Well, I'm looking at the definition of fascism. It’s a far-right movement with a dictatorial leader and forcible suppression of opposition … So certainly in my experience, he falls into the definition of a fascist.
His on-the-record statements more than imply that he sees Trump as a fascist, but then he says it's inappropriate for him to make a public declaration of support one way or the other because a retired military officer &/or former military folks should stay out of such things.
Horseshit.
First off, you kinda screwed that pooch by taking a political job in the first fuckin' place, General.
Second, by saying former military should stay out of it, you just took a giant dump on some very honorable people like John McCain, Daniel Inouye, Bob Dole, Tammy Duckworth, Amy McGrath, George McGovern, and Dwight-fucking-Eisenhower - to name just a few.
Wanna shit on George Washington now?
Sick to fucking death of guys like Kelly who won't stand up for the obvious. All talk and no walk.
Q: Do you think Trump is a fascist?
Trump’s Chief of Staff John Kelly: Well, I'm looking at the definition of fascism. It’s a far-right movement with a dictatorial leader and forcible suppression of opposition… So certainly in my experience, he falls into the definition of a… pic.twitter.com/1znyIrkzJ8
Cuz Elon Musk loves "free speech", and he never censors or suppresses content on twixter.
Trump campaign worked with Musk’s X to keep leaked JD Vance file off platform
Journalist who published vetting document on Republican running mate was kicked off site formerly known as Twitter
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign worked with X to prevent information about JD Vance from being posted on the social media platform, a move that resulted in the journalist who revealed the information being kicked off the site, according to reports.
The former president’s team contacted X, owned by the billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk, about a 271-page document compiled by his campaign to vet his running mate that was linked to by Ken Klippenstein, an independent journalist, the New York Times has reported.
X responded by blocking links to the material, claiming that it contained sensitive personal information such as the Ohio US senator’s social security number, and banned Klippenstein from the platform.
The materials published by Klippenstein on his Substack in September appear to be related to a hack of the Trump campaign earlier this year, which the FBI has linked to Iran. Documents from the hack have been shared with several media outlets, which have chosen to not publish them.
Media outlets did not reach the same decision when they gave significant attention to files from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign that had been hacked and leaked by Russian intelligence before she ultimately lost that election to Trump. At one point, Trump had said he hoped Russia would be “able to find” some of Clinton’s files.
The removal of the material from X has highlighted the increasingly strident support of Musk, the world’s richest person, for Trump’s attempt to return to the White House after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden. After buying Twitter in 2022, Musk said that he was an advocate of free speech and the open sharing of information, even if it offended either political party.
Last week, Musk appeared at a Pennsylvania rally alongside the former president, performing an awkward jump on stage before declaring that “I’m not just Maga – I’m dark Maga” while invoking the Republican nominee’s Make America Great Again slogan.
Musk added that “this will be the last election” if Trump doesn’t win in November against Kamala Harris, complaining that she and her fellow Democrats want “to take away your freedom of speech, they want to take away your right to bear arms, they want to take away your right to vote, effectively”.
Klippenstein, whose X account was restored following the New York Times reporting, said in a Substack post on Friday that Musk had purchased political influence and “is wielding that influence in increasingly brazen ways”.
“The real election interference here is that a social media corporation can decree certain information unfit for the American electorate,” he wrote.
“Two of our most sacred rights as Americans are the freedoms of speech and assembly, online or otherwise. It is a national humiliation that these rights can be curtailed by anyone with enough digits in their bank account.”
Musk is set to appear at further Trump rallies – and he may even knock on voters’ doors for the campaign in Pennsylvania in the coming week. He has funded a political action entity called America Pac that has spent around $80m to help Trump reach voters in crucial swing states like Pennsylvania.
It seems apparent that Sam Alito is a liar, and a dickhead.
(not a real quote, but the probability is not zero)
Alito’s account of the upside-down flag doesn’t fully add up. Here’s why.
A look at the major discrepancies in Justice Samuel Alito’s comments about controversial flags flown at his property and what he still has not fully answered.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has offered multiple accounts of how politically charged flags came to fly outside his homes in Virginia and New Jersey — the type of display that is generally off-limits for judges, who must remain impartial and avoid even the appearance of bias as they handle cases.
Since the public revelation of the flags engulfed the nation’s highest court in criticism last month and prompted calls for Alito’s recusal from certain cases, the justice has said it was his wife who flew the banners, not him, and that she flew one of them after a neighborhood dispute. But his successive explanations — in a statement, an interview with Fox News and letters to Congress — have raised additional questions, and in some cases conflicted with known facts.
Alito has yet to fully explain some key aspects of the controversy: How long did an upside-down American flag fly at the Alitos’ Virginia home? Where did they get the “Appeal to Heaven” flag that flew at their New Jersey beach house? And more.
Here are the major discrepancies in Alito’s telling and what he still has not fully answered. Neither he nor his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, responded to a request for comment.
The neighborhood dispute
Alito has consistently cited the feud between Martha-Ann Alito and a neighbor as the backdrop for his wife raising the upside-down American flag at their Fairfax County, Va., home in the weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. But his description of the episode is contradicted at significant points by police records, neighbors’ descriptions of events and other facts.
Alito told Fox News reporter Shannon Bream the neighborhood dispute began when his wife went to speak with their neighbor Emily Baden in January 2021. Martha-Ann Alito was upset the woman was displaying an anti-Trump sign, with an expletive, “within 50 feet of where children await the school bus,” as Bream put it on X, formerly Twitter.
But Fairfax County schools were shuttered at the time because of the coronavirus pandemic and had been since March 2020. All but a tiny handful of students were learning virtually. Students did not return to the classroom until Feb. 16, 2021, after the flag episode occurred.
In addition, Baden and her mother said in interviews that the school bus stop near their home was moved before the dispute began and they confirmed no students were catching the bus at the time.
Baden told The Washington Post the row began shortly after Christmas 2020, when Martha-Ann Alito stopped by her home to thank her for taking down an anti-Trump sign featuring an expletive, which the justice’s wife said was offensive.
Baden said she told Alito that the sign would remain on display and had not been taken down, it had simply blown over. She also said Alito never mentioned the school bus stop. The conflict soon escalated.
Justice Alito has portrayed Baden and her then-boyfriend as the aggressors in the dispute, writing in letters to Congress that his neighbors had displayed a sign “attacking” his wife “personally.” But photos provided by Baden and interviews with a neighbor indicate the signs made no explicit mention of Martha-Ann Alito.
One featured the off-color reference to Trump on one side and the phrase “Bye Don” on the other. A second read “Trump Is a Fascist,” while a third read “You are Complicit.”
It’s possible the Alitos thought the latter sign referred to them, but Baden said it was directed at Republicans who she felt were complicit in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. A neighbor who saw the signs at Baden’s house confirmed that none directly referenced the Alitos.
In her telling, Baden said it was Martha-Ann Alito who confronted them on a handful of occasions. After the initial encounter, Baden said Martha-Ann Alito glared at them from her car on Jan. 7, 2021, and ran down her driveway and spat at Baden’s vehicle on another occasion.
Justice Alito told Bream a key moment in the dispute came when he and his wife were walking in the neighborhood sometime after the initial conversation. A man got into an argument with Martha-Ann Alito and called her a vulgar epithet for part of a woman’s anatomy, according to the justice. In his letters to Congress, Alito also said the man followed them down the street.
But Baden said that while that confrontation with the Alitos involved both her and her then-boyfriend, it was actually she who uttered the epithet, an account corroborated by a neighbor who heard it. Baden said she could not recall whether she and her boyfriend then followed the Alitos down the street.
Justice Alito told Bream that following the exchange his wife was “distraught” and raised the upside-down flag. A photo obtained by the New York Times showed the flag flying on Jan. 17, 2021.
The profane encounter between Martha-Ann Alito, Baden and her then-boyfriend occurred about a month after the upside-down flag was raised, according to a phone call the boyfriend placed to police on that day. A Fairfax County, Va., government spokesman confirmed that call was placed on Feb. 15, 2021.
Why were the upside-down flag and “Appeal to Heaven” flag flown?
The most pivotal question about the upside-down American flag has yet to be fully answered: Martha-Ann Alito’s motivation for flying it.
Many liberals have said the raising of the flag in the weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol suggests sympathy for the “Stop the Steal” movement or solidarity with the pro-Trump rioters who believed the 2020 election was stolen and had adopted the symbol at the time.
They have called for Justice Alito to recuse himself from a pair of high-profile cases related to efforts to block the election results, arguing the flag indicates political bias or creates the perception that Alito is not impartial. Alito has refused.
The Alitos have not explicitly addressed whether the upside-down flag had a connection to Jan. 6 or “Stop the Steal,” and Justice Alito’s comments about his wife’s motivation for flying it have shifted.
In comments to a Post reporter outside his home in 2021, Alito said his wife raised the flag in response to the neighborhood dispute and it was not political. Martha-Ann Alito, in her only known public comments about the flag, shouted at the reporter, “It’s an international sign of distress!” The upside-down flag does have a long history as a sign of distress in the military, and has been used by protesters of all political stripes at various times.
Alito repeated his contention that a neighborhood dispute sparked the flag flying in a statement to the New York Times, which first reported the flag controversy last month. The justice then told Fox News reporter Shannon Bream the dispute began when his wife confronted a neighbor about an anti-Trump sign that featured an expletive, indicating the argument likely did have a political dimension.
In letters Alito sent to Congress saying he would not recuse himself from the Jan. 6 cases, however, the justice’s explanation subtly changed. He said his wife flew the flag at a time of “great distress” over the neighborhood dispute, but also indicated it might not have been her only motivation, writing, “my wife’s reasons for flying the flag are not relevant for present purposes.”
The letters include a much more specific explanation of why Martha-Ann Alito flew the “Appeal to Heaven” flag at the couple’s vacation home on the New Jersey shore last summer. That flag has origins in the American Revolution, but has recently been adopted by some Christian nationalists and was carried by some Jan. 6 rioters.
Alito said he “assumed” his wife was flying it for religious and patriotic reasons. He definitively said neither he or his wife knew the flag was associated with the “Stop the Steal” and it was not flown in solidarity with that movement.
Alito did not issue a similar denial for the upside-down flag that flew at his Virginia home. How long did the upside-down flag fly?
A handful of neighbors who saw the upside-down flag at the Alitos’ residence said in interviews that they could not remember exactly when they first saw it but placed it in the latter half of January 2021, which matches the Jan. 17 date of the photo obtained by the Times.
Alito said in an initial comment to the Times that the upside-down flag flew “briefly.” Alito later told Bream it flew for “a short time.” In his most recent account in letters to members of Congress, Alito said he requested his wife take down the flag as soon as he saw it, but she refused for “several days.” Alito did not detail exactly when he saw the flag was up.
Some neighbors of the Alitos said they recalled seeing the flag flying for between two and five days.
As for Baden, she said she never saw the flag at the Alitos’ home.
Another perfect example of the glaring hypocrisy of the GOP - the "party of free speech" clutches its pearls and staggers backwards groping for the fainting couch as people exercise their rights under 1A.
And the obvious implication is that Trump would, of course, quell the protests by turning out the military to bust a few skulls and send some protesters to prison for a few years to make sure everybody gets the message and blah blah blah.
That said, I think it would be good to get straight with the protocols of protest and civil disobedience.
You do your thing
You get yourself arrested
You stand for the consequences
You go back and do it again
You don't throw rocks and then hide your hands.
Because, yes - there are rules about how you break the rules. That's how we need to do things in a civilized and democratized society.
Sick to death of this wingnut crap, and just as sick of Press Poodles who continue to make like GOP stenographers, giving endless oxygen to authoritarian assholes, and doing nothing to clarify and contextualize the events.
Democracy dies in the darkness that WaPo refuses to lift.
Trump, GOP seize on campus protests to depict chaos under Biden
Republicans highlight images of turmoil, though most of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been peaceful
Former president Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans are seizing on the eruption of campus protests across the country to depict the United States as out of control under President Biden, seeking to use the mostly peaceful demonstrations as a political cudgel against the Democrats.
Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter. The pro-Palestinian protests at numerous colleges — including Columbia, Yale, Emory, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin and others — include encampments and barricades intended to highlight protesters’ denunciation of Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza, as well as to push universities to divest from companies with ties to Israel.
Beyond the disruption to campus life, top Republicans have highlighted the antisemitic chants that have occurred at some of the protests. The issue is complicated by a debate over what constitutes antisemitism — and when criticism of Israel crosses that line — while some student organizers have denounced the chants or said they are coming from outside activists.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has cited the protests to accuse Biden and Democrats of being unable to maintain order or quash lawlessness, an accusation he has leveled at the president on other hot-button political issues. He has also highlighted the protests as a way to air his own political grievances, including the lack of similar demonstrations around his current criminal trial.
