MAGA’s “Tampon Tim” Attack on Tim Walz Quickly Falls Apart

A conservative strategy to knock Minnesota Governor Tim Walz down a peg drastically backfired on Friday when it turned out the entire scheme was, actually, not true at all.

The day after Vice President Kamala Harris announced Walz as her running mate, conservatives threw their first major punch at the Midwesterner, labeling him “Tampon Tim” in reference to a 2023 Minnesota state law that conservatives criticized for providing menstrual products in school bathrooms. That included—according to the right-wing media pundits that amplified the rumor—a mandate to also put them in boys’ bathrooms.

Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly amplified the nickname, as did Chaiya Raichik, who posted a photo to her X account, Libs of Tiktok, of a tampon dispenser in the toilet, captioned, “This happened in the boy’s bathroom in an Oregon school after Oregon passed similar laws to Tampon Tim requiring tampons in boy’s bathrooms.” Donald Trump’s campaign also got in on the gossip, with campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt telling Fox News that “there is no greater threat to a woman’s health than leaders ... who support putting tampons in men’s bathrooms in public schools.”

But as it turns out, no one had actually done their research before blasting the transphobic conspiracy into the world—not even a simple Google search of the law’s actual text. In reality, the wording of Minnesota’s law offers “considerable flexibility” in its implementation and doesn’t specify which bathrooms the product should be placed in, reported the Star Tribune. “That might mean making these products available for free in various locations for all who need them, such as unisex bathrooms, girls’ bathrooms, the school nurse or the front office, but not necessarily in boys’ bathrooms.”

Minnesota is far from the only state to offer such assistance in an effort to thwart an economic phenomenon known as “period poverty,” which forces young girls to skip or leave school when they or their families can’t afford to buy period products. Under Republican Governor Mike DeWine, Ohio has set aside $5 million in funding for a near-identical program to Minnesota’s in its schools. Alabama and Georgia have created grants for menstrual product accessibility, while other states like Washