Add Baltimore-based writer and filmmaker John Waters to the list of people who are outraged about President Donald Trump’s May 8 dismissal of Carla Hayden as the Librarian of Congress.
“I say in my show now, of all the things Trump has done, that is the very worst to me,” Waters said when asked his reaction. “And what is her offense? She got people to read more. She was fired for that reason, because he doesn’t want you to read. He didn’t write his own book or, I doubt, even read it.”
Hayden, 72, was in the ninth year of a 10-year term as Librarian of Congress. Appointed in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama, she was the first woman and the first African American to hold the position, and the first professional librarian in the post since 1974.
Todd Blanche, the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, and one of Trump’s personal lawyers before that, has been appointed as the acting Librarian of Congress. Blanche has no experience working in libraries or archives. Hayden’s permanent replacement must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Waters was familiar with Hayden long before she became the Librarian of Congress. He said he remembers when she was CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, from 1993 to 2016. “She made the library amazing in Baltimore,” he said. “She made people go again. She had great speakers. She just changed everything.”
During Hayden’s tenure in Washington, two of Waters’ movies were added to the prestigious National Film Registry, maintained by the Library of Congress.
“She is the reason that both “Pink Flamingos” and “Hairspray” ended up on the National [Film] Registry,” Waters noted. “Maybe that’s why she was fired. I certainly hope not…. I think she is a national treasure.”
Shortly before her dismissal, the American Accountability Foundation posted on X that “The current #LibrarianofCongress Carla Hayden is woke, anti-Trump and promotes trans-ing kids.” The organization had earlier claimed that Hayden promoted access to books on “radical gender identity.”
At a briefing on May 9, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the reason for Hayden’s firing was that “we felt she did not fit the needs of the American people. There were quite concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the Library for children and we don’t believe that she was serving the interests of the American taxpayer well.”
As the author of 10 books, including “Role Models,” “Shock Value” and “Carsick,” Waters has been on a career-long mission to “make books cool again.” He has three books coming out this week – screenplays for “Pink Flamingos,” “Desperate Living” and “Flamingos Forever,” a never-filmed sequel to “Pink Flamingos.” One of his most famous sayings is: “If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t f**k them.”
Another memorable John Waters quote about books: “It wasn’t until I started reading and found books they wouldn’t let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.”
Waters said he finds everything Trump does to be shocking. “But that one, to me, to fire someone because she got people to read more, that is really, really…time for revolution….And the main reason is [she did] what she was supposed to do: make people read more and she did and you get fired for that. That to me is beyond comprehension for a president to do in a country that has problems with education in the public schools. I’m not saying that with any irony in any way. It is a crime, a presidential crime, I believe.”
