Trump administration fires Holocaust Museum board members picked by Biden

MSN - The Trump administration has terminated members of the board that oversees the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum appointed by President Joe Biden — including Doug Emhoff, the husband of former vice president Kamala Harris.

“Today, I was informed of my removal from the United States Holocaust Memorial Council,” Emhoff, who is Jewish and helped lead the Biden administration’s fight against antisemitism, said in a statement posted to social media. “Holocaust remembrance and education should never be politicized. To turn one of the worst atrocities in history into a wedge issue is dangerous — and it dishonors the memory of six million Jews murdered by Nazis that this museum was created to preserve.” Emhoff was appointed in Jan. 2025.

The White House confirmed to The Washington Post on Tuesday that President Donald Trump is planning to appoint new members to the board, though it stopped short of confirming the reports that it terminated members of the current board....

On Tuesday morning, some board members received a termination email from Mary Sprowls of the White House Presidential Personnel Office. According to board member Alan D. Solomont, a former U.S. ambassador to Spain appointed to the council by Biden in May 2023 who received the email, it read: “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service.”

Emhoff has been outspoken against the rise in antisemitism. Jon Finer, the former deputy national security adviser to Biden, said he was also terminated. Others dismissed include former Biden chief of staff Ron Klain, former domestic policy adviser Susan Rice, and Anthony Bernal, a senior adviser to former first lady Jill Biden, the Associated Press reported.

 Solomont, who said the email came as a shock, called the terminations “divisive” and “revolting.” He criticized Trump’s decision to remove people from a board that is charged with memorializing and remembering the Holocaust “at a time when he is supposedly fighting antisemitism.” The president, Solomont said, was choosing “to make that a partisan issue.”