Fired US librarian of Congress details callous dismissal in new interview [View all]
Source: The Guardian
Sat 7 Jun 2025 07.00 EDT
Last modified on Sat 7 Jun 2025 07.01 EDT
The first woman and African American to serve as the US librarian of Congress before Donald Trump fired her in May has not heard from the president’s administration beyond the 31-word email it sent her with word of her dismissal, she has revealed in her first interview since her ouster.
“No one has talked to me directly at all from the White House,” Carla Hayden says in an interview airing on the upcoming CBS News Sunday Morning. “I’ve received no communication directly, except for that one email. “That’s the only communication.” Hayden’s comments to the CBS national correspondent Robert Costa provide a first-hand glimpse at the unceremonious way she was fired from a post to which the US Senate confirmed her in 2016.
She had been thrust under political pressure by a conservative advocacy group that had pledged to drive out anyone deemed to be standing in the way of the Trump White House’s rightwing agenda. That organization, the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), leveled accusations against Hayden and other library leaders that they had promoted children’s books with “radical content” as well as literature by opponents of the president.
Hayden then received an email on 8 May that read: “Carla, on behalf of President Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.” Asked by Acosta whether her tenure really ended “with one missive that’s electronic”, Hayden replied: “That was it.” She also remarked: “I was never notified beforehand and after.”
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/07/librarian-of-congress-carla-hayden
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