Tomorrow, House Republicans in the Judiciary Committee are holding a hearing attacking the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) after the Trump DOJ indicted the group as part of Trump’s vindictive weaponization campaign. The witnesses for the Majority at the hearing announced so far? Carol Swain, a right-wing commentator and retired professor with long-standing ties to right-wing think tanks, advocacy groups, and media, and Tyler O’Neil, a career right-wing media figure who has worked for outlets such as The Washington Free Beacon, Fox News and The Daily Signal.
House Republicans have abused their congressional oversight powers to deepen investigations into President Trump’s personal enemies. Jim Jordan and his committee have spent years holding political stunt hearings. This far-right witness slate offers absolutely no insight into the circumstances surrounding the SPLC indictment. Instead of pursuing actual oversight or addressing the issues Americans actually care about, like the cost of living or health care affordability, House Republicans are focused on pushing Trump’s agenda and attacking their political enemies through stunt hearings featuring partisan witnesses.
WITNESSES
Tyler O’Neil
Senior Editor, The Daily Signal
O’Neil Wrote an Entire Book Attacking the SPLC and Called Its Hate Map “An Organ of Defamation.” In a Heritage Foundation interview, O’Neil described the SPLC’s hate map as “clearly meant to be… an organ of defamation,” claiming it falsely equates “mainstream conservative groups” like the Family Research Council with Klan chapters. Yet the SPLC’s hate map currently features 61 neo-Nazi groups, 14 Ku Klux Klan groups, and 14 antisemitic groups.
- O’Neil Defended the American Freedom Law Center, an SPLC-Designated Anti-Muslim Hate Group Whose Founder Called for Killing Muslims Who “Yell Some Obscenity at the West.” In April 2025, O’Neil wrote a column defending the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) against Michigan’s Hate Crimes Unit, describing it as a “Judeo-Christian law firm.” The SPLC designates the AFLC an anti-Muslim hate group. AFLC founder David Yerushalmi wrote in 2006 that “any Muslim who sticks his neck out of the mosque to yell some obscenity at the West should be considered an enemy combatant and killed or captured and held for the duration of the war.”
O’Neil Called the Episcopal Church “One of the Most Flaccid and Spineless of the Dying Mainline Protestant Denominations.” In May 2025, O’Neil wrote that “The Episcopal Church has proven itself one of the most flaccid and spineless of the dying mainline Protestant denominations, and I am glad to be part of the Anglican movement opposing its watered-down bastardization of Christianity.” As of 2023, the Episcopal Church had over 1.5 million baptized members in the United States.
O’Neil Has Called LGBTQ+ Identity Immoral, Promoted Conversion Therapy, and Described Trans People as “Dangerous.” O’Neil reportedly claimed that being LGBTQ is “immoral,” stated that “transgender identity is dangerous,” and promoted harmful and discredited conversion therapy as a way for people to supposedly leave “the gay lifestyle.” In a 2018 piece, O’Neil pushed conversion therapy as an effective tool for Christians to “uphold the Bible’s morality, which clearly conflicts with the LGBT orthodoxy that Biden and his fellow Democrats want to enforce on us.”
- O’Neil Described Gender-Affirming Care as “Grotesque” and Called Transgender Identity a “Noxious” Ideology and a “Poison” Threatening Children. In May 2026, O’Neil wrote that “the noxious ideology of transgenderism does not belong in children’s streaming content, and FCC rules should empower parents to avoid exposing their kids to this poison.” In the same piece, he described gender-affirming care for minors as a “grotesque form of ‘care’” that “leaves patients stunted, scarred, and infertile.” The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and every major U.S. medical body support gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
O’Neil Dismissed Expert Consensus on Right-Wing Extremism as a “Biased Narrative” Promoted by the Left. After Nashville police released their long-awaited report on the 2023 Covenant School shooting, O’Neil characterized the findings as playing into “the Left’s biased narrative on ‘right-wing extremism.’” He dismissed expert consensus linking political extremism to mass violence, writing that “whenever a mass shooter can conceivably be connected to a conservative cause… the Left pounces on evidence of ‘right-wing extremism.’” The Covenant School shooting killed three 9-year-old children and three adults.
O’Neil Personally Wrote Multiple 2025 Articles Praising Viktor Orban’s Policies. In March 2025, O’Neil praised Orban’s pro-natalist tax policies as a model for addressing “demographic winter.” In a separate March 2025 piece on Hungarian CPAC, O’Neil amplified commentary from a Hungarian commentator praising Trump’s dismantlement of USAID and warning about a “woke machine” sustained by George Soros, while using the piece to promote his own book, The Woketopus.
During O’Neil’s Tenure, The Daily Signal Repeatedly Published Pro-Orban Content While the Heritage Foundation Was Accused of Becoming a “Mouthpiece” for Orban’s Government. Under O’Neil’s editorial leadership, The Daily Signal published pieces including “Commentary: Hungary Leads Way in Defense of Conservative Values, Culture” (10/28/22) and “Hungarian Constitutional Amendment Rejects Transgenderism” (04/15/25). The New Republic reported in March 2024 that Heritage had become “little more than a mouthpiece for a strongman and a leading proponent for Orban-style rule in the U.S.” Heritage President Kevin Roberts described Orban’s leadership as a “model for conservative governance,” and Heritage and the pro-Orban Danube Institute hold in-person meetings every three months, both in Washington, D.C. and Budapest.
Carol Swain
Retired Professor & Right-Wing Media Commentator
Swain Has Spent Years Attacking the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). In 2009, the SPLC labeled Swain an apologist for white supremacists after she endorsed a film arguing that racism is “artificial, manufactured, and manipulated” and characterized racism as merely a “tool of intimidation” used against “Caucasian whites.” She has since spent years attacking the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). In 2017, she published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal attacking the group, which significantly amplified her profile as a right-wing voice against the organization and spurred a follow-up media tour in which Swain said she “wears the SPLC’s smear as a badge of honor.”
Swain’s Extreme Anti-Muslim Commentary Prompted Vanderbilt University to Disavow Her Remarks. In a 2015 op-ed, then-Professor Swain wrote that Islam “poses an absolute danger to us and our children” and that devout Muslims “are going to be more extreme,” sparking campus protests at Vanderbilt and prompting the university’s provost to publicly disavow her remarks on at least three occasions.
Swain Has Deep Ties To Right-Wing Advocacy. Swain has many current and historical ties to right-wing advocacy groups and think tanks. She currently serves as a distinguished senior fellow for the far-right Texas Public Policy Foundation and a faculty associate for Young America’s Foundation, one of the most influential, and controversial forces in the nation’s conservative youth movement. In the past, she appeared at multiple conferences hosted by the Family Research Council and Heritage Foundation. Now, Swain runs her own nonprofit dedicated to “helping shape American culture and advancing public understanding of conservative values.”
Swain Served On An Advisory Committee To The First Trump Administration, The 1776 Commission. In late 2020, Swain was appointed as Vice Chair of President Trump’s 1776 Commission, a body composed entirely of conservative activists with no credentialed historians, whose report was repudiated by the American Historical Association and rescinded by President Biden on his first day in office.
Swain Retired from Vanderbilt After 1,600+ Students Signed A Petition Calling For Disciplinary Action Over “Bigotry, Intolerance, and Unprofessionalism.” Swain retired from Vanderbilt University in 2017 after facing backlash from students over her “bigotry, intolerance, and unprofessionalism” in the classroom. More than 1,600 students signed a petition calling for her suspension or firing.
Swain Is a Right-Wing Media Mainstay. Swain makes regular appearances on Newsmax and Fox News to attack DEI and Critical Race Theory. Swain makes money by running Unity Training Solutions, L.L.C., which “offers an alternative to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Training (DEI).”
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