Comedian Walter Masterson conducted undercover interviews at a MAGA rally in Florida, wearing an "ultra MAGA" shirt to expose what he characterized as hypocrisy in how President Donald Trump's loyalists view identity and self-expression. Masterson drew parallels between MAGA rally attire and Pride Month fashion, pointing out similarities that rally attendees apparently failed to acknowledge. One woman expressed happiness about fewer rainbow flags and rubbish, while Masterson sarcastically suggested children were being forced to wear flags and hats — gesturing to Israeli flags nearby. A man complained about facing discrimination for wearing a MAGA hat on flights."You should have seen how it looked, me just trying to get on a flight to get down here with a MAGA hat on," a man said, wearing the red hat. "They treated me like I was Osama bin Laden." Throughout the interviews, rally attendees appeared unaware they were being satirically critiqued, with Masterson captioning the video #pridemonth to underscore his commentary on double standards."Can you imagine going someplace and being attacked just for your identity?" Masterson said. Watch the video below. Your browser does not support the video tag.
Walter Masterson, a comedian known for his satirical takes on politics, tricked multiple MAGA followers in Florida to illustrate hypocrisy over how Trump loyalists dress and represent themselves compared to people celebrating Pride Month.In a video, the undercover Masterson, wearing an "ultra MAGA" shirt, interviews a couple standing at a MAGA rally, decked out in right-wing gear as Masterson points out the links between their clothing and the Pride fashions that have them outraged.The two apparently don't realize he was teasing them. He captioned the video #pridemonth."I'm happy right now because I haven't seen nearly as many rainbow flags and rubbish as we've seen last year," a woman wearing a red MAGA hat and holding a flag, told the comedian.Masterson responded to her comment."They're making the kids wear these flags and these hats," he said, as the camera pans left to show a child standing next to the couple holding two Israeli flags."Absolutely," the woman responded, straight-faced."You should have seen how it looked, me just trying to get on a flight to get down here with a MAGA hat on," a man said, wearing the red hat. "They treated me like I was Osama bin Laden."Masterson offered a quick response."It's become harder to be open about your identity nowadays, right?" Masterson asked."Yeah, people just need to speak up. They need to say what they believe. I'm a straight male and I'm proud of that," the man added.In another interview, Masterson pretended to complain about how people receive his MAGA look in a dig at the followers' lack of self-awareness."I can't wear a MAGA hat in some places because, you know, some people don't like that identity," Masterson said. "Can you imagine going someplace and being attacked just for your identity?" View this post on Instagram A post shared by @waltermasterson
One of President Donald Trump's staunchest MAGA allies lashed out after being cornered on his election lies in a NewsNation interview, insisting that there is "tons of evidence" of election fraud despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary.Trump has been rehashing his debunked claims about widespread election fraud this week, spurred on by conservative gloom over GOP candidate and ex-reality TV star Spencer Pratt losing out on a spot in the Los Angeles mayoral race's general election. Trump has also claimed that his controversial acting DNI nominee, Bill Pulte, will be doing his bidding and seeking arrests linked to his false claims about the 2020 election.One of Trump's most outspoken allies over the years has been Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who has proven himself to be an avowed promoter of conspiracy theories. He has also been closely involved with Trump's efforts to undermine the 2020 election results, with aides from his office allegedly being involved in a scheme to provide fake Wisconsin electors to Vice President Mike Pence as part of a plot to keep Trump in power.On Monday, he appeared for an interview with NewsNation host Connell McShane and was pressed about the continual lack of evidence for Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud that was sufficient to tilt national election results. Johnson lashed out at the line of questioning, saying he was "getting very tired" of the argument," and insisting that there was abundant evidence."There's tons of evidence. There's tons of irregularities," Johnson said. "We need to take them seriously because what is absolutely true as Americans on both sides do not have confidence in our elections. That's unsustainable."Johnson continued in a rambling fashion, claiming that allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in 2016 were "ginned up" by Hillary Clinton, calling her "the first election denier."When McShane pressed the senator about why Trump and his allies have not presented concrete evidence of fraud during the many court hearings that have resulted from his claims, Johnson insisted that they have, but that they are ignored and not investigated further once elections are certified.Trump himself also recently had a blow-up on national television when confronted about his election fraud claims, storming out of an interview with NBC News' Kristin Welker when she pressed him about the lack of evidence. Trump said that she was either "crooked" or "stupid" for asking him about it, and insisted that U.S. elections are still rigged.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), decked out in Knicks gear, jabbed at President Donald Trump on Monday for “injecting himself” into the NBA Finals, ahead of the president’s attendance at Game 3 between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs. “It also is not clear to me that Donald Trump is a big […]
Trump administration officials earlier this year killed a federal criminal investigation into the coal empire owned by Sen. Jim Justice, a Republican from West Virginia and a close ally of the president’s.The investigation examined potential criminal violations of the Clean Water Act by the multistate mining operations largely run by Justice’s son, Jay, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.The criminal probe was a significant escalation in the yearslong effort to police serial pollution offenses by Virginia-based Southern Coal and dozens of affiliated mining operations controlled by the family. In the past decade, Southern Coal and other Justice corporations have racked up tens of thousands of alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and have been sued repeatedly by state and federal prosecutors over their failure to properly follow environmental laws at their mining sites.The investigation shuttered by the Trump administration was a joint effort by prosecutors and investigators with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Virginia to probe whether the incessant violations of antipollution laws had risen to the level of criminal behavior, people familiar with the matter said.People familiar with the investigation told ProPublica that prosecutors believed they had a strong case. They initially had the blessing of Robert Tracci, President Donald Trump’s top official in the Western District of Virginia, to move forward.But in recent months, as prosecutors battled the Justice companies in court over subpoenas for records, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General shut down the probe. At the time, Todd Blanche still headed the office, before assuming the role of acting attorney general in April.“They were told ‘pencils down,’” a person familiar with the investigation said.That prosecutors were even conducting a criminal investigation is noteworthy, people said, because the DOJ only charges a dozen or so criminal Clean Water Act cases each year. It is rare for top DOJ officials to derail a criminal investigation initiated by career officials at such an early stage, people familiar with the case said.“I’ve never heard of that happening before,” said former federal prosecutor Rick Mountcastle, speaking generally about DOJ protocols. Mountcastle spent 24 years as a prosecutor in the Western District of Virginia. “There shouldn’t be some sort of untouchables list of people who are immune from enforcement.”The move is part of a pattern of behavior at the top echelons of the DOJ to push cases against Trump’s political adversaries and ease up on allies.Environmental enforcement against large polluters has plunged under the second Trump administration. Just days after inauguration, the administration reassigned top career environmental lawyers at the DOJ, including those overseeing the Southern Coal case, to work on the president’s immigration crackdown. At the beginning of the year, Blanche personally ordered prosecutors to stand down from cases against diesel emissions cheating.Steven Ruby, an attorney for the Justice companies, said they became aware of the criminal investigation earlier this year.“Ultimately the finding of the inquiry by the government was that there wasn’t any evidence to pursue criminal charges,” Ruby said. “There’s never been any intentional wrongdoing by the companies.”While objecting to the subpoenas in court, the company simultaneously convinced the DOJ to drop the case, he said.“The Justice companies — because Sen. Justice has been governor and because he’s now a senator — are singled out and put under a microscope, and there’s news coverage of violations and consent decrees and compliance actions,” Ruby said. “But the fact of the matter is that those kinds of issues exist throughout the industry.”Current and former government officials familiar with the companies’ environmental record called them routine bad actors.Spokespeople for the EPA and the Western District of Virginia referred questions to the DOJ. Justice’s senate office did not respond to questions.“There is no case to be made here for a criminal investigation,” Emily Covington, a DOJ spokeswoman, said in an email. “Any career prosecutor who would paint a criminal case as strong is simply a deep state prosecutor continuing to push the priorities of the Biden administration.”The deputy attorney general’s office is routinely involved with reviewing cases, she added. The office determined that this case was not consistent with the Trump administration’s priorities, she continued, and it was more appropriate to resolve it through the less punitive civil process. “The bottom line is that this was a politically motivated prosecution for a case that can and should be resolved civilly,” she wrote.The Justice family runs a sprawling coal mining enterprise that extends across the South.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has threatened to sue a publication after it revealed details of his tax returns, which he had sent to them by mistake.According to Lagniappe Daily, which broke the original story, "In a cease-and-desist letter emailed Saturday afternoon, the former Auburn coach’s attorneys demanded the article be removed, accused Lagniappe of 'unlawfully accessing' the information." The letter further "claimed it was illegally published without Tuberville’s consent, and ... it was not protected speech under the First Amendment."“Your conduct and that of the organization is not protected by the First Amendment when it involves unlawful acquisition and publication of statutorily protected tax and income data for a person, especially when that person is an official of the United States,” stated Albert L. Jordan, an attorney for Tuberville, in an email to Lagniappe.Tuberville, who is currently running for governor rather than seeking another term in the Senate, released the tax information as part of an effort to prove he was a legitimate resident of Alabama, following months of allegations from both Democrats and his own Republican political rivals that he in fact lives in Florida and may have even voted illegally.However, the Tuberville campaign mistakenly failed to redact key portions of the documents they handed over, accidentally revealing a wealth of information about how the senator makes his money and what he pays in taxes.Lagniappe emphasized that they did not release details that would violate Tuberville's individual privacy, like his driver's license or Social Security number, despite those also having been leaked.
Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) openly defied President Donald Trump Sunday night in calling for Israel to launch strikes toward Iran, a remark that flew in the face of the president’s foreign policy agenda — and, according to a GOP congressional candidate, may have violated federal law.Iran launched strikes against Israel Sunday in response to that nation's bombing of Lebanon’s largest city, strikes that Trump urged Israeli leadership not to respond to. Despite Trump’s plea, Israel's missiles flew later that night, the news of which excited Fine, who proceeded to encourage Israel to continue.“Israel has every right to respond to rockets being fired at its civilians exactly as we would,” Fine wrote Sunday night in a social media post on X. “Bombs away.”Fine’s comments, however, at least according to Aaron Baker, who’s running to represent Florida’s 6th Congressional District as a Republican, may have violated the Logan Act, which prohibits Americans from holding unauthorized communications with foreign governments in some instances, particularly with intent to “influence measures or conduct of any foreign government.”“Now you are telling [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu ‘bombs away?’ President Trump told Bibi NO,” Baker wrote in a social media post on X. “Now you have violated The Logan Act, Rep. Fine, and shall be fined or imprisoned under 18 USC 953. So much for trying to pretend you’re loyal to the United States.”Fine has long been a fierce defender and supporter of Israel, though he has frequently drawn scrutiny for his controversial remarks, which critics, even some prominent conservatives, have described as “unspeakably racist” or “genocidal."Examples include Fine telling Gazans to ‘starve away’ last year. In 2021 when, in response to a social media user who shared a photo of what appears to be a Gazan infant buried in rubble with the question “how do you sleep at night,” Fine responded “quite well, actually,” and “thanks for the pic!”Now you are telling @netanyahu “bombs away?”President Trump told Bibi NO. Now you have violated The Logan Act @RepFine and shall be fined or imprisoned under 18 USC 953.So much for trying to pretend you’re loyal to the United States. https://t.co/JhIBak5Qsq— Aaron Baker for Congress (FL-6) (@Aaron4fl6) June 8, 2026
Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) claimed on Monday that people in California were dumpster diving for ballots after Republicans saw a serious setback in the Los Angeles mayor race and votes continued six days after the primary.The MAGA lawmaker made the unfounded fraud remarks during a Newsmax interview, commenting on the ongoing ballot count in California and responding to the GOP's frustration as former reality TV star and GOP candidate Los Angeles mayor candidate Spencer Pratt slipped out of the runoff race, placing third behind incumbent Mayor Karen Bass and Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman."Some people can just dig through garbage cans, find ballots and send them in apparently forever after an election is over. It's not OK, it's got to come to an end and people need to go jail," Fine said. But the internet was quick to call Fine out for his baseless allegations."This is a new one, an extension of classic 'ballots in a dumpster' rumors, suggesting that fraudsters are dumpster diving for ballots and then using them to vote. It [is] absurd and ignores any number of structural reasons that wouldn’t work as well as a complete lack of evidence of that happening," online rumors expert Kate Starbird, professor at the University of Washington, HCDE and co-founder of the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public, wrote on Bluesky."Randy Fine claims people are literally dumpster diving for fraudulent ballots in California. Cool story, bro," journalist Aaron Rupar, who has more than 1.1 million followers, wrote on X."Randy Fine is 2,000 miles away and a camera w----," neuroscientist and technologist Dr. Joseph Santoro, who has more than 18,000 followers and helped lead the White House and Organizing for Action during the Obama administration, wrote on X.Governor Newsom Press Office, an official account for California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom with more than 704,000 followers on X, shared a circle graph teasing "no" and "no, but in yellow."Randy Fine claims people are literally dumpster diving for fraudulent ballots in California 😆cool story, bro pic.twitter.com/TLU3mgjIgn— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 8, 2026