On Monday morning, Trump posted on Truth Social, “STOP THE PROTESTS NOW!!!”
As the protests have mushroomed in recent days, numerous Republicans have sought ways to highlight them as an example of the country’s slide into chaos. Several Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), have visited the campus of Columbia University, the site of some of the most sweeping protests, to call for its president to resign for purportedly failing to contain the demonstrations.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, dispatched more than 100 state troopers to the University of Texas at Austin to clear out pro-Palestinian protesters, resulting in dozens of arrests. All of the charges against the protesters were later dropped for lack of probable cause.
The campus protests present conservatives with some of their favorite targets: elite universities, progressive activists, “woke” culture and civil rights leaders. In addition, attacking the protests allows Republicans to change the subject from less friendly political terrain, such as abortion rights and the war in Ukraine.
Their rhetoric is harsh in many cases. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) have demanded that Biden mobilize the National Guard to protect Jewish Americans on campus. Hawley compared the standoff to the battle over segregation in 1957, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower summoned the National Guard to force the integration of Central High School in Little Rock.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) suggested that the college protesters were mentally unstable. “You don’t get to turn our public places into a garbage dump. No civilization should tolerate these encampments. Get rid of them,” Vance posted on X. “If you want to protest peacefully fine. It’s your right. But go home and take a shower at the end of the day. These encampments are just gross. Wanting to participate in this is a mental illness.”
The GOP rhetoric has not been limited to campus protests, sometimes covering pro-Palestinian actions more broadly, including those that have shut down roads and bridges in some cities. Cotton, in a post on X, urged those who get stuck behind “pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic” to “take matters into your own hands.” Following criticism that some might read that as a call to violence, Cotton amended his post to say “take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way.”
Supporters of the campus protests say they are peaceful, and that accusations of antisemitism are often a pretext to shut down dissenting voices. Many of the Republicans criticizing the protests, they say, condoned or excused the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which was far more violent.
The students are “peacefully protesting for an end of the Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” the group Jewish Voices for Peace, which supports a cease-fire in Gaza, said of the Columbia protests. “ … We condemn any and all hateful or violent comments targeting Jewish students; however, in shutting down public protest and suspending students, the actions of the University of Columbia are not ensuring safety for Jewish students — or any students — on campus.”
The Israel-Gaza war has deeply fractured the Democratic Party, posing significant political challenges to Biden months ahead of November’s presidential contest. Biden pledged steadfast support of Israel after Hamas militants stormed through the Israel-Gaza border on Oct. 7 and killed 1,200 people, many of them civilians, and took 253 hostage, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel responded with a punishing military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, imposing a siege that has created a humanitarian catastrophe as Gaza’s health system has collapsed and the population faces a looming famine. The resulting protest movement has electrified many younger voters and progressives, as well as others in the Democratic coalition that Biden needs to repeat his 2020 win, who have called for the United States to impose conditions for aid to Israel or suspend it altogether.
Democrats have voiced a range of views on the legitimacy of the protests, and Biden has sought a balance between condemning antisemitism and supporting students’ right to protest. Republicans, in contrast, are largely unified in casting the demonstrations as a disgrace, echoing conservative denunciations of the anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1960s.
Trump this week called a 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville — which he said at the time had “very fine people on both sides,” prompting a bipartisan backlash — a “peanut” compared with the current protests on campuses. Speaking to reporters after attending his criminal trial in New York on Thursday, Trump repeated the comments he wrote on social media and went further. He called the Charlottesville gathering, where a counterprotester was killed, “a little peanut” and added, “it was nothing compared — the hate wasn’t the kind of hate that you have here.”
Trump has contrasted the pro-Palestinian demonstrations with the lack of protests outside the Manhattan courthouse where he is on trial for an alleged hush money scheme. In seeking to blame Biden for the campus protests, Trump has accused the president of hating Israel, Jews and Palestinians, and accused Jewish Democrats of hating their religion. Many of the protesters are Jewish students, and progressive Jewish organizations have helped lead a number of protest movements since the war began in October.
“The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. “If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”
The tone of the criticism is not new; since Biden took office, Trump and other Republicans have pushed the notion that America is descending into chaos and lawlessness on his watch. From illegal immigration to soaring inflation to violent crime, they have regularly painted a picture of a country out of control.
These assertions have often been exaggerated or without context, but Trump has seized on them to promise a fierce crackdown should he return to power.
And during his 2020 reelection campaign, Trump tweeted in response to the large-scale protests over the police killing of George Floyd, which were mostly peaceful but occasionally turned to looting, writing, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The post was widely criticized for potentially encouraging private citizens, or police officers, to take deadly aim at looters.
Trump’s own position on Israel has often been hard to pin down. He has tried to position himself as a firm defender of Israel, but he has also criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war and sought to exploit the fissures in Biden’s coalition over U.S. support of Israel.
After the Oct. 7 attack, Trump insulted Israel’s leaders while praising the intelligence of the Hezbollah militant group. Faced with a backlash to that comment, the former president proposed harsh policies against Muslim migrants, saying he would reimpose his ban on travel from Muslim-majority countries and deport students involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
In the weeks after the Hamas massacre, Trump said his administration would revoke student visas of “radical, anti-American and antisemitic foreigners.” Other Republicans still running for president at the time — including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) — and GOP members of Congress similarly called for the visas of “pro-Hamas” foreign students to be revoked.
The spread of the college protests has ignited a renewed Republican response. When word circulated last Wednesday that pro-Palestinian protesters were planning to occupy a lawn at the University of Texas, Gov. Abbott sought to show that his Republican-dominated state would not tolerate a repeat of the encampment at Columbia University, dispatching state troopers.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said it responded to the campus “at the direction of” Abbott, who applauded the crackdown on social media. He said the protesters “belong in jail” and that any student participating in “hate-filled, antisemitic protests” at public colleges should be expelled.
Incidents at some universities have fed the criticisms, though pro-Palestinian activists say they are isolated incidents. Video re-emerged this week of a Columbia student who has taken part in the pro-Palestinian protest encampments declaring that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” The student, Khymani James, made the comments in a video posted in January, although he has since stated that they were wrong. Columbia said it had barred the student from campus, but it was unclear whether he was suspended or expelled.
