GOP Candidate: It’s Not Discrimination to Fire Someone for Being Gay

Virginia Republican gubernatorial hopeful Winsome Earle-Sears seems to have a very loose definition of what is and what is not discrimination. 

Earle-Sears and Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger got into a back-and-forth exchange about transgender people and bathrooms during the Virginia gubernatorial debate on Thursday, before moving on to Earle-Sears’s record on discrimination. 

“My opponent was asked about her record of discrimination,” Spanberger began. “And importantly, my opponent has previously said that she does not think that gay couples should be allowed to marry—” 

“That’s not discrimination!” Earles-Sears interrupted defensively. 

“She is quote unquote ‘morally opposed’ to same sex marriage—”

“That’s not discrimination!” Earles-Sears interrupted again. 

“My opponent has also previously said that she thinks it’s OK for someone to be fired from their job for being gay, that is discrimination—” 

“That’s not discrimination, nooo,” Earles-Sears said yet again.

Earles-Sears did not immediately respond to Spanberger’s examples, instead accusing her of wanting to defund the police. 

If being “morally opposed” to gay marriage and supporting firing people for their sexual orientation isn’t discrimination, what is? 

Sears has been a vocal right-wing firebrand long before she joined Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin as his lieutenant governor. The state’s first Black lieutenant governor has suggested it’s time to move on from slavery, supported making abortions illegal at six weeks and threatened violence against reproductive rights activists, held an assault rifle in her 2021 campaign posters, and thinks “critical race theory” creates “morale problems,” among other things. She and Spanberger are currently fairly close in the race for Virginia’s gubernatorial seat, as The Decision Desk has Spanberger at 51 percent and Earles-Sears at 44 percent.   

The election is on November 4.  

Russell Vought, the White House budget director, announced that the administration has begun firing federal workers en masse.

Vought warned last week that “consequential” layoffs were forthcoming amid the ongoing government shutdown. On Friday, he tweeted, “The RIFs have begun,” referring to “reductions in force.”

Vought, as anticipated, is now using the government shutdown to cull the federal workforce, fulfilling Trump’s recent vow to cut “vast numbers of people out,” as well as slash programs that he says Democrats “like.”

An unnamed White House official told MSNBC’s Vaughn Hillyard, “We expect thousands of people to unfortunately be laid off due to the government shutdown.” CNN’s Alayna Treene reports that a White House official said that fired workers have begun receiving notices and, “It will be substantial.”

Agencies poised to be affected, according to Politico, include the Departments of the Interior, Treasury, Commerce, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Reacting to Vought’s four-word social media announcement, the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 820,000 government workers, shot back: “The lawsuit has been filed.” The AFL-CIO told Vought, “America’s unions will see you in court.”

This story has been updated.

President Donald Trump didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize Friday—but that isn’t stopping him from trying to make the prestigious award all about himself.

The president took to Truth Social to share a video of Russian President Vladimir Putin criticizing past winners and praising Trump’s peace efforts on long-standing crises.

“There have been cases where the committee has awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to people who have done nothing for peace,” Putin said, according to the AP’s translation. “A person comes, good or bad, and [gets it] in a month, in two months, boom. For what? He didn’t do anything at all. In my view, these decisions have done enormous damage to the prestige of this prize.

“[Trump’s] really doing a lot to resolve such complex crises that have lasted for years and even decades,” Putin added. The Kremlin had announced earlier Friday that it would support Trump’s bid for a peace prize—but clearly Moscow’s efforts were too little, too late.

“Thank you to president Putin!” Trump wrote when resharing the video.

Trump also shared an X post from this year’s winner, María Corina Machado, a pro-democracy activist and the leader of the opposition party in Venezuela, where she partially dedicated her win to Trump for supporting Venezuela.

“We are on the threshold of victory and today, more than ever, we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our principal allies to achieve Freedom and democracy,” Machado wrote on X. “I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!”

Trump then proceeded to go back to posting about his efforts to prosecute his political enemies, namely New York Attorney General Letitia James, who was indicted Thursday for mortgage fraud by the president’s (seemingly incompetent) former lawyer who was recently installed as a prosecutor in Virginia.

