New York Democrat House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries posted a video on his official House account on X attacking Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as an “extremist” over book removals at the U.S. Naval Academy and promising to “keep the pressure” on until Hegseth is fired from his post.
The video Jeffries shared is on the subject of a purge of books from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis at the direction of Hegseth’s office, on the premise that they are DEI-related content.
Fox News shared a statement from the Navy on Wednesday confirming the book bans:
“We can confirm the U.S. Naval Academy has removed nearly 400 books from their Nimitz Library collection in order to ensure compliance with all directives outlined in executive orders issued by the president,” a Navy spokesperson told Fox News Digital Wednesday. “Nimitz Library houses roughly 590,000 print books, 322 databases, and over 5,000 print journals and magazines to support the academic inquiries and intellectual development of Midshipmen.”
The New York Times on Friday reported that, while Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” remains on the shelves, but “Memorializing the Holocaust” by Janet Jacobs on female victims of the Holocaust has been removed.
“’The Bell Curve,’ which argues that Black men and women are genetically less intelligent than white people, is still there,” the paper reports. “But a critique of the book was pulled.”
Jeffries addressed the purge in his video, attacking Hegseth as the “so-called” Secretary of Defense, and labeling him and other appointees of President Donald Trump with a new definition for the DEI acronym: “Dumb Effing Individuals.”
“The outrageous Naval Academy book ban targets Maya Angelou and the Holocaust, but excludes Adolf Hitler,” the Democratic leader said in his post of the video. “This must be reversed immediately.”
The outrageous Naval Academy book ban targets Maya Angelou and the Holocaust, but excludes Adolf Hitler.
This must be reversed immediately. pic.twitter.com/5jZ8Z3F3iG
— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) April 12, 2025
“Apparently for these extremists, racist Nazi ideology and White supremacy is okay. We’re going to keep the pressure on these extremist who continue to try to whitewash our history,” Jeffries says in the video. “We’re going to keep the pressure on until this book band is reversed and Pete Hegseth is fired.”
These DEI hires in the Trump administration, like Pete Hegseth, the so-called Secretary of Defense – Dumb Effing Individuals – continue to try to test our resolve and cancel our history.
The latest is a book ban at the Naval Academy that removes works, including those about slavery, the civil rights movement and the Holocaust. At the same time, keeping books written by Adolf Hitler.
Apparently for these extremists, racist Nazi ideology and White supremacy is okay. We’re going to keep the pressure on these extremist who continue to try to whitewash our history.
They tried to cancel Jackie Robinson. We reversed it. They try to cancel Harriet Tubman. we reversed it. They tried to cancel the Tuskegee Airmen. We reversed it. We’re going to keep the pressure on until this book band is reversed and Pete Hegseth is fired.
Watch the clip above via Rep. Hakeem Jeffries on X (Twitter).
