Watch: Byron Donalds Doubles Down on Twisted Jim Crow Comment

Representative Byron Donalds isn’t backing down from his claim that Black Americans were better off under Jim Crow segregation.

Speaking to CNN’s Abby Phillip Wednesday night, Donalds repeated his claim, made Tuesday at a Republican outreach event in Philadelphia, that welfare and President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” programs had hurt Black families to the point that they were worse off than in the days of Jim Crow.

“Before the Great Society, before Lyndon Johnson’s policies, there was more Black families united,” Donalds said Wednesday. “The marriage rate in Black America was significantly higher before the Great Society. The period of time that coincides with that obviously is Jim Crow era.”

Phillip asked what the point was in tying together the Black family and Jim Crow specifically.

Donalds said he was only referring to the specific time period, repeating his contention that Black families were hurt by Johnson’s policies, stating that the Black family is being rejuvenated now, but he didn’t mention that those policies were later rolled back by other Democrats, like Bill Clinton.

As Phillip stressed that the Jim Crow era was a “period [of] racial segregation [and] racial terror,” Donalds responded by trying to claim that his words were being twisted.

“What you are dealing with right now is a political environment where now anything I might say or any major surrogate might say is going to be twisted into the lens of race,” Donalds said. “That was never the point.”

Phillip went on to ask Donalds three times if he regretted using Jim Crow as a historical comparison, as the Florida representative refused to answer.

Donalds’s comments Tuesday drew pushback from Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who called them an “ignorant observation.” The Congressional Black Caucus called on Donalds to apologize for his remarks in a statement.

“This is a pattern of embracing racist ideologies that we see time and again within the MAGA Republican Party,” the CBC said. “Rep. Donalds is playing his role as the mouthpiece who will say the quiet parts out loud that many will not say themselves.”

Donalds is said to be in contention to be Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, but the convicted felon has not responded to the congressman’s comments. It’s anyone’s guess whether Trump’s own documented racism would lead him to appreciate or disapprove of Donalds’s contention.

House Republicans are taking their colleague Troy Nehls to task for a “stolen” military award, which he proudly sports on his suit jacket, NOTUS reported Thursday.

A CBS News investigation from May, which found that the Combat Infantryman Badge that Nehsl wears was actually revoked in March 2023. The honor, which is only for infantrymen or Special Forces members who fought in active combat, was mistakenly awarded to Nehls, who served as a civil affairs officer in Afghanistan. Nehls did not engage in combat, but he has continued to wear the badge regardless.

Nehls’s fellow Republican House members revealed to NOTUS that the Texas Republican’s decision to keep his faulty laurels does not sit well with them.

“That’s ridiculous. That’s stolen valor,” said Texas Representative Wesley Hunt, who wears a Combat Action Badge, awarded to anyone who “engages with the enemy.”

Representative Ryan Zinke of Montana also slammed his colleague for his unearned accolade: “As a former commander, it matters what you wear on your uniform. And if you didn’t earn it, you shouldn’t wear it,” he told NOTUS. Zinke is a former U.S. Navy Seal.

Other House Republicans expressed their strong disapproval of Nehls’s decision to keep wearing the pin.

“We hold ourselves to a higher standard as veterans,” said one GOP lawmaker, speaking anonymously to NOTUS. “He needs to stop wearing it.”

Another anonymous representative said the “shameful” accessory spoke to “deep insecurities,” and a third knocked it as an “abuse of power.”

Other lawmakers told the outlet that they intend to try to verify the report that Nehls’s award had been revoked. Representative Jack Bergman, a retired two-star general, said he would “trust but verify” the information using his military back channels.

The CBS Investigation and a Pentagon and U.S. Army Service review also found that Nehls had only been recorded as having one bronze star, as opposed to the two he claimed to have earned. Nehls has hit back at these reports, posting what appears to be evidence of his two stars to X (formerly Twitter), but CBS News was reportedly not able to verify the validity of the posted documents.

Besides his apparent “stolen valor,” Nehls is also known for loudly refusing to back President Joe Biden’s border bill earlier this year because it would “help” the president’s record on immigration, and complaining about Reprepresentative Cori Bush using some overtly racist tropes.

House Republicans weren’t able to pin President Joe Biden with any concrete evidence of wrongdoing, and now they can’t even seem to explain what they thought he and his family did wrong in the first place.

