A Muslim-American identified as Rumana Ahmed, a national security staffer has resigned after eight days working in the Trump administration.
According to a report by Daily Mail UK, the young woman said it was ‘an insult’ to work under the current president.
It was gathered that Rumana Ahmed is a Muslim and an American citizen whose family moved to Maryland from Bangladesh. She was hired to a job at the White House straight out of college while Obama was still president.
When Trump was elected, she optimistically tried to stay on at the National Security Council, but after eight days realized that she could not continue to work there.
Ahmed, who penned an editorial piece about her experience in the Atlantic, said that as a Muslim woman, when the President issued a ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries and all Syrian refugees, she knew she could no longer stay and ‘work for an administration that saw me and people like me not as fellow citizens, but as a threat’.
After he took office, Ahmed describes that she quickly became uncomfortable going to work.
‘I got both of those looks of “oh my God, like, are you OK, you know, is this, you know, I’m surprised you’re still here”‘ Ahmed Said in an interview with CBS.
‘But then you had others who were just very cold and just kind of ignored the fact that I was even there’.
She explained that she hoped to change minds of those new people she would be working with in Washington, though she was offended by the President’s rhetoric while he was campaigning.
Whoeverever, on changing minds in Trump’s White House, she said: ‘There was no opportunity to interact with anybody.’
Ahmed also said that she believes she and other staffers were often cut out of the policy-making process in the early days, finding out about things as they happened on the news instead of as they happened in the office.
In her piece for the Atlantic, she describes the day that she decided to quit.
She said: ‘The evening before I left, bidding farewell to some of my colleagues, many of whom have also since left, I notified Trump’s senior NSC communications adviser, Michael Anton, of my departure, since we shared an office.’
It later came out that Michael Anton authored an essay under a pseudonym in which he praises authoritarianism and attacks diversity as a ‘weakness’, and Islam as ‘incompatible with the modern West,’ so it comes as no surprise that he did not ask her why she was leaving.
However, as she describes, she told him anyways.
‘I told him I had to leave because it was an insult walking into this country’s most historic building every day under an administration that is working against and vilifying everything I stand for as an American and as a Muslim,’ she wrote.
‘I told him that the administration was attacking the basic tenets of democracy.
‘I told him that I hoped that they and those in Congress were prepared to take responsibility for all the consequences that would attend their decisions,’ Ahmed continued.
She said that he looked at her but said nothing.
Ahmed’s parents moved to the United States from Bangladesh in 1978. Her mother worked as a cashier before starting a daycare business, and her father worked at Bank of America, eventually being promoted to Assistant Vice President at one of the headquarters.
She said that she was 12 when she started wearing a hijab, and that it was encouraged, but also her choice.
Ahmed wrote that while she never saw herself going into Government, she was inspired by President Obama.
Speaking with CBS, she said that ‘walking into that building was becoming more and more difficult every single day because everything that administration was doing stood against what I stood for as both an American and as a Muslim’.
In the past few weeks the National Security Council has been in the Washington ‘hot seat’ after Michael Flynn stepped down as national security adviser.
White House of
A Muslim-American identified as Rumana Ahmed, a national security staffer has resigned after eight days working in the Trump administration.
According to a report by Daily Mail UK, the young woman said it was ‘an insult’ to work under the current president.
It was gathered that Rumana Ahmed is a Muslim and an American citizen whose family moved to Maryland from Bangladesh. She was hired to a job at the White House straight out of college while Obama was still president.
When Trump was elected, she optimistically tried to stay on at the National Security Council, but after eight days realized that she could not continue to work there.
Ahmed, who penned an editorial piece about her experience in the Atlantic, said that as a Muslim woman, when the President issued a ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries and all Syrian refugees, she knew she could no longer stay and ‘work for an administration that saw me and people like me not as fellow citizens, but as a threat’.
After he took office, Ahmed describes that she quickly became uncomfortable going to work.
‘I got both of those looks of “oh my God, like, are you OK, you know, is this, you know, I’m surprised you’re still here”‘ Ahmed Said in an interview with CBS.
‘But then you had others who were just very cold and just kind of ignored the fact that I was even there’.
She explained that she hoped to change minds of those new people she would be working with in Washington, though she was offended by the President’s rhetoric while he was campaigning.
Whoeverever, on changing minds in Trump’s White House, she said: ‘There was no opportunity to interact with anybody.’
Ahmed also said that she believes she and other staffers were often cut out of the policy-making process in the early days, finding out about things as they happened on the news instead of as they happened in the office.
In her piece for the Atlantic, she describes the day that she decided to quit.
She said: ‘The evening before I left, bidding farewell to some of my colleagues, many of whom have also since left, I notified Trump’s senior NSC communications adviser, Michael Anton, of my departure, since we shared an office.’
It later came out that Michael Anton authored an essay under a pseudonym in which he praises authoritarianism and attacks diversity as a ‘weakness’, and Islam as ‘incompatible with the modern West,’ so it comes as no surprise that he did not ask her why she was leaving.
However, as she describes, she told him anyways.
‘I told him I had to leave because it was an insult walking into this country’s most historic building every day under an administration that is working against and vilifying everything I stand for as an American and as a Muslim,’ she wrote.
‘I told him that the administration was attacking the basic tenets of democracy.
‘I told him that I hoped that they and those in Congress were prepared to take responsibility for all the consequences that would attend their decisions,’ Ahmed continued.
She said that he looked at her but said nothing.
Ahmed’s parents moved to the United States from Bangladesh in 1978. Her mother worked as a cashier before starting a daycare business, and her father worked at Bank of America, eventually being promoted to Assistant Vice President at one of the headquarters.
She said that she was 12 when she started wearing a hijab, and that it was encouraged, but also her choice.
Ahmed wrote that while she never saw herself going into Government, she was inspired by President Obama.
Speaking with CBS, she said that ‘walking into that building was becoming more and more difficult every single day because everything that administration was doing stood against what I stood for as both an American and as a Muslim’.
In the past few weeks the National Security Council has been in the Washington ‘hot seat’ af
ter Michael Flynn stepped down as national security adviser.
White House of ficials have not said much about Ahmed’s comments, except that they wish her well.
