White House plans to bar federal agencies from race-related training sessions it calls ‘Un-American’

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is moving to revamp federal agencies’ racial sensitivity trainings, casting some of them “divisive” and “un-American,” according to a memo by the White House Office of Management and Budget.

In the two-page memo, OMB Director Russell Vought says that Trump has asked him to prevent federal agencies from spending millions in taxpayer dollars on these training sessions. Vought says OMB will instruct federal agencies to come up with a list of all contracts related to trainings involving "white privilege" or "critical race theory," the memo states.

The memo was released on Friday.

It also tells all federal agencies to identify all methods possible to cancel contracts that involve teaching that America is an "inherently racist or evil country."

"The President has directed me to ensure that federal agencies cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions," the memo states.

Vought writes in the memo that "it has come to the President's attention that Executive Branch agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to date 'training' government workers to believe divisive, anti-American propaganda."

He then refers to a press report that says federal employees "have been required to attend trainings where they are told that 'virtually all White people contribute to racism' or where they are required to say that they 'benefit from racism.'"

It could not immediately be learned what training sessions Vought was referring to in the memo.

The memo later says that "the President, and his Administration, are fully committed to the fair and equal treatment of all individuals in the United States."

The memo comes after Trump has put himself at the center of an intense national debates about race, politics tactics, the Civil War, and the Confederate flag. Democrats have long taken aim at Trump's comments about race, including his false assertion that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

And this year, after numerous Black Lives Matter protests occurred around the country following incidents when certain police officers killed or shot Black Americans, Trump has sharply criticized social justice protesters and called for law enforcement to crack down hard.