Georgetown Was Trying to Atone for Its Past in the Slave Trade. What Now?

When Rachel Swarns first learned of the sale, she was “flabbergasted.”

The former New York Times correspondent had been writing about the legacy of slavery when she discovered something that shocked her as a Black Catholic woman: In 1838, the Jesuit order in Maryland — the first major Catholic institution in the U.S. — sold almost 300 enslaved people to fund its new school, what is now Georgetown University, alma mater of several members of Congress, as well as late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and former President Bill Clinton.

Swarns, who first broke the news about Georgetown’s past in 2016, recounts the story of the people enslaved on the St. Inigoes plantation in southern Maryland in her new book, The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church. The book focuses on the lives of the Mahoneys, one of many families enslaved and sold by the Jesuit priests.

In recent years, Georgetown and the Maryland Jesuits became an early example of an institution attempting to atone for its past in the slave trade. In 2019, the school announced it would provide preferential admissions to descendants of enslaved people, and its Jesuit operators announced millions in funding for racial reconciliation and education programs.

It’s uncertain whether last week’s Supreme Court decision overturning race-conscious affirmative action in college admissions will affect Georgetown’s program for descendants of enslaved people. Georgetown president John J. DeGioia wrote in a statement that the university was “deeply disappointed” in the decision, and that the university will “remain committed to our efforts to recruit, enroll, and support students from all backgrounds.”

As the college system braces for the fallout of that Supreme Court decision — and amid a simmering cultural debate about how, or even whether, to teach the kind of history Swarns has unearthed in schools — we had a wide-ranging discussion about book bans, the history of the Catholic Church (and her own connection to it) and the future of campus diversity.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Naranjo: Obviously the Catholic Church is not the only institution involved in slavery in the U.S. Do you think all institutions with a history of enslaving people have a duty to provide a full accounting of their involvement in doing so?

Swarns: You’re absolutely right. My book is about the Catholic Church and Georgetown University and their roots in slavery, but they are far from alone. Slavery drove the growth of many of our contemporary institutions — universities, religious institutions, banks, insurance companies. Many of those institutions are grappling with this history and I think it’s really important and urgent for them to do that work. I think it helps us understand more clearly how slavery shaped Americans, many American families and many of the institutions that are around us today. So to me, this is critical work.

Naranjo: I understand you are Catholic yourself. Has your personal relationship with the church been affected during your research?

Swarns: I had been writing about slavery and the legacy of slavery, and so I stumbled across the story in this book about the Catholic Church and Georgetown. But it just so happened that I also happen to be a Black, practicing Catholic, and when I first heard about this slave sale that prominent Catholic priests organized to help save Georgetown University, I was flabbergasted. I had never known that Catholic priests had participated in the American slave trade. I had never heard of Catholic priests enslaving people. I was really astounded, and I've been doing this research, going through archival records of the buying and selling of people by Catholic priests to sustain and help the church expand, even as I am going to Mass and doing all of that. And so it has been an interesting time for me because of that.

One of the things, though, that has been fascinating is that, as I tracked some of the people who had been enslaved and sold by the church, I learned that many of them — even after the Civil War, even after they were free people — they remained in the church that had betrayed them and sold them. And they remained in the church because they felt that the priests, the white sinful men who had sold them who had done these things, did not own this church. The church — God, the Holy Spirit, the Son — they did not control that. And their faith that had sustained them through all of this difficult period of enslavement continued to sustain them. And not only that, many of these individuals became lay leaders and some even became religious leaders in the church and worked to make the church more reflective of and responsive to Black Catholics and more true to its universal ideals. And so, in a strange way, learning that history, learning about these people and their endurance and their resilience and their commitment to their faith has been really inspiring to me. So, I’m still practicing, I’m still going to Mass.

Naranjo: As you note in the book, Catholicism in the U.S. has often been perceived as a Northern religion. And you show us how that’s not necessarily the case. But what do you think its role in enslaving people means for conversations about culpability and reparations, given that many people view slavery as a Southern thing?

