MAGA Desperately Claims Russian Propagandists Were the Real “Victims”

MAGA Republicans are more than happy to excuse the right-wing influencers at the center of a Russian propaganda scheme.

Right-wing influencers like Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, and Benny Johnson all worked with Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based firm that the Justice Department revealed Wednesday was secretly funded by Russian state media employees in “a scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging.” The indictment charges two Russia Today employees with providing nearly $10 million to the media company that often spouted Kremlin talking points.

In response to the charges, the pundits and their allies are saying they just didn’t know any better. In fact, they’re the real victims.

“Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived,” Pool wrote.

Johnson echoed the line, writing, “We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme.”

Even Representative Matt Gaetz bought their argument. “Tim and Benny were deceived, as the indictment clearly lays out,” he wrote just hours after news of the indictment.

Propagandist Ben Shapiro also came to the rescue, stating that Pool, Johnson, and Rubin “aren’t the issue” because “they were apparently deceived by the company founders, who were allegedly taking Russian cash.”

Donald Trump too boosted the talking point, as he posted a clip of conservative columnist Michael Shellenberger on Fox News arguing that “this is really small ball stuff” and “two of the influencers that were targeted did not know it was Russian money.” (If that is the case, wouldn’t it be true that the rest did?)

It’s hard to believe that the members of Tenet Media “didn’t know” anything about the scheme. In fact, you can watch Pool describe nearly exactly what he engaged in, during a podcast conversation: 

Let’s see if playing clueless works out for them.

Donald Trump’s trial over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election resumed in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, and it was off to a rough start as Judge Tanya Chutkan repeatedly shot down arguments from his legal team.

Trump’s team hid behind the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity two months ago, claiming that Trump could not be prosecuted over his “official acts” as president. Instead, Chutkan declared she would treat Trump like any other criminal defendant.

Trump attorney John Lauro tried to argue against special counsel Jack Smith’s legitimacy in one instance, citing the fact that Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Trump’s classified documents case by ruling that Smith’s appointment was not legitimate. Chutkan again readily dismissed their argument.

Lauro tried to cite Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to support his argument but was forced to correct himself by Chutkan.

Lauro then tried to challenge prosecutors’ proposal that Trump’s team file a brief on the immunity issue by the end of September, calling it “extremely prejudicial.” Lauro also tried to claim Trump’s conversations with his vice president, Mike Pence, were “official acts,” only for Chutkan to rebuff him. Lauro also invoked originalism, which the Supreme Court’s conservatives adhere to, in his claim that Trump’s conversations with Pence were covered by the Supreme Court ruling. Chutkan shot down that line of thinking.

If Trump’s trial continues to proceed like it has on Thursday, then the former president and convicted felon is going to have a tough time. Smith already put together a superseding indictment taking into account the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, and Chutkan looks like she won’t be favoring Trump, unlike Cannon in Florida. We may have a long and brutal federal trial coming soon.

Donald Trump may have already completely screwed himself in his January 6 trial.

The federal election interference case, which resumed Thursday, was considered practically dead after the Supreme Court granted the former president wide-ranging immunity in July. But in the last week alone, Trump has managed to compromise that shoo-in all on his own by outright confessing to losing the 2020 election—a first-of-its-kind admission that legal experts believe could be used against him in court.

Trump “is forever trying his cases in the court of public opinion, where there are no rules of evidence, no rules of procedure and no rules of law,” argued former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner. “What he apparently doesn’t realize is that every word out of his mouth is admissible in a criminal trial. This is where the rules of evidence come into play—and where they will work to Trump’s extreme disadvantage at trial.”

That could include an eyebrow-raising soundbite from the Republican presidential nominee, who earlier this week admitted on the Lex Fridman podcast that he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden “by a whisker.”

That admission infuriated some members of Trump’s longtime fanbase, including white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who lamented having his money frozen and becoming “the most canceled man in America” for advancing the January 6 riot for what was—now by Trump’s own admission—a complete lie.

