set out for this organization to fulfill,’ she also said. 

Ultimately, Howell concluded, the Trump administration’s actions ‘represented a gross usurpation of power and a way of conducting government affairs that unnecessarily traumatized the committed leadership and employees of USIP, who deserved better.’

The White House did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

In March, it said the Trump administration gutted the Institute of Peace of ‘rogue bureaucrats’ who held a tense standoff with a DOGE team that required police intervention. 

‘Rogue bureaucrats will not be allowed to hold agencies hostage,’ White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said at the time. ‘The Trump administration will enforce the president’s executive authority and ensure his agencies remain accountable to the American people.’ 

The administration now has 30 days to file an appeal to the ruling.

‘The United States Institute of Peace has existed for 40 years on a $50 million annual budget, but failed to deliver peace,’ Kelly told the Associated Press. ‘President Trump is right to reduce failed, useless entities like USIP to their statutory minimum, and this rogue judge’s attempt to impede on the separation of powers will not be the last say on the matter.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report. 

President Donald Trump will make an announcement on the Golden Dome missile defense system at 3 p.m. ET this afternoon alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Space Force Vice Chief of Operations, General Michael Guetlein, a U.S. official confirmed to Fox News. 

The Pentagon’s recommendations for the multibillion-dollar project will be announced, including the drafted architecture and implementation plan for the complex satellite system, the official added. 

A total of $25 billion has been carved out of next year’s defense budget for this system, but the Congressional Budget office estimates it could cost as much as $500 billion over the next 20 years.   

Officials told Reuters that Guetlein will likely be named as the lead program manager for the Golden Dome project. 

Last month, Reuters reported that Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two of its partners have emerged as frontrunners to build part of the missile defense system. 

SpaceX is teaming up with software maker Palantir and defense technology company Anduril for a joint bid, with all three of the companies having met with top officials in the Trump administration and the Pentagon to pitch their proposal, sources told Reuters at the time. 

Their plan is to build and launch 400 to up to more than 1,000 satellites to track the movement of missiles around the globe, the sources said. A fleet of 200 attack satellites armed with missiles or lasers would then eliminate enemy projectiles, but the SpaceX group is not anticipated to play a role in the weaponization of those satellites, the sources added.   

Trump has ordered the construction of an advanced, next-generation missile defense shield to protect the U.S. from an aerial attack.  

In January, he signed an executive order that tasks Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth with drawing up plans to build an ‘Iron Dome for America’ that will protect Americans from the threat of missiles launched by a foreign enemy. 

The Pentagon has received interest from more than 180 companies to help build the project, a U.S. official told Reuters.   

Fox News’ Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.   

Republican senators are renewing calls for the Pentagon’s watchdog to investigate alleged misconduct and efforts to ‘undermine the chain of command’ by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Fox News Digital has learned. 

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., penned a letter obtained by Fox News Digital to the acting inspector general of the Department of Defense, Steven Stebbins, renewing their 2022 request for a review of Milley’s conduct.

‘We are writing to ensure that our concerns about alleged misconduct by the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, are finally addressed,’ Grassley and Banks wrote. 

The two senators made a request for an independent review of the conduct on Aug. 17, 2022, when Banks was serving as the chair of the House Republican Study Committee, but the review was closed by the former inspector general ‘without ever providing acceptable answers to our questions.’ 

Grassley and Banks said that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has since ‘revived this review,’ directing the acting inspector general to ‘conduct a review of General Milley’s alleged misconduct, including his actions to ‘undermine the chain of command.’’ 

Hegseth is also seeking answers on whether ‘enough evidence exists for General Milley to be stripped of a star in retirement.’ 

‘The Secretary’s request rungs parallel to ours,’ Grassley and Banks wrote, noting that Hegseth’s request ‘takes priority,’ but requested that once his request is complete, they will expect ‘some long overdue answers.’

The senators’ inquiry was triggered by ‘explosive statements’ made by Milley in several books, including ‘Peril’ by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. The book chronicled Milley making ‘disparaging remarks about his Commander-in-Chief’ and attempting ‘to insert himself in the nuclear chain of command despite having no nuclear command authority,’ Grassley and Banks said. 

They also referenced a promise Milley made to his Chinese counterparts ahead of any potential U.S. attacks on Beijing. 

Fox News Digital reported in 2021 that Milley confirmed that he did, in fact, tell his Chinese counterpart that he would likely call ahead of any potential U.S. attacks on China, but he maintained that he had that conversation at the direction of then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper after assessing intelligence suggesting heightened Chinese concerns about escalation.

Milley added, though, that he was ‘not going to tip off any enemy to what the United States is going to do in an actual plan.’ 

The book also chronicled comments in which Milley said he believed then-President Donald Trump ‘had gone into serious mental decline … and could go rogue and order military action or use nuclear weapons, without going through required procedures.’

The lawmakers also pointed to the book’s report that Milley had to ‘take any and all necessary precautions’ to prevent the former president from engaging in a ‘rogue’ military action and he ‘wanted to find a way to inject, if not require, that second opinion.’

Grassley and Banks said that the Department of Defense’s former inspector general’s ‘refusal to investigate allowed Milley to dodge responsibility.’  

‘The nation’s highest-ranking military officer has a solemn responsibility to set an example of excellence and to model good conduct for all American service members,’ they wrote. ‘The record suggests that General Milley failed to meet those standards.’ 

Grassley and Banks said Milley’s ‘conduct and willful undermining of his Commander-in-Chief posed a grave threat to civilian control of the military.’ 

‘The issues raised by Milley’s alleged misconduct are too important to be swept under the rug,’ they wrote. ‘They must be examined, and if substantiated, General Milley should be held accountable.’ 

Grassley and Banks added that the acting inspector general’s ‘full cooperation would be appreciated.’ 

Milley did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday called U.S. demands that Tehran stop enriching uranium entirely ‘utter nonsense’ and questioned whether future nuclear talks could succeed. 

‘For the Americans to say, ‘We won’t allow Iran to enrich uranium,’ is utter nonsense,’ he said in a post on X. ‘We aren’t waiting for anyone’s permission. 

‘The Islamic Republic has certain policies, and it will pursue them,’ he added, without expanding on what these policies are. 

Iran in recent years has been under international pressure to halt its nuclear program, as many fear Tehran is actually in pursuit of nuclear weapons development. 

Iran has not stated it intends to build a nuclear weapon, but it has enriched uranium to near-weapons grade and bolstered its missile program in what experts argue is an important step to ensure Tehran could fire a nuclear warhead.

While uranium can be enriched for civil nuclear power and nations across the globe rely on nuclear energy, including the U.S., which utilizes nuclear energy to supply nearly 20% of its energy needs and is its largest source of clean energy, Iran’s reliance on nuclear energy amounted to less than 1% in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency. 

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s questions over whether it has in fact demanded that Tehran halt all uranium enrichment. 

However, Khamenei suggested the Trump administration’s push to negotiate on Iran’s nuclear program could be short-lived. 

‘Indirect negotiations took place during Martyr Raisi’s term similar to what’s happening now. Needless to say, there was no result,’ he added in reference to negotiation attempts under the Biden administration. ‘We don’t think these negotiations will yield results now either. We don’t know what will happen.’

Reports suggested that the fifth round of nuclear talks could take place this weekend in Rome, but Khamenei, as well as his Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, said Iran had not yet agreed to the talks following the U.S.’ latest demands.  

‘A date has been suggested, but we have not yet accepted it,’ Araqchi told reporters Tuesday, according to a Reuters report. ‘We are witnessing positions on the U.S. side that do not go along with any logic and are creating problems for the negotiations. 

‘That’s why we have not determined the next round of talks, we are reviewing the matter and hope logic will prevail,’ Araqchi added.