A devout supporter of President Donald Trump hired as a speechwriter for the Department of Homeland Security has a long record of praising the Jan. 6 attack and espousing extremist and racist rhetoric online.
Eric Lendrum, who writes speeches for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem—dubbed “ICE Barbie” for her love of highly stylized cosplaying in a variety of uniformed roles—has repeatedly defended Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, according to posts reviewed by NOTUS and the Daily Beast. According to his LinkedIn profile, Lendrum was hired as a speechwriter by DHS.
“The J6’ers did nothing wrong. Absolutely no violence was committed by Trump supporters on that day. Fact. Period,” Lendrum wrote in August 2023.
In a December 2021 blog post, he falsely described the Capitol riot as “peaceful” and compared the treatment of conservatives to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust and the enslavement of Black people.
“It has been said that the most surefire way to create an authoritarian regime is to completely dehumanize a significant portion of the population, so that their subsequent enslavement by the state will not face any larger resistance,” Lendrum wrote on the American Greatness blog. “It was true during slavery, it was true during the Holocaust, and it is true now.”
Despite insisting Jan. 6 was “peaceful,” Lendrum mocked lawmakers who hid from Trump supporters—which included members of far-right groups found guilty of seditious conspiracy, those who attacked police officers, and people carrying zip ties—on his Right Take podcast just weeks after it took place.
“There’s something so gratifying about seeing the images of these members of Congress—especially the Democrats—crouching under their chairs, putting on those stupid, like, bubble masks, those anti-gas bubble masks, and then taking selfies,” he said.
Lendrum further said the Great Replacement Theory—a white supremacist conspiracy that minorities and immigrants are replacing white Americans through immigration and demographic growth—was “real” on another episode of his podcast in October 2022.
NOTUS and the Daily Beast also uncovered multiple hateful posts from an X account belonging to Lendrum. In November 2023, he advocated for drivers to plow through pro-Palestinian protesters blocking traffic.
“Cars are bigger and heavier than any one of these freaks. All it takes is one brave driver to do what needs to be done, then others will follow,” he wrote.
The same account, which follows several DHS and White House staffers, repeatedly attacked members of the LGBTQ+ community, calling them “freaks." He referred to trans people as “child molesters,” using a slur, and on multiple posts on the American Greatness dismissed transgender identity as a “mental illness.”
In response, a DHS spokesperson emailed the Daily Beast a link to the First Amendment of the Constitution, which protects freedom of speech.