“So what was the point? Like, what’s the point of any of it? You lost in 2020? Seriously? What are we even doing anymore?” Fuentes said on his web show, figuring out the charade in real time. “You’re a loser. You just lost. Then you lost to Joe Biden. You deserve to be charged!”

“So why did we do Stop the Steal? Why did anyone go to January 6th? Why is anyone sitting in jail? Why did anything bad happen to anybody?” Fuentes continued, torching Trump for ushering his supporters toward the Capitol that day, resulting in more than 1,000 arrests. “Why did that need to happen? If you’re just going to walk it all back and say, ‘Oh, I lost.’”

Donald Trump’s January 6 trial finally got underway again Thursday, and his attorneys have already managed to trip themselves up.

While deliberating the trial schedule, Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and John Lauro argued that they would need “significant time” to parse through what elements of the case would be unsealed, reported NOTUS’s Jose Pagliery.

But that’s not in line with what this same defense team recently accomplished. In July, days after the Supreme Court finally issued its immunity ruling that postponed the federal election interference trial by nearly a year, Blanche issued a whopping 52-page report—and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan took notice.

“Congratulations Mr. Blanche!” Chutkan said with a smile, sending Blanche sinking into his chair while chuckling to himself.

But Trump’s team saw another avenue of attack: Lauro pressed that they would need to start from scratch because the superseding indictment was filed just last week. But Chutkan wasn’t having any of it.

“You say a new indictment, but it’s a slimmed-down version. It’s not more, it’s less,” Chutkan told him.

The pared-down indictment largely focuses on Trump’s private and nonofficial actions, since the Supreme Court granted the former president broad immunity for official acts, thereby nixing them as evidence. As Lauro laid out his argument, it became clear that Trump’s team believed it could be entitled to new evidence in the case as a result, reported Pagliery.

“We have 14 million pages of documents,” Lauro told Chutkan. “We’re still getting discovery in this case … we need to look at this discovery with an eye toward the immunity issues now.”

Prosecutor Thomas Windham, however, explained that his team doesn’t “expect any more disclosures.”

Trump is not at the trial in person. The case hinges on the allegation that Trump knew he had lost the election but still tried to subvert the results, as proven by conversations he had with then–Vice President Mike Pence and his lawyers. Admissions by Trump from just this week—including that he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden “by a whisker”—could further damn his chances at trial.

Donald Trump still can’t get over being called weird along with running mate J.D. Vance.

At a Fox News town hall Wednesday night with his confidant Sean Hannity, the Republican presidential nominee said, “J.D. is not weird, he’s a solid rock. I happen to be a very solid rock.”

“We’re not weird. We’re other things, perhaps, but we’re not weird. But [Tim Walz] is a weird guy, he walks on the stage, there’s something wrong with that guy, and he called me weird. And then the fake news media picks it up, that was the word of the day. Weird, weird, weird, they’re all going. But we’re not weird guys,” Trump said as a raucous crowd laughed in support of him.

The Kamala Harris campaign quickly seized on Trump’s answer, posting it to their X account the same night.

It’s pretty clear that the “weird” criticisms, which Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz is credited with inspiring before Kamala Harris even chose him as her running mate, is driving Trump nuts. He can’t stop talking about it, which in turn is giving the word traction and a continued association with him and Vance. His repeated denials only drive the point home even further, and neither he nor Vance has come up with an effective response.

It also doesn’t help that Trump’s own words seem to validate the attack, whether he’s fumbling through a rally speech, seemingly forgetting who he’s running against, or suddenly flip-flopping on major policy positions. And Vance hasn’t helped, either, with his odd views on family, his associations with neo-Nazis, and his complete inability to order donuts like a normal person (which Walz has no problem doing). With Trump’s debate with Harris less than a week away, the convicted felon runs the risk of the entire country seeing his weirdness on live television next to a former prosecutor.