Swarns: I think that explains a bit of the disconnect for people. Many of us as Americans view the Catholic Church as a Northern church, as an immigrant church. Growing up in New York City, that’s certainly the church that I knew. The truth is that the Catholic Church established its foothold in the British colonies and in the early United States and in Maryland, which was a slaveholding state and relied on slavery to help build the very underpinnings of the church. So the nation's first Catholic institution of higher learning, Georgetown, first archdiocese, the first cathedral, priests who operated a plantation and enslaved and sold people established the first seminary. So this was foundational to the emergence of the Catholic Church in the United States, but it's history that I certainly didn't know and most Catholics don't know. And most Americans don't know.

In terms of grappling with this history, the institutions have taken a number of steps. Georgetown and the Jesuit order priests, who were the priests who established the early Catholic Church in the United States, they’ve apologized for their participation in slavery and the slave trade. Georgetown has offered preference in admissions to descendants of people who were enslaved by the church, and it’s created a fund — a $400,000 fund — which they've committed to raising annually to fund projects that will benefit descendants. They've also renamed buildings and created an institute to study slavery.

The Jesuits, for their part, partnered with descendants to create a foundation and committed to raising $100 million toward racial reconciliation projects and projects that would benefit descendants. So those are the steps that have been taken so far by the institutions that I write about in my book.

Descendants, I think, have different feelings about whether or not this is adequate, whether or not more should be done. Most of the people that I speak to believe that these are good first steps, but that more needs to be done.

Naranjo: In your reporting process, did you experience any pushback into looking into a history that maybe some would like to have forgotten?

Swarns: In this instance, I was dealing with institutions that were trying to be transparent and trying to address this history. For both institutions, I would say there are more records that I wish I had that I don't have. And that's often what we journalists encounter. And part of the challenge, frankly, beyond institutional willingness or unwillingness, is just the marginalization of enslaved people during our history. Enslaved people were barred by law and practice from learning to read and write. So the records that would give great insight into their lives, letters and journals that historians and writers used to document the lives of other people, say, in the 1800s, are really, really, really, really scarce. And so that's an enormous challenge for anyone trying to unearth the lives of enslaved people.

Naranjo: I was reading the book last week, after the Supreme Court struck down race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Years before that, Georgetown had embarked on this process and, as noted in the book, implemented a program for preferential admission for descendants of people enslaved by its Jesuit founders. What responsibilities do you think institutions with similar histories of enslaving people have to descendants?

Swarns: Universities all across the country are obviously grappling with the implications of the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision. More than 90 universities have already identified historic ties to slavery and have committed to addressing that history. There’s actually a consortium of universities studying slavery. And what the Supreme Court decision means for them and for their efforts, I think, remains uncertain.

Georgetown issued a statement last week like many universities did, saying that they remain committed to ensuring diversity on campus and valuing diversity. How this will all play out — I mean, I think we’re all going to have to wait and see. In terms of the responsibilities for universities that have identified their roots in slavery? I’m a journalist, so to me, I think it’s so important to document this history. To search in the archives, to make materials available and easily available to families to identify descendants. And to reach out and to work with descendants. I’m a journalist, I’m not a policymaker, and so there will be others who can hammer out what policies institutions feel are best and what policies that the descendants, if there are any identified, feel would be best. But for me as a journalist and as a professor, I feel the urgency of documenting this history and making sure that it is known. And collaborating with descendant communities, when those communities are identified, in terms of deciding on policies and programs.

Naranjo: Part of the conversation about reparations has touched on the differences between cash reparations and efforts that channel funds to specific goals. As you've mentioned, many of the descendants of people enslaved by the Jesuits saw the efforts they've done, the funds they've created and the preferential admissions as a good first step. Has hard cash reparations come up as something they’ve mentioned they also would like to see?

Swarns: Georgetown's program, as you mentioned, is a program that finances and supports programs. It is not a program that would deliver cash to families. It's important to note that there are programs — Virginia Theological Seminary, for instance, an Episcopal seminary, which identified its ties to slavery and segregation has begun a program that gives cash to families that they've identified. Georgetown's program does not do that.

The Jesuits' program does have a small component that would provide some assistance to needy descended families. So the particulars of that and how that would work still remain — they’re not finalized. It’s unclear exactly how that would work. And I think descendants have mixed feelings about this. There are certainly some descendants who feel like, given what the church and Georgetown received in terms of labor and profits from sales, that cash payments would be appropriate. There are others who don’t. And so it’s a question that folks in the descendant community as well as around the country are wrestling with. But so far, Georgetown has made it clear that that’s not a path that it plans to go down.

Naranjo: You’ve been covering this topic for years. How has it influenced how you perceive broader institutions in this country?

Swarns: What has surprised me, as a professional, as a reasonably educated person, is how much I just didn’t know, how much I didn’t learn. I stumbled into this work with my first book about Michelle Obama and her enslaved ancestors. And as I was doing that research, I kept thinking, “Well, my goodness, why didn’t I know this? My goodness, why?” And so I think that what is really clear to me is how much needs to be done in terms of education, and in terms of illuminating the connections between slavery and America, the shaping of American families, the shaping and growth of American institutions. This is hard history, though, right? I mean, it’s history that a lot of people would prefer to remain history, prefer not to confront, prefer not to engage with. But I think it’s our history; it shapes who we are as Americans today. And I think we can’t look away.

Naranjo: How do you view the “culture war” fights over banning books that discuss difficult parts of history from schools?

Swarns: I think as Americans, we often like to think about slavery as old history. Long gone. Completely unrelated to us. And I think that’s because this history sits very uncomfortably with the narrative that feels much more comfortable to us, right? This narrative of equality, justice for all. For us as Americans, this is difficult history. Conversations about race and slavery remain difficult conversations to have. And I think that what we’re seeing around the country in terms of book bans and efforts to regulate teaching about race and slavery reflects that discomfort.

But as I said, we can’t ignore how much of a role slavery played in the emergence of our country, of our institutions, and the role that it plays in who we are as Americans today. I think there are many people who would prefer not to grapple with that. I think we have to grapple with it as Americans, and I’m encouraged by the institutions that are doing that work, and by the people who are pressing institutions to do that work.

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A Definitive Guide to All the Weird Internet Memes in Ron DesSantis Anti-LGBTQ Rights Ad

Over Fourth of July weekend, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign drew fire from across the political spectrum after it shared a bizarre, 1-minute-and-13-second video hyping the Florida governor’s hardline opposition to LGBTQ rights. The video, which was created by an anonymous account and shared on Twitter by the DeSantis campaign’s “rapid response” team, has been skewered by critics on both the left and the right for its homophobia and transphobia. But commentators also fixated on another element: It’s just plain weird, a video that is largely unintelligible to someone who hasn’t spent too many hours on the darker corners of the internet.

The clip, which was tweeted by DeSantis’ team with the message “To wrap up ‘Pride Month,’” opens by attacking former President Donald Trump for his past support of LGBTQ people, setting pictures of Trump shaking hands with Caitlyn Jenner and holding a pride flag against upbeat techno music. But 23 seconds in, the video takes a turn. The upbeat techno music is replaced by an ominous base tone. Clips of DeSantis fade in and out, intercut with a series of seemingly random images: DeSantis with red lightning bolts emerging from his eye sockets; a black-and-white photo of a chiseled bodybuilder; pictures of Hollywood anti-heroes. Headlines denouncing DeSantis’s “draconian” policies on LGBTQ issues flash across the screen, layered atop of clips of liberal talking heads criticizing DeSantis’ record. (On Friday afternoon, the clip disappeared from Twitter, replaced with the message, “This media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner” before being deleted. For now, you can still view it here.)

To the average voter, this rapid-fire mishmash of images might seem like a political fever dream. But the video fits squarely within an emergent strain of an online conservative subset that focuses on LGBTQ issues and masculinity. This discourse, which emerged from an obscure corner of the internet sometimes called the “manosphere,” relies on a heavily self-referential set of memes to convey its message, a message that is almost always drenched in irony. It can be hard to discern which images are supposed to be taken seriously and which are just designed to provoke outrage and troll the viewer. Yet beneath the irony lies a coherent — if deeply intolerant — argument: The embrace of LGBTQ people is part of a broader plot in society to destroy traditional masculinity.

For the most part, this irony-laden variety of homophobia remains a relatively fringe position on the online right. But its prominence in DeSantis’ latest campaign video suggests that it could be seeping into the conservative mainstream, and that might pay dividends among a group of Republican voters. “After all, [DeSantis’s backers] are seeking out the Trump voter,” said Daniel Adleman, an assistant professor of writing and rhetoric at the University of Toronto who was written about the overlap between pop-culture and far-right ideologies. “They are trying to demonstrate that DeSantis doesn't just talk the talk, but he walks the walk — that Trump is all full of lip service, but that DeSantis is the one who makes good on quasi-Trumpian promises.”

To help piece it all together, here’s your definitive guide to the memes and images from DeSantis’ recent video. This might be the first time you’re encountering them, but it likely won’t be the last if you pay close attention on Twitter, Threads, or whatever social new social media platform launches next week.

GigaChad

This meme, depicting a chiseled bodybuilder with a massive chin and a manicured beard, is a staple of discourse in the manosphere. Often referred to as “GigaChad,” the name borrows from the popular internal slang word “chad,” which is used refer to a stereotypical alpha male. The origin of the meme is shrouded in mystery — it’s rumored to have been taken from a series of photoshopped images of bodybuilders taken by a Russian photographer — but it first made its way online in 2017, when a version of the image was posted to the popular message board 4chan. The post introducing the meme defined GigaChad as, “The perfect human specimen destined to lead us against the reptilians” — a nod to a fringe conspiracy theory that posits that the world is run by humanoid reptiles.

Since its introduction, though, the meme has come to symbolize an ideal male form that, according to certain strains of thinking on the right, is being wiped out by the alleged feminization of American culture and media. Consider it the manosphere’s statue of David.

Patrick Bateman

You may recognize him from the 2000 film American Psycho — based on the 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis — but Christian Bale’s character has taken on a whole new life in the manosphere. In the movie, Bateman is a chauvinistic and status-obsessed Wall Street banker who — spoiler alert — may (or may not) lead a secret life as a serial killer and cannibal. (The movie leaves open the possibility that Bateman’s murderous activities are part of an elaborate, delusional fantasy.) Ironically, Bateman idolizes Donald Trump, a symbol of New York’s well-heeled nouveau riche during the 1980s.

Online, Bateman and other erstwhile Wall Street icons such as The Wolf of Wall Street’s Jordan Belfort (who also makes a brief appearance in the DeSantis video) have come to symbolize the set of hypermasculine virtues the manosphere is propagating. “If you're a superficial reader of Patrick Bateman, he represents an avatar of the Reagan era, self-asserting, shameless, impudent man who’s able to make the best possible use of neoliberalism as it existed in the 1980s and, by extension, as it exists now,” Adleman said. “I could see that might appealing to the alt-right, 4chan crowd in this post-Trumpian era.”

Yes Chad

Giga is not the only Chad popular among this crowd. In mid-2019, an image of a cartoon figure with blonde hair, blue eyes and a thick blonde beard started making its way around Twitter and other online message boards. The illustration was captioned was a single word: “Yes.” Since then, the image has become the template for a universe of memes known as “Yes Chad,” featuring illustration of men — yes, always men — who project an air of masculine authority and steely male confidence. (Sometimes, the meme is paired with an illustration of a blonde woman in a blue dress, symbolizing the so-called “trad wife.”) The meme also carries some not-so-subtle racist undertones, as it depicts the ideal man as an Aryan archetype.

In the video, meanwhile, a cartoon of DeSantis in the style of the “Yes Chad” flashes in between a clip of the governor giving a speech and a scene of him walking with his coterie. What, exactly, DeSantis is saying “Yes” to is left up to the viewer to decode.

Thomas Shelby

The fictional protagonist of the British television drama Peaky Blinders, Tommy Shelby —portrayed by Cillian Murphy — is the leader of a crime gang who evades the law and rival gangs in post-World War I England to expand his criminal empire. But online, Murphy’s character has become associated with the trope of the “sigma male,” a type of man who — in contrast to the stereotypical “alpha male,” who sits atop a social hierarchy — has transcended societal norms to play by his own set of rules. A quick Google search turns up pages of YouTube videos with titles like “12 Reasons why THOMAS SHELBY Is The Ultimate SIGMA MALE.” (In a statement released Wednesday, the team behind Peaky Blinders disowned any association with the DeSantis ad.)

Presumably, the comparison between Shelby and DeSantis is intended to highlight the latter’s willingness to play dirty and buck conservative convention — like, for instance, fighting with Disney or sending planes of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard and California.

Bodybuilders

“I’m going to leave aside the strangeness of trying to prove your manhood by putting up a video that splices images of you in between oiled-up, shirtless bodybuilders,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said last weekend when asked about DeSantis’ video — apparently referring to several shots of slick-looking male bodybuilders flexing their bulging muscles. But in certain corners of the online right where the popularity of bodybuilding is on the rise, it’s not strange at all. For one possible explanation of this trend, look no further than Tucker Carlson’s much-discussed documentary The End of Men, which advanced the argument that the destruction of men’s bodies through poor nutrition and poor exercise habits is part of a broader globalist plot to take over the world. Understood in this context, rebuilding a man’s physique isn’t just good for his health — it’s also a critical first step toward overthrowing the power of the corrupt global elite.

DeSantis has not revealed whether weightlifting is a major part of his recent weight-loss efforts, but on the campaign trail he has certainly has leaned into the anti-elite rhetoric that’s tied up with the bodybuilding fad.

Achilles

 
Is that Brad Pitt staring out from behind that bronze helmet? Yes, yes, it is. As film buffs and mythology nerds will know, Pitt portrayed the ancient Greek hero Achilles in the 2004 movie Troy, based on Homer’s epic poem the Iliad. As in the Iliad, Pitt’s Achilles emerges as as the hero of the film, bursting onto the battlefield toward the end of the conflict to revenge the death of his comrade Patroclus at the hands of the Trojan hero Hector.

As many commentators online have pointed out, there a poignant irony to the fact that a video targeting LGBTQ people included an image of Achilles, given that many scholars have interpreted Achilles’ friendship with Patroclus as a type of homosexual relationship. But the valorization of Achilles fits neatly within a broader far-right obsession with ancient Rome and Greece, which some conservatives hold up as the cradle of “Western civilization.” Ever heard of “Bronze Age Mindset”? We bet the creators of this video have.

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Raskin passes on Senate bid

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) officially passed Friday on a bid for a Senate seat in deep-blue Maryland.

The Maryland lawmaker has become a powerful entity in the House, rocketing to national fame as the lead manager of former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment and as a member of the Jan. 6 select committee. He’s now the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee.

Sen. Ben Cardin’s (D-Md.) retirement announcement in May immediately fueled speculation that Raskin would run. But he delayed his decision after a recent bout with cancer that is now in remission and has cited his work on the Oversight panel as a top reason to stay in the House.

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Appeals court upholds but narrows sex-trafficking statute

A federal appeals court has upheld key portions of a federal law Congress passed to combat sex trafficking online, but the court rejected broad readings of the statute that critics warned could intrude on First Amendment-protected speech.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that language in the 2018 Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act — better known as FOSTA — is not unconstitutionally vague and doesn’t violate free-speech rights.

However, the court said it would interpret the threat of criminal punishment for the use of computer services in a manner “facilitating” or “assisting” prostitution to apply as longer-standing statutes traditionally do, to people “aiding and abetting” such crimes.

“We therefore hold that [FOSTA’s] mental state requirement does not reach the intent to engage in general advocacy about prostitution, or to give advice to sex workers generally to protect them from abuse,” Judge Patricia Millett wrote, joined by Judges Harry Edwards and Justin Walker. “Nor would it cover the intent to preserve for historical purposes webpages that discuss prostitution. Instead, it reaches a person’s intent to aid or abet the prostitution of another person.”

Millett conceded that the language could be seen as encompassing all sorts of conduct that arguably promotes or encourages prostitution. But she said the more limited reading was justified in this instance.

“Undoubtedly, the term ‘facilitate’ could be read more broadly,” the judge wrote. “But nothing in [FOSTA] compels us to read ‘facilitate’ that way. Doubly so when a more expansive reading could raise grave constitutional concerns.”

Advocates for legalizing prostitution, the operators of the Internet Archive website, Human Rights Watch and a massage therapist who said he lost business when Craigslist pulled many categories of ads after passage of FOSTA in 2018 sued to block enforcement of the law.

In the arguments at the D.C. Circuit earlier this year, the Justice Department urged a narrow construction of the law in order to avoid a ruling that the statute is unconstitutional.

During the arguments, Millett and Edwards seemed to view the law as constitutionally flawed, particularly its reference to conduct promoting prostitution.

However, a 7-2 Supreme Court decision last month narrowing a similar law against promoting illegal immigration may have prompted the D.C. Circuit judges to reassess their positions. Millett’s 34-page opinion makes nine references to the high court’s ruling two weeks ago in U.S. v. Hansen.

A First Amendment lawyer who argued the case against FOSTA, Robert Corn-Revere, said Friday he was disappointed in the decision. However, he welcomed the appeals court’s strong signal that the law should not be used to discourage various advocacy and other activities not linked to specific acts of prostitution.

“It’s not a bad thing that they did say applying a broad interpretation of the law would raise grave constitutional concerns and as a result construed it really rather narrowly,” said Corn-Revere, who recently became general counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “I think the court cleaned up after Congress and made the statute more precise than the original drafters may have intended.”

Corn-Revere said the Supreme Court’s ruling in the immigration case “obviously influenced” the D.C. Circuit's opinion. A separate high court decision limiting social media firms’ liability in terrorism-related civil lawsuits is likely to further constrain the use of FOSTA, he said.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment Friday.

It’s unclear whether the D.C. Circuit ruling will provide any benefit to several founders and employees of the former classified-ad website Backpage fighting criminal sex-trafficking charges in Arizona. Their defense lawyers say the Justice Department has taken an inconsistent position there, arguing that the defendants could in fact be found guilty in the criminal prosecution based on evidence that did not meet the threshold of aiding and abetting. The judge handling that case turned down those arguments last month.

The first trial in the Backpage case ended with an abrupt mistrial two years ago. A new trial is set to open Aug. 8 in Phoenix.

Backpage, which grew out of the Village Voice newspaper’s classified section and eventually grew to be far more profitable than the remainder of the enterprise, shut down in 2018 after the Justice Department accused the company of being a front for prostitution and obtained court orders seizing the firm’s assets.

Millett, the author of the court’s opinion Friday, was appointed by President Barack Obama. Edwards is an appointee of President Jimmy Carter. Walker was appointed by President Donald Trump.

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Trump attacks DeSantis in Iowa over ethanol stance

Donald Trump criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for opposing a federal program supporting the ethanol industry, but the tactic could open up the former president's mixed record on biofuels to scrutiny.

Trump in a campaign speech from Council Bluffs, Iowa, said Friday the state "needs to know" that DeSantis, his chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, "totally despises" ethanol and has been fighting it "for years."

"Don't forget, he was a congressman, and he was voting against it and fighting for years to kill every single job supported by this very important industry,” Trump said. "Ending the Renewable Fuel Standard was one of his top priorities as a member of Congress. He wanted to end it. And if he had his way, the entire economy of Iowa would absolutely collapse."

The remarks seek to tie DeSantis to his previous support of efforts to eliminate the Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires oil refiners to blend a minimum volume of renewable fuel into the nation's transportation fuel each year.

It's a reoccurring political playbook in the influential corn state — one that resurfaced between Trump and President Joe Biden on the campaign trail in 2020 and emerged with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who won the Iowa caucus in 2016.

“I fought for Iowa ethanol like no president in history and ethanol, period, like no president,” Trump said Friday.

The remarks put a microscope on Trump's own record during his time in the Oval Office. Trump earned praise from biofuels advocates over his move to extend the year-round sale of fuel blends with 15 percent ethanol, known as E15, which he highlighted in remarks Friday, although the effort was eventually struck down by a federal appeals court. 

Despite several meetings on the issue, Trump left the White House without crafting a deal on politically fraught decisions on biofuels policy.

"Now [DeSantis] is going to come on here and probably say, 'I'm actually quite in favor of ethanol. I think it's wonderful,'" Trump said. "One thing about a politician, ... when they have their initial thoughts, that's what they go back to."

DeSantis' press secretary Bryan Griffin said the former president's remarks Friday aren't the first and likely won't be the last "distorting" the governor's record, but said DeSantis is the candidate who shares Iowans' values.

"As president, Ron DeSantis will be a champion for farmers and use every tool available to open new markets," Griffin said in a statement.

Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, said DeSantis’ previous attempts to undo the Renewable Fuel Standard are not an automatic disqualifier in the state, where ethanol policy is often seen as a “differentiator” during the GOP primary caucuses. Iowa voters have “open minds” — as evidenced by Cruz’s success in the campaign despite his opposition to the ethanol mandate, which was "nuanced," Shaw said.

“I don't find a lot of Iowans that care what a then-congressman did 10 years ago representing a district in another state,” he said, adding voters are more interested to hear about his national energy policy now.

He noted DeSantis has taken steps Iowa farmers could appreciate, pointing to his recent veto of a bill that would be “a de facto mandate” for electric vehicles.

The former president launched a “Farmers for Trump” coalition Friday in a statement that touted his support of access to new markets for ethanol and promised to reverse “the disastrous policies” of the Biden administration on Day 1. He told the crowd in long-running remarks that he would cancel every Biden policy "brutalizing" farmers — adding Biden is trying to "kill" Iowa ethanol and replace it with electric cars.

Trump also promised to allow export of ethanol across the globe.

“President Trump has proven himself to be the most pro-farmer president in our nation’s history,” said Iowa state Rep. Mike Sexton in a statement accompanying the launch of Farmers for Trump, which Sexton co-chairs.

But during his time in the Oval Office, Trump EPA’s actions on setting the blending requirements under the Renewable Fuel Standard were sometimes condemned by corn state lawmakers, farmers and biofuels producers, including issuing waivers that benefitted oil refineries, furthering the divide between the oil and biofuel industries.

Ahead of his remarks, Shaw called Trump’s record on ethanol a mixed bag, with the former president's support for the expansion of tax credits for carbon capture and sequestration a positive development that prompted new multibillion-dollar projects in Iowa, but noting that his approval of the refinery exemptions slashed demand for biofuels.

“There’s a lot of ethanol supporters and farmers I talk to that definitely have mixed emotions on his track record when it comes to biofuels,” Shaw said. “There were some very good things. There were some things that caused a lot of economic hardship for our industry. So if he's going to come out and focus on renewable fuels, we'd really like him to have a clear message on looking forward, not just talking about the past.”

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Top Dems break with Biden over sending cluster bombs to Ukraine

Key Democratic lawmakers are breaking with President Joe Biden over the controversial decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine, arguing that providing the weapons, which are banned by more than 120 countries, cedes the moral high ground and will end up indiscriminately killing civilians.

Top Democrats on the House Rules Committee and the panels that fund the Pentagon and State Department lashed out in rare public statements broadcasting their break with their party’s president.

“The decision by the Biden administration to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine is unnecessary and a terrible mistake,” said Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Mo.), the ranking member of the House’s defense appropriations subcommittee. “The legacy of cluster bombs is misery, death and expensive cleanup generations after their use.”

“These weapons should be eliminated from our stockpiles, not dumped in Ukraine,” she added.

Cluster bombs, officially called dual-purpose improved conventional munitions, are designed to take out multiple military targets by scattering large numbers of small “bomblets” over a wide area. They are banned by most NATO countries because the ordnance that fails to explode can end up killing civilians, even long after conflict has ended.

The Democratic lawmakers noted that Congress has barred the transfer of any cluster munition with a “dud rate” of greater than 1 percent, though Biden can waive the rule.

Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said Thursday that officials will “carefully” select only the rounds with lower dud rates, for which there is recent testing, to send to Ukraine. The U.S. has large numbers of cluster bombs sitting in storage, which officials argue will help Ukraine break through dug-in Russian lines as Kyiv is rapidly running out of conventional ammunition.

Still, lawmakers joined with arms control advocates this week in saying the administration was making an unacceptable ethical trade-off that would kill civilians, alienate allies and damage the moral case to back Ukraine.

Progressive Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House panel that funds the State Department, tweeted she was “alarmed” at the move, while House Rules Committee ranking member Jim McGovern said that while he supports helping Ukraine, sending cluster bombs represents a break with NATO allies such as the U.K., France, Germany and Spain.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Friday defended the administration’s decision, saying, “Russia has been using cluster munitions since the start of this war to attack Ukraine.”

“Ukraine has committed to post-conflict demining efforts to mitigate any potential harm to civilians. And this will be necessary regardless of whether the United States provides these munitions or not,” he said. 

Still, even some more hawkish Democrats ripped the administration. Air Force veteran and House Armed Services member Chrissy Houlahan, in a statement Friday, challenged the assessment that cluster bombs would be the most effective means to back Kyiv.

“I challenge the notion that we should employ the same tactics Russia is using, blurring the lines of moral high ground,” said Houlahan, who co-chairs the bipartisan Unexploded Ordinance (UXO)/Demining Caucus. “And I challenge all of us to remember that this war will end, and the broken pieces of Ukraine will need to be rebuilt. History remembers not only who wins a war but also how a war is won.”

Humanitarian and civil rights groups also criticized the decision. Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon official and military adviser at PAX Protection of Civilians, a Dutch NGO, noted that the actual dud rates in the field are much higher than those recorded during tests “conducted under perfect and unrealistic conditions.”

Comments from U.S. officials defending the decision do not allay the fears of many in the community, Garlasco said, expressing skepticism about the Pentagon’s latest test data showing lower dud rates.

Arms control advocates who were on a call with administration officials on Friday said that despite claims the cluster munitions being sent would have lower dud rates, there were no details about the types and sources of the cluster munitions the U.S. plans to send.

A Defense Department official, who was granted anonymity to speak ahead of an announcement, said the Pentagon had provided test results, which are classified, to members of Congress upon request. However, the official acknowledged that variables in the field can significantly affect the dud rate.

“Shoot this in the desert, dry, flat ground, you might get a totally different result than if you shot this in a mountain jungle,” the official said.

Still, there are also powerful members of Congress who support sending cluster munitions. House Foreign Affairs Chair Mike McCaul (R-Texas), House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), and their Republican counterparts in the Senate have urged the move for months. The Democratic-led Senate Armed Services Committee last month advanced its version of the annual Pentagon policy bill with language backing it, too.

In a statement Friday, the Republicans hailed the administration move as relieving pressure on stockpiles of unitary missiles but slammed what they called its delay in sending a range of weapons over a “misguided fear of escalation” that they say risks the success of Kyiv’s counteroffensive.

The House Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, has said Washington should give Kyiv what it says it needs to win the fight, including cluster munitions, longer-range missiles and F-16 fighter jets. “From moment one, my view has been: Give the Ukrainians what they want and need. Frankly I wish that the United States and the administration had moved faster on providing more weaponry,” he said on CNN earlier this week.

Progressives, some of whom called in a letter last year for the administration to ban the use of cluster munitions by the U.S. military, have been lobbying the administration to refrain from this move for months.

A House Democratic aide said he pointed to that letter multiple times with State Department officials over recent months, to wave the administration off when it seemed to be mulling cluster bombs for Ukraine.

“There are a number of progressives who are really hacked off. We thought the communication was clear,” said the aide, who was granted anonymity to discuss tensions with the executive branch. “They can’t say we weren’t emoting clear signals this was a momentous step. A 6-year-old doesn’t step on an F-16 and lose their leg.”

House Foreign Affairs Committee member Colin Allred (D-Texas) defended Biden’s decision on MSNBC on Friday morning, saying there’s “no chance” of Ukraine and its allies losing the moral high ground to Russian troops he accused of war crimes and strikes on civilian targets.

”What we're trying to do, I think, is consistent with our values, to help the brave Ukrainian resistance kick the Russians out of their territory, and I'm sure President Biden thought about this deeply, and his team, and they decided this would help them do that — and I'm sure they'll also try to have a plan to deal with any of the fallout,” Allred said.

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U.S. approves cluster bombs in latest Ukraine weapons transfer

The Biden administration on Friday approved an $800 million weapons package for Ukraine which includes controversial cluster bombs, armored vehicles and air defense missiles.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan responded to humanitarian concerns about the cluster bombs by emphasizing the need to provide Kyiv with artillery and that Ukraine has already been targeted by Russia’s cluster bombs.

“We recognize that cluster munitions created risk of civilian harm from unexploded ordnance,” Sullivan said during a White House press briefing. “This is why we deferred the decision for as long as we could, but there is also a massive risk of civilian harm if Russian troops and tanks roll over Ukrainian positions and take more Ukrainian territory and subjugate more Ukrainian civilians because Ukraine does not have enough artillery.”

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