While Trump seemed to avoid having a total temper tantrum (for now, but he’s speaking late Friday afternoon), the White House didn’t spare fighting words.

In announcing the award Friday morning, the Nobel Committee warned about the dangers of unchecked leaders. “When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognise courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist,” the committee said.

Republican Speaker Mike Johnson thinks the “No Kings” rally planned for next week is a “Hate America” rally meant to extend the government shutdown—something someone who has never been to a “No Kings” event would say. 

“We’re so angry about it. I’m a very patient guy, but I have had it with these people. They’re playing games with real people’s lives,” Johnson said Friday morning on Fox News, in his usual monotone voice. “The theory we have right now: They have a ‘Hate America’ rally that’s scheduled for October 18 on the National Mall. It’s all the pro-Hamas wing and the antifa people, they’re all coming out. Some of the House Democrats are selling T-shirts for the event. It’s being told to us that they won’t be able to reopen the government until after that rally, ’cuz they can’t face their rabid base. This is serious business hurting real people.… I’m beyond words.” 

The “No Kings” rally is a nationwide action with a very simple goal: oppose the blatantly authoritarian tilt of the Trump administration. The protests are supported by groups like the Human Rights Campaign, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the College Democrats of America, among others. The rallies have been very tame, and I have run into veterans, federal employees, and mostly older, liberal white people who love America but hate what President Trump is doing. No one there is particularly close to being pro-Hamas, and antifa (whoever that is) would likely consider the action to be insufficiently leftist for them. 

But Johnson can say ridiculous things like this because his party can’t fathom that not everyone who opposes them is some militant anarchist with a Molotov cocktail locked and loaded. The government is shut down because Republicans refuse to negotiate with Democrats on extending health care subsidies millions of Americans rely on, not because Democrats want antifa to destroy the government.  

Bari Weiss must have pulled a lot of management inspiration from the Department of Government Efficiency.

The new editor in chief of CBS News issued a memo to staff Friday, ordering them to send her memos by Tuesday denoting how they spend their workdays and what they believe could be improved.

“By the end of day Tuesday, I’d like a memo from each person across our news organization,” Weiss said in a copy of the email obtained by Semafor’s Max Tani. “I’m not looking for a JD or words like synergy. I want to understand how you spend your working hours—and, ideally, what you’ve made (or are making) that you’re most proud of. I’m also interested in hearing your views on what’s working; what’s broken or substandard; and how we can be better.

“Then I’ll use your memo as a discussion guide for when I meet with most of you (ideally, all of you if time permits) in the coming few weeks,” Weiss added.

That strategy is remarkably similar to the one employed by Elon Musk when he ran DOGE. The parallels weren’t lost on CBS staffers, either: One lamented to Status newsletter writer Oliver Darcy, “We just got Elon Musk-ed.”

In February, Musk ordered federal employees across the government to email his office weekly summaries of their achievements. Failure to do so, under Musk’s rule, would be grounds for immediate firing.

The mandate was remarkably unpopular and scantily enforced by agency heads—some of whom butted up against Musk for making demands outside of his purview as a special government employee. The program met its quiet demise in August, when the Trump administration officially axed it—months after Musk was forced out.

Weiss’s version will have her inundated in paperwork. CBS News on its own employs thousands of individuals. A memo from each person on staff would lend itself to a tremendous amount of work.

The anti-woke, pro-Israel grifter became CBS’s newest chief last week. Her far-right, pro-genocide blog, The Free Press, was simultaneously scooped up by CBS’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, for roughly $150 million. It will also be Weiss’s first foray into running a major news operation. The Free Press, by comparison, employed more than 50 people as of last month.

The acquisition—and Weiss’s whopping promotion—mark the beginning of a radical new era for the historically middle-ground, traditional news conglomerate. Weiss is expected to bring a notably right-wing slant to CBS, which has served as the home of some of journalism’s most venerable names, including Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow.