One prominent journalist compared Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s order for the State Department to change its official font style to the Nazis’ 1941 ban on “Jewish” fonts.
Former Voice of America White House bureau chief Steve Herman reacted to Rubio’s new directive by comparing it to the Holocaust-era Nazi initiative.
“The Nazis, in 1941, banned the Fraktur font because it was ‘too Jewish,’” Herman posted on X.
Herman’s comment came after he reacted to news that Rubio ordered the department to revert to Times New Roman for official papers, reversing a Biden-era directive that had switched to Calibri in 2023.
On the social media platform Mastodon, Herman reaffirmed his comparison in the comment section of his own post about Rubio’s font order, confirming he was directly linking the two font initiatives.
The Rubio directive, “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” was issued Tuesday.
The memo read, “To restore decorum and professionalism to the Department’s written work products and abolish yet another wasteful DEIA program, the Department is returning to Times New Roman as its standard typeface.”
The Rubio directive, “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” was issued Tuesday. NY Post Design
Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Israel Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar at the State Department on Dec. 10, 2025. REUTERS
Previous Secretary of State Antony Blinken made Calibri the department’s standard typeface in 2023 as part of a diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) initiative.
The font replaced Times New Roman, which had been used at the department for 20 years.
Rubio’s memo argued, “Switching to Calibri achieved nothing except the degradation of the department’s official correspondence.”
He added that the Biden-era font change was a “wasteful” move that didn’t succeed with its goal of being more accessible.
Herman’s comment came after he reacted to news that Rubio ordered the department to revert to Times New Roman for official papers, reversing a Biden-era directive that had switched to Calibri in 2023. Steven Herman/Instagram
Rubio said the order would align the State Department’s communications with other federal agencies that use Times New Roman and other serif fonts.
Herman appeared to interpret Rubio’s order in a more sinister light, referencing when Nazi official Martin Bormann published a memo in 1941 on behalf of Adolf Hitler, stating that the “use of Schwabacher-Jewish letters by authorities will in future cease” among official Nazi communications.
The State Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.