In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp (R), following protests in several cities including Chicago and San Francisco, stressed that he would not tolerate anything similar in his state. Recounting a conversation with Georgia’s public safety commissioner, he said: “You know how I feel about people blocking bridges, airports and other things like we’re seeing around the country. I said, ‘If they do that, lock their ass up.’ ”
In New York City, Speaker Johnson and a group of GOP lawmakers visited Columbia’s campus on Wednesday, where they demanded that the university’s president, Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, resign for failing to quickly dismantle the pro-Palestine encampments and, in their view, for not doing enough to ensure that Jewish people on campus felt safe.
Their visit appeared to raise tensions, as Johnson was met with boos and pro-Palestinian chants. One student yelled at Johnson to “get off our campus,” while another shouted, “go back to Louisiana, Mike!”
And on Capitol Hill, Republicans last week urged the Biden administration to intervene in the demonstrations. Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), a top-ranking House Republican, sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland, calling on them to deport students who she said “are brazenly endorsing Hamas and other terrorist organizations” by participating in demonstrations and related events on campus.
Separately, a group of 27 Senate Republicans, including every member of the Senate GOP leadership team, signed onto a letter to Cardona and Garland calling on the administration “to take action to restore order and protect Jewish students on our college campuses.”
“The Department of Education and federal law enforcement must act immediately to restore order, prosecute the mobs who have perpetuated violence and threats against Jewish students, revoke the visas of all foreign nationals (such as exchange students) who have taken part in promoting terrorism, and hold accountable school administrators who have stood by instead of protecting their students,” the letter said.
Divide-n-Conquer, boys and girls.
It used to be we had a "generation gap" that politicians and pundits fretted over. Now we have several generation gaps that can be exploited by cynical manipulators in order to gain political advantage for some vaguely defined "they".
The Daddy State is tickled pink whenever one group is set against another group. And when several groups are all set against each other, the power of the people diminishes considerably, and we're that much closer to Rule By Minority.
... or maybe they just don't give a fuck (more likely IMO), because they think they'll be fine no matter what because they have the money to buy their way into the power circles, and out of whatever trouble it might bring them.
This is not "Late-Stage Capitalism", inviting the inference of a collapsing system - this is Early-Stage Plutocracy, as unfettered market-driven capitalism comes back into full flower.
These 50 companies have donated over $23 million to election deniers since January 6, 2021
Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.
Then, according to the report of the bipartisan January 6 Commission, Trump engaged in a "multi-part conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 Presidential election."
Trump did not do this alone. He was supported by members of Congress who endorsed his lies and voted against certifying the election results, state attorneys general who filed briefs in support of Trump's baseless legal claims, and local officials who helped Trump create slates of fake electors. This all culminated in the violence of January 6, 2021, by a mob that was incited and encouraged by Trump, both before and during the attack.
Ultimately, Trump's efforts to cling to power came up short and Joe Biden, the rightful winner, was inaugurated. But in the intervening three years, the threat to democracy has not ebbed — it has intensified.
Trump won the Republican presidential primary and will be on the ballot again in November 2024. He has not abandoned his lies about 2020. Instead, he has made them central to his reelection campaign.
At rallies, Trump refers to the rioters who were sentenced in connection with the violent attack on the United States Capitol as "January 6th hostages." Before each campaign rally, he plays a version of the national anthem performed by people who participated in the mob violence. He is promising to pardon all of them if he wins the presidency again.
In other words, Trump has recast the violent attack of January 6, 2021, as an expression of patriotism. It sends a clear message to Trump supporters as America barrels toward what promises to be another close election.
Should he lose again, Trump warned ominously of "bedlam in the country" and "the opening of a Pandora’s box" after a January court appearance. Asked by a reporter if he would rule out more violence by his supporters, Trump simply walked away. (At a campaign event earlier this month, Trump said there would be a "bloodbath for the country" if Biden wins, but insists he was only talking about the domestic electric vehicle industry.)
Despite all of this, Trump has the near-unanimous support of the Republican Party. And many Republican election officials are not simply endorsing Trump — they are endorsing his lies about the 2020 election. The group States United Action has identified 170 federal and statewide officials and candidates who are election deniers, including 136 members of Congress, 22 statewide officials, and 12 candidates on the ballot for statewide office.
A new investigation by Popular Information, using state and federal campaign finance databases, found that 50 prominent corporations have donated $23,273,400 to the campaigns and political committees of these election deniers since January 6, 2021. Some of the largest contributors to election deniers are also some of the country's leading companies, including AT&T, Comcast, Walmart, and Microsoft.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. On January 4, a large group of business leaders signed onto a statement arguing that the planned objections to vote were destructive. "Congress should certify the electoral vote on Wednesday, January 6," the business leaders wrote. "Attempts to thwart or delay this process run counter to the essential tenets of our democracy." The Chamber of Commerce, which represents nearly every major corporation in America, released a similar statement.
As Popular Information comprehensively documented, in the aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, many of these corporations pledged to cut off support to members of Congress who voted to overturn the election.
Since then, the election deniers in Congress and around the country have not changed.
Just last month, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said that had she been in the position of former Vice President Mike Pence (R) on January 6, 2021, she would not have certified election results. Stefanik said she stood by her vote against certifying the 2020 results, calling the election not "legal" and "unconstitutional." Notably, Stefanik also refused to commit to certifying the 2024 election results, calling Democrats "desperate." She also accused Democrats of "trying to steal" the 2024 election.
Over the last three years, Stefanik has received $503,500 from the 50 prominent corporations included in Popular Information's investigation through her committee and leadership PAC, including Home Depot, General Motors, FedEx, UnitedHealth, and Toyota. And Stefanik is not alone. Corporate cash is flowing to many officials who are not only defending their efforts to subvert the democratic process in 2020 but threatening to run the same playbook in 2024.
AT&T: $1,234,100 to 120 election deniers After January 6, 2021, AT&T released a statement saying, “Employees on our Federal PAC Board convened a call today and decided to suspend contributions to members of Congress who voted to object to the certification of Electoral College votes last week.”
AT&T resumed donating to political committees supporting Republican objectors in February 2021. Those donations increased in September 2021. By January 2022, AT&T fully broke their pledge and resumed donations to individual Republican objectors. AT&T argued that the “employee PAC suspended contributions to those lawmakers’ campaigns for more than a year.” But since corporate political donations are capped over a two-year cycle, AT&T didn't miss out on an opportunity to donate the maximum to any candidate.
