Is DEI dead?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the weeks following Donald Trump’s scrapping of diversity, equality and inclusion schemes in government, a number of big-name companies have followed suit rolling back their DEI commitments. So why are so many big companies ditching DEI? And what could this rolling back of DEI policies mean for businesses and workplaces? We speak to Alexandra Mousavizadeh.
Later, Gabriel Gatehouse joins us to tell us about frozen heads, psychedelic art, and his search for the mysterious Bitcoin founder.
Tickets to The News Agents Live On Stage with HSBC UK are now on sale! You can get your tickets for Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh here: https://articles.globalplayer.com/7giHoMavXLgdrd6gaC3GxWG7T8
Editor: Tom Hughes
Executive Producer: Louis Degenhardt
Producer: Natalie Indge
Digital Editor: Michaela Walters
Social Media Editor: Georgia Foxwell
Video Production: Rory Symon, Shane Fennelly & Arvind Badewal
Digital Journalist: Michael Baggs
Don’t forget you can also subscribe to our other News Agents podcasts via the link below:
https://linktr.ee/thenewsagents
The News Agents USA now have merch! Click here to buy yours now: https://store.global.com/collections/the-news-agents
The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.0 | This is a global player original podcast. We had an email this morning from someone employed by a |
| 0:17.8 | multinational company, but with its major presence in the US. I'll read it to you. |
| 0:22.9 | Hi news agents. I've just come off a business-wide call with regards to DEI, diversity equity |
| 0:29.1 | inclusion, executive orders from the US. The UK business sits under a US company's umbrella |
| 0:35.4 | and is in the process of fully merging our branding to the US company. |
| 0:40.5 | We've been told that all DEI activities in the UK will be paused to the annoyance of many |
| 0:48.0 | members of staff. Are there any other recent executive orders that may affect the UK other than |
| 0:53.5 | tariffs, of course. |
| 0:55.0 | So today we're going to ask the big question. Is DEI debt? In other words, are companies now |
| 1:03.8 | putting aside efforts on diversity, equity and inclusion because they think its time has gone, |
| 1:10.5 | or because they think business will thrive better without it, or because they think its time has gone, or because they think business |
| 1:12.6 | will thrive better without it, or because they're getting signals from the incoming |
| 1:16.6 | Trump administration that they'll just do better if they put all the woke stuff behind them. |
| 1:23.6 | Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:27.7 | The news agents. It's John. It's Emily. Thank you. Welcome to the Newsagents. The Newsagents. |
| 1:29.8 | It's John. |
| 1:30.8 | It's Emily. |
| 1:31.7 | And since Donald Trump signed an executive order very soon after coming to office saying that |
| 1:38.4 | he was banning DEI from the US government because it was a ginormous waste of money and it was too woke |
| 1:47.5 | and it was targeting the wrong people and it meant for God's sake and he did talk about dwarves |
| 1:54.0 | being encouraged to become air traffic controllers and that was after the crash that somehow |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Global, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Global and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.