The House GOP issued criminal referrals Wednesday for Biden’s son Hunter and brother James to the Justice Department, accusing the president’s family of lying to Congress and making a “conscious effort” to undermine the impeachment probe into the forty-sixth president. But by Thursday morning, a top Republican couldn’t pinpoint one thing that the pair did wrong.

“Well, let’s just start out,” Smith told Fox Business before tumbling headlong into a word salad. “The two IRS whistleblowers who came before the House Ways and Means Committee last year. They released over 1,500 pages of documents showing the influence peddling that was being sold all over—all over the world, in multiple countries, from Russia to Ukraine to China.

“And where we stand today is that we’ve seen an administration that has continued to obstruct our investigation,” the Missouri Republican continued. “And even to the sense that you saw James Biden and Hunter Biden lie to Congress. One of the first messages … that we ever released was the WhatsApp message that was between Hunter Biden and a Chinese business associate that was basically trying to shake him down for $5 million saying that he was seated next to his father.

“We asked Hunter Biden about that message directly, under oath, February 28, and he said it was another Zhao,” Smith said. Hunter Biden has previously denied sending the message while sitting next to his father, but did admit it may not have gone to its intended recipient. Hunter claimed he meant to send it to Raymond Zhao, the head of a Chinese energy company but may have sent it to another one of his contacts, Henry Zhao.

“Well, guess what, the IRS whistleblowers provided additional evidence showing three months of continuous messages to that same Zhao, which was the Chinese business associate,” Smith said. “Let’s hope the Biden administration treats anyone with the last name Biden the same way that they do Trump.”

Still, the sham inquiry to discredit Biden has been remarkably devoid of evidence. The committee’s former star witness, Alexander Smirnov, served as the singular source on claims that Biden had netted millions off his son’s connection to Ukrainian oil company Burisma.

But that angle, which House Republicans had believed was their best bet at nabbing the president, completely blew up in their face when Smirnov was indicted by the Department of Justice for lying to the FBI. Smirnov then reportedly admitted to law enforcement that top Russian intelligence officials were involved in the smear campaign against the sitting president. And all of the other witnesses that Republicans called on in their year-long probe instead debunked every single accusation against the Biden family.

Do you still have love for 50 Cent? The rapper took to X (formerly Twitter) to respond to the more than 21 questions he provoked from fans on Wednesday after posting a photo of himself posing with disgraced far-right Representative Lauren Boebert—and it’s even more chaotic than the original photo.

First, here’s the original photo, where 50 Cent confuses the Capitol for the White House:

After that post went viral, 50 Cent responded:

Cent’s post seems to be part of the game to make a move and then act a fool, as his post with Boebert raised predictable hackles and questions if the underground king was aspiring for a first date in a darkened theater with the infamous Boebert—or if he was just being a window shopper.

Regardless, the move raised awareness of his surprise appearance on Capitol Hill to show them what he’s got and to advocate for Black representation in the luxury liquor industry and Black entrepreneurship overall. Appearing alongside attorney Ben Crump, the underground king visited the Congressional Black Caucus and multiple members of Congress, saying the experience was “really positive.”

“I went to talk to [Congress] about economic opportunities for everybody,” said 50 Cent. “It’s really exciting. The response I got makes me feel like there are bright days ahead of us.”

Donald Trump asserted that he has a “right” to send the Department of Justice after his political enemies, specifically President Joe Biden. 

In an interview Wednesday with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, the former president was asked to respond to critics who said he plans to weaponize the Department of Justice against his political enemies if he is elected president. To be clear, it wasn’t just critics who’d suggested the idea—Trump himself openly threatened to jail his political enemies earlier that day. 

“Number one, they’re wrong,” Trump replied, before proving them right. 

“It has to stop, because otherwise, we’re not going to have a country. Look, when this election is over, based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them,” he said, remarking that suing Biden would be “easy” because of “all the criminality.”

Given his continued insistence that Biden is guilty of wrongdoing, for which the congressional impeachment investigation could not provide any evidence, it seems that Trump does intend to seek retribution against Biden if elected. That doesn’t sound like weaponization at all.  

“What they’re doing to me, if it’s going to continue, we’re really not going to have much of a country left. It’s really, it is weaponization. You call it lawfare, you call it—some people call it just warfare—but it is weaponization of the election,” Trump whined.

Trump himself said he’d be a dictator on day one of his presidency, and since he was convicted of 34 felony counts, his crusade for vengeance has only gotten more intense, which doesn’t bode well for if he eventually has command of the DOJ.