From January 6, 2021 to the present, AT&T has donated $1,234,100 to 109 election deniers at the federal level and 11 election deniers at the state level.
This includes $10,000 to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and $5,000 to Johnson’s leadership PAC. On January 6, 2021, hours before the insurrection, Johnson posted on X, “We MUST fight for election integrity, the Constitution, and the preservation of our republic! It will be my honor to help lead that fight in the Congress today.” Johnson voted to overturn the results of the election later that day, and reportedly coached Republican colleagues before the vote. Over a year later, Johnson said on his religious podcast “Truth Be Told” that “he and his colleagues had been right to object to the election results.” In January 2024, during an interview on CBS’ “Face The Nation,” Johnson continued to push claims that there was election interference in the 2020 election. “The Constitution was violated in the run up to the 2020 election…That’s just a fact,” Johnson said. Many courts have reviewed the claim that the conduct of the 2020 election was unconstitutional and all have rejected it.
AT&T also donated $10,000 to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). After the 2020 election, Paxton filed a Supreme Court lawsuit attempting to invalidate the results of the election in key battleground states. Paxton argued that the states “exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws and unlawfully enacting last-minute changes, thus skewing the results of the 2020 General Election.” In May 2022, Paxton posted a statement on X saying he “stand[s] by this lawsuit completely.” Paxton called it a “historic challenge to the unconstitutional 2020 presidential election.”
AT&T did not respond to a request for comment. Microsoft: $112,500 to 29 election deniers On February 5, 2021, Microsoft released a statement stating that it would “suspend contributions for the duration of the 2022 election cycle to all members of Congress who voted to object to the certification of electors. We will also suspend contributions for the same period for state officials and organizations who supported such objections or suggested the election should be overturned.”
Since January 6, 2021, however, Microsoft has donated $112,500 to 27 election deniers on the federal level and two election deniers on the state level.
In a statement to Popular Information, the company said, “Microsoft maintained our commitment for the duration of the 2022 election cycle and gave no money to candidates who objected to the certification of electors. Should any candidate continue to deny the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election in 2024, we will not contribute to their campaign.”
Microsoft’s recent donations, however, include multiple election deniers who continue to question the validity of the 2020 election results. On June 30, 2023, Microsoft donated $3,000 to Representative Byron Donalds (R-FL). At an Axios event this month, Donalds maintained that "states did not follow election laws in 2020." Donalds said that, if he became vice president, he would consider not certifying election results.
Microsoft also donated $15,000 to Johnson and $1,000 to Stefanik.
Comcast: $787,500 to 91 election deniers After January 6, 2021, Comcast pledged to “suspend all of our political contributions to those elected officials who voted against certification of the electoral college votes, which will give us the opportunity to review our political giving policies and practices.” Comcast condemned the insurrection in a statement, saying, “The peaceful transition of power is a foundation of America’s democracy… This year, that transition will take place among some of the most challenging conditions in modern history and against the backdrop of the appalling violence we witnessed at the U.S. Capitol last week.”
Since January 6, 2021, however, Comcast has donated $787,500 to 83 election deniers on the federal level and eight election deniers on the state level.
This includes $5,000 to Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH). The January 6 Committee found that Jordan was a “significant player” in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. According to the committee’s report, Jordan “participated in numerous post-election meetings” where they “discussed strategies for challenging the election, chief among them claims that the election had been tainted by fraud.” During his bid to become House Speaker in October 2023, Jordan was asked in a press conference if he thought the 2020 election was stolen. “I think there were all kinds of problems with the 2020 election. I’ve been clear about that,” Jordan said.
Comcast also donated $2,500 to Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R). In March 2022, Marshall “refused to call President Joe Biden the ‘duly elected and lawfully serving’ president of the country.”
Comcast did not respond to a request for comment. Walmart: $384,000 to 89 election deniers After January 6, 2021, Walmart released a statement saying, “In light of last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, Walmart’s political action committee is indefinitely suspending contributions to those members of Congress who voted against the lawful certification of state electoral college votes.”
Since January 6, 2021, however, Walmart has donated $384,000 to 82 federal election deniers and seven election deniers on the state level.
Walmart's donations include $2,500 to Alabama Governor Kay Ivey (R). In 2022, Ivey released a campaign ad that pushed claims of election fraud. In the ad, Ivey stated, “The fake news, Big Tech and blue state liberals stole the election from Donald Trump. But here in Alabama, we’re making sure that never happens.”
Walmart also donated $15,000 to House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and $7,500 to Scalise’s leadership PAC. In November 2023, Scalise “repeatedly did not answer whether or not the 2020 election was not stolen” in an interview with ABC News. “What I’ve told you is there are states that didn’t follow their laws. That is what the … U.S. Constitution requires,” Scalise said.
In a statement to Popular Information, Walmart equated Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election with symbolic votes to object by seven Democrats in 2017, months after Hillary Clinton conceded:
We’ve long believed we can more effectively advocate on behalf of our associates, customers, communities and shareholders by engaging with policymakers of both parties. However, our political contributions do not mean we support every view of an elected official. We continually examine our political giving strategy and contribute to those who are focused on issues important to our business and key stakeholders. As part of our ongoing reassessment and in line with the above approach, we resumed giving to select members of Congress who contested the 2020 presidential election, just as we’ve given in the most recent election cycle to some of the House Democrats who objected to electoral votes following the 2016 presidential election.
In the most recent election cycle, Walmart donated $4,500 to three Democrats who cast a symbolic vote against certifying the 2016 election.
Corporate governance experts weigh in
Bruce Freed, the president of the Center for Political Accountability, thinks these companies are making a mistake. Freed told Popular Information that the corporations sending millions in PAC donations to election deniers are "putting themselves at risk." He thinks the companies are underestimating the economic danger of undermining "the rule of law." Instead of focusing on the preservation of "the political system that they need to be able to operate and grow," they are engaged in "very short term" thinking.
Yale University's Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a corporate governance scholar who convened gatherings of CEOs before and after January 6, 2021, offered a qualified defense. Sonnenfeld told Popular Information that the CEOs he spoke with only committed to "a two year moratorium through the next election cycle" and not "a permanent moratorium." But, while some companies publicly limited their pledge to two years, most left it open ended. Further, as Popular Information has documented, many major corporations resumed donating to election deniers well before the end of two years. Sonnenfeld also stressed that in the first two years, overall corporate contributions to election deniers were lower.
Thomas Lyon, a corporate governance expert at the University of Michigan, was less positive. Lyon told Popular Information that corporate donors to election deniers are exposing themselves to "some scenarios in which some really ugly things happen." Lyon predicted that, if there is a repeat of violence after the 2024 election, there would be some "pretty serious blowback." He attributed the flow of millions in corporate cash to election deniers to "arm-twisting by politicians."
Other major corporate donors:
In a statement to Popular Information, Home Depot said that “our associate-funded PAC is bipartisan. It supports candidates and organizations on both sides of the aisle who champion pro-business, pro-retail positions that create jobs and economic growth.”
General Motors sent Popular Information the following statement: “The General Motors employee-funded PAC supports the election of U.S. federal and state candidates from both sides of the aisle who foster sound business policies, support American workers and understand the importance of a robust domestic auto industry as we pursue an all-electric vehicle future.”
Union Pacific told Popular Information, “Union Pacific donates to candidates on both sides of the aisle in compliance with national and state rules. We review our giving annually to every candidate as part of a comprehensive oversight process that ensures all political contributions are made in a legal and ethical manner.”
UBS and Wells Fargo declined to comment. The rest of the companies did not respond to a request for comment.
Ingraham asks him to reassure voters he's not gay. Because of course Republicans aren't a buncha homophobic assholes 🤨, they just need reassurance - of - what? That while he is gay, he promises to stay deeply closeted, and that he'll work harder at being more self-loathing?
And also of course, he takes the opportunity to skip the question and go straight to attacking the media, because he's so quick and clever and original.
Moskowitz: Here is the subpoena to representative Scott Perry, who did not comply. Here is the subpoena to mark meadows who did not comply. Here is the subpoena to Jim Jordan who did not comply with a lawful subpoena. pic.twitter.com/E0s2MYsNPu
If you were looking for shameless, it's Mike Johnson criticizing Secretary Buttigieg while touring an expansion project at the airport in Sarasota, FL funded by $20 million from the infrastructure law he voted against.
The wingnuts who exalted 'Purity Balls', where daughters would pledge abstinence - promising their dads to maintain their virginity until their husbands "take it from them" - are now scolding us all about "sexualizing children".
On the surface, it seems odd that Republicans express a need for their candidates to have a certain purity, but when it's painfully obvious they don't (eg: Trump), they just kinda make believe that he's pure, or that "he's a flawed man, but forgiven", or they insist on that purity, but not in a virginal way. ie: they want somebody who fucks, but only if that fucking is under official sanction of the church and civil law - and then, strictly heterosexual. Unless you're Lindsey Graham - or they need to take you down by implying something may be "wrong" with your sex life.
They preach a hard-n-fast moral code, but then practice situational ethics. And then they bitch about how nobody has any principles anymore, looking the other way when their own guys screw the proverbial pooch, and then they pat themselves on the back for being charitable and inclusive and forgiving.
Gosh - it's almost as if they don't want us to be able stand on any solid ground that we can really count on.
"Every time we call it a game, you call it a business. And every time we call it a business, you say it's just a game."
Tim Scott’s girlfriend
The unmarried Republican presidential candidate doesn’t like talking about his new relationship very much. But he is talking about it.
In June, as Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) began to get a little momentum in the presidential primary, a person working on behalf of one of Scott’s Republican opponents messaged me, asking to chat.
“Have you seen the video,” he asked over the phone, conspiratorially, “where he says he has a girlfriend?”
The video in question was from a May event organized by the news website Axios, where the interviewer asked the South Carolina senator about the possibility of becoming the first bachelor president since the 19th century. “I probably have more time, more energy and more latitude to do the job,” he replies. And then the senator adds — quickly, as an aside: “My girlfriend wants to see me when I come home.”
The Republican operative who called me wasn’t sure said girlfriend existed. He suggested I look into it. He followed up on our conversation with an email that included a dossier of Scott’s known personal relationships. “No fingerprints,” he said.
Scott’s romantic endeavors aren’t a scandal so much as they are a mystery. At 57, he’s never been married and rarely talks about girlfriends past or present. Late last year, as Scott was ramping up his run for president, I asked Jennifer DeCasper, his close friend and campaign manager, about the status of his dating life. “It’s nonexistent,” she said.
Now, Scott was suggesting otherwise. And the timing of that revelation seemed a bit convenient.
“He has staked so much on his personal story, character and faith,” said the operative, who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity because, well, that’s how people kick dirt around in this business. “He’s running as America’s pastor, so to speak, as he courts evangelicals in Iowa, and I think a lot of folks may wonder about his lack of a family.”
It seemed like a not-terribly-original attempt to stir up gossip among conservative voters about how an unmarried Republican candidate might be weird about women, or to raise questions about his sexuality within the party’s stubbornly homophobic factions. (And let’s just get this out of the way: This is not a wink-wink story that uses “single” in place of “gay.” Despite the retrograde assumptions people still like to make about wifeless men of a certain age, there really is nothing to suggest that Scott is anything other than a confirmed bachelor in the most literal sense of the phrase.)
I wasn’t interested in laundering innuendos for this Republican operative. At the same time, the whole exchange left me intrigued about how voter interest (or lack thereof) in Scott’s love life (or lack thereof) might illuminate the politics of marriage, family and masculinity in today’s GOP. Donald Trump scrambled the values of the “family values” party to such a degree that the base kept loving him despite the “locker-room talk” about grabbing women and the allegation — which Trump denies — that he had cheated on his third wife with a porn star.
And yet, for all the conventional wisdom that went out the door when Trump walked in, a long-held belief persists: that the absence of a wife and kids would make voters uneasy, especially the kind who vote in Republican primaries. Was that still true?
There is a legitimate public interest in the partner of any would-be president. A first lady in waiting is typically a close confidante whose values reflect on, and influence, a potential leader of the free world. If Scott and his mystery woman were still in the get-to-know-you phase, voters might feel the right to get to know her, too. Plus, a new relationship can be strange to navigate under ordinary circumstances, so what’s it like when one of the people is running for president?
I decided that, yes, I would try to figure out whether Tim Scott has a girlfriend.
But I would also investigate a deeper question: Does anybody care?
On a Tuesday morning in mid-August, Scott sat on an outdoor stage at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, discussing his thoughts on policies that allow parents to direct public funds to private schools (he’s for it) and China “spying on our kids” via TikTok (he’s against). While he spoke, DeCasper, his campaign manager, stood at the back of the crowd in a campaign T-shirt.
“Do you work for Tim Scott?” asked an 88-year-old man in a short-sleeved checkered button-up and a National Rifle Association cap.
The man was Max Hagen, a self-described “Fairaholic” who claimed to have shaken every president’s hand since Dwight D. Eisenhower.
“How come he doesn’t bring his wife and kids with him like all the other candidates do?” Hagen asked.
“Well,” DeCasper said, “that’s because he’s single.”
“He’s single?”
“He has a very lovely girlfriend.”
“How come he doesn’t bring her around?”
Frankly, the whole interaction was a bit on-the-nose. I had come to Iowa to try to get an idea of what people thought of his being a bachelor. DeCasper, who previously served as Scott’s chief of staff, had told me last year that, yes, there were times in his career when Scott had fretted about “the optics” of not having a spouse. More recently, however, she had told her boss not to worry about it. “Honey, it’s two-thousand-whatever, you’re fine,” she recalled saying to Scott. She had told me something similar last fall: “That’s old-school,” she’d said about needing a spouse to run for president. “We don’t operate that way anymore.”
It’s true that remaining single deep into adulthood is not as unusual as it used to be. In 1980, only 6 percent of 40-year-olds had never been married, according to Pew Research; in 2021, it was 25 percent. In politics, however, a family tableau remains core to “the optics.” The Republican primary field includes a conservative variety pack of Wife Guys — such as Ron DeSantis, who reportedly changed the way he pronounced his last name to the way his wife, Casey, preferred saying it, and Mike Pence, who reportedly won’t eat alone with a woman unless his wife, Karen, is also present. And although there have been unmarried candidates for president over the years — including the other Republican senator from South Carolina, Lindsey O. Graham, in 2015 — you would have to go all the way back to Grover Cleveland, in 1884, to find a bachelor who won. (Cleveland married two years later.) Before that, there was James Buchanan, who stayed single after winning in 1856. And yeah, it was a thing.
“An Old Bachelor is at most but a half man,” wrote the New York Evening Post in an editorial about Buchanan. “How can such a person make more than a half-President?”
Fast-forward to two-thousand-whatever. Despite an evolving understanding of gender — or, more likely, because of it — Republicans have made defining “masculinity” a part of their political playbook. This includes promoting some pretty old-school ideas about marriage.
“Men are meant to be husbands, to form the virtues of a husband in their souls,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) wrote in his book “Manhood.”
Before Trump, when Tim Miller was working in opposition research on the Republican side, finding a sex scandal used to be an effective way to topple an opponent. It may say something about our current political moment that Scott’s opponents might see an opportunity to damage him with a sexless scandal.
“What might be salient with Republican voters is not that he isn’t a perfect family man,” Miller told me, “but that he might not have the macho womanizing strength of the MAGA god-king.”
Scott’s current mission is to impress a particular subset of Republicans: the ones who will be participating in the Iowa caucuses early next year. What do they think of the idea of an unmarried, childless commander in chief?
“I think 10 or 20 years ago, people had a kind of romance with the first family,” said Bob Vander Plaats, the head of the Family Leader, a social conservative organization in Iowa. “But I think our country is at the point where being married isn’t the top qualifier. It probably doesn’t make the Top 50.”
Scott’s unmarriedness isn’t the only thing that distinguishes him from other Republicans who are trying to rise in the party. He is not a perpetually aggrieved, rhetorically aggressive culture-warrior type. He’s also a Black man who has spoken out against whitewashing America’s racial history and has experienced being stopped by the police frequently for offenses such as, as he put it in 2016, “driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood.”
At the same time, Scott does not believe there is systemic racism in America today, and lately he has been talking a lot about “backing the blue,” locking up violent criminals, securing the southern border and implementing a federal ban on abortions after the 15th week of a pregnancy, “at a minimum.”
When I asked Steve Deace, a conservative talk-show host from Iowa, about how Scott’s marital status plays into everything, Deace predicted that Republican voters aren’t going to evaluate the candidate on that factor alone — but that it could work against him if he doesn’t measure up in other ways.
“In the end, someone who is unmarried, hasn’t been part of a meaningful conservative fight and was on the wrong side of virtually every flash point in the last cycle just won’t pass muster,” he said. “If he were polling in double digits in November, there would be a super PAC running ads in Iowa pointing this stuff out.” (Scott is polling at 9 percent in the state, per an August poll by the respected Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer.)
For now, many of the Republicans checking out Scott at the Iowa fair didn’t really seem to specifically care that Scott was single.
“What matters to me is that he’s in favor of putting the family unit back together,” said Brian Heck, 60. “I’d be more worried about him having a bunch of illegitimate kids than having no kids.”
A Republican voter is worried about a black man having a bunch of illegitimate kids.
Is that just too fucking perfect or what?
“I wouldn’t want someone to bring their children to the White House. That’s no place for them,” said Connie Hoksbergen, 57.
“I think it will just be less distracting,” said Greg Pollak, a pastor from Altoona, noting the drama that has lately swirled around presidential offspring. “It seems like the family have been a problem these past several years. I could even see it being an advantage.”
Scott’s parents didn’t have a marriage worth aspiring to. In his memoir, “America: A Redemption Story,” Scott writes that his father was a mercurial man who suffered mental trauma while serving in Vietnam, and whose drinking and tirades drove his mother — along with Scott and his older brother — out of the house.
As a teenager, Scott found a father figure in a man named John Moniz, the owner of a Chick-fil-A franchise, who mentored Scott and taught him about conservative values. Scott was a charmer, even back then, according to Brian Moniz, John’s son and Scott’s friend since childhood. Scott and the younger Moniz used to spend a lot of time hanging around the mall and flirting with girls.
“He’s always had a way with the ladies,” Moniz said.
I’ve seen Scott flirt. It was 2012, and we were having lunch at Clyde’s in downtown Washington. A waitress came up and put her hand on his freshly shaved (and perspiring) head.
“I think you’re hot,” she told him. “I can feel your heat from over here.”
“Most people say I’m hot,” Scott said. “I agree.”
A few days after that, I asked Scott whether he was still a virgin.
The question wasn’t quite as prurient as it might sound. I had been assigned to write an article about Scott, then a freshman member of Congress, for National Journal. In my research, I’d found a 1995 interview he’d done with the Charleston Post and Courier in which he’d discussed speaking to students about the importance of abstinence until marriage. “Talking to teens and college students about sexual purity is a hot ticket for me because I’m single,” Scott, then a 30-year-old city councilman, had told the paper. “I know what it means to struggle on the issue of sex. But it’s worth the wait.” Seventeen years later, he was still unmarried, and sex education was a political issue, so it seemed fair to ask whether the congressman — who, according to the same article, once drove a Nissan with a bumper sticker that said “True Love Waits” — practiced what he preached.
“Not as well as I did then,” he said, adding that he still believed sex before marriage was a “sin” and that he wished “we all had more patience.”
Around the time that article ran in National Journal, The Washington Post reported that Scott had taken the general manager of a Charleston lingerie store called Bits of Lace on a trip to an exclusive resort. Less than a year later, anonymous sources told a gossip blog that the two had broken up.
Since then, Scott has occasionally hinted at past and present girlfriends while never mentioning anyone by name, which only led to questions like this from CNN’s Dana Bash in 2017:
“What gives?” she asked about his unmarried status.
Scott then surprised Bash by offering an otherwise unreported tidbit: that he had once been engaged.
“I didn’t know that,” Bash said, to which Scott offered a deadpan reply: “Shhh, don’t tell anyone.”
Apparently nobody told Brian Moniz, the childhood friend.
“No, I don’t think he’s ever been engaged,” he said when I spoke to him in August.
As for any current girlfriend, Moniz said: “I am not aware of anyone at this time.”
Playing things close to the vest doesn’t necessarily play well with everyone. A few weeks ago, Axios reported that Scott’s privacy about his personal life was an issue with conservative donors who might otherwise consider backing his candidacy. “The joke has always been that he is secretly gay or something,” the unnamed operative told me. “I don’t really buy that. But he’s got an interesting history.” The dossier he’d sent included details about Scott having owned property and shared a jet ski with male friends.
Scott is not gay, DeCasper told me, and nobody who knows him suggested otherwise. But the rumor mill is lazy, and the “joke” about the senator’s sexuality still gets repeated. Early last year, for example, Matt Schlapp, the head of the Conservative Political Action Conference, asked me whom I thought Trump might choose as his 2024 running mate. When I mentioned Scott, Schlapp replied: “You think he picks a gay vice president?” (Incidentally, Schlapp, who is married with five kids, was later accused of unwanted groping by a male staffer on Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign. He has denied the allegations.)
According to Moniz, Scott’s bachelorhood is a simple case of being married to his job.
“It’s been a challenge, mainly for the females in his life over the years,” Moniz said. “They get put on the back burner. Women have hung around for a while, and they realize they’re not going to be the top priority right now.”
Bobby Harrell, who has been friends with Scott since the two served together in the South Carolina State House, told me that Scott talked often about how much he admired Harrell’s 44-year marriage and “wished for something like it someday.” In 2018, Scott told Politico that he wanted to have six(!) children once he found “Mrs. Right.”
“Every time my wife talks to him,” Al Jenkins, a longtime friend and current staffer, told me in 2020, “she says, ‘Who is she, and when are we going to meet her?’”
Now, three years later, I had the same questions. Six friends I spoke with said they didn’t know about a woman in his life. Others never returned my calls. The campaign, of course, was well aware that I was trying to get to the bottom of Scott’s love life. They were polite, but not exactly eager to spill.
Finally, with one debate out of the way and the end of summer approaching, Scott’s campaign did agree to make the principal available for a brief interview on the subject.
And so, two weeks ago, I flew to South Carolina to ask a 57-year-old presidential candidate whether he had a girlfriend.
“If I had my druthers, we wouldn’t be doing this,” Scott said.
We were sitting at a conference table at the DoubleTree hotel in North Charleston. Scott was looking sharp in a blue suit with no tie. His head was freshly shaved. A security guard stood sentry outside the door, and Scott was flanked by three different spokespeople. The whole thing felt a little like a one-man news conference, or perhaps a deposition. He came armed with talking points about how American voters cared about their own families, not about his family.
“I have been very protective of my family and my loved ones,” he told me. “I signed up for this. If we make it, she will be signing up for it as well, but at least then she’ll know what she’s getting into. But until then, the only conversation I’m going to have about her in any form or fashion is right now.”
For months, Scott explained, a friend from church had been trying to set him up with a woman the friend knew. Scott had told him that he wasn’t ready for a relationship. Then, late last year, the friend texted Scott the woman’s photo.
“You know what?” Scott recalled telling his friend after seeing the picture. “I’ve prayed on it. Tell me about her again?”
He got the woman’s number. They started talking, hitting it off with discussions about God and using a phone app to do a Bible study together. Scott said he loved her laugh. They had dinner at a downtown Charleston restaurant. She got the steak, he got the swordfish, and they shared even though, as Scott would later learn, she didn’t care for swordfish. They played pickleball, and Scott was embarrassed to find out that he was the “weak man on the court.”
He wouldn’t tell me her name, and the campaign declined to make her available to chat, even off the record. Technically I can’t verify that she exists, except to note that for a presidential campaign to essentially reverse-catfish America would be insane. (By way of corroboration, DeCasper offered that she’s personally hung out with her at the zoo.)
Scott said he had theories about why other campaigns might want to draw attention to his being single. It’s just a way to “sow seeds of doubt” about his campaign, he said, a way “to say that, ‘That guy isn’t one of us.’”
“It’s like a different form of discrimination or bias,” Scott said. “You can’t say I’m Black, because that would be terrible, so find something else that you can attack.”
Throwing himself into work was always kind of a defense mechanism, he said — a response to watching his parents’ marriage blow up when he was a child. “For me, it was the defining moment of my entire life,” he said. “It creates scar tissue. One thing you can do when that happens is run away or run toward something else. And I ran toward purpose.”
What, other than a photo and some prayerful reflection, might have made Scott decide to run toward a relationship at the same time as he’s running, harder than ever, toward his life’s purpose? A cynic would note that, when a person sets out to run for president, nearly everything they do in the lead-up to the election is done with a campaign in mind, and perhaps Scott thought finding a partner would help his candidacy.
As the interview came to a close, I half expected the door to the conference room to swing open, and for the mystery woman to waltz in for a dramatic reveal.
Then again, Scott isn’t the reality TV guy in the race.
“I can’t imagine dragging her onto the campaign trail unless I have the intention of marrying her,” he said. “I hope that happens, to be honest with you.”
He paused.
“I guess I should be careful about how I say that,” Scott said, with a sheepish grin. “Strike that comment.”
He laughed. His relationship and campaign were both new. It’s hard to know, this early, if any of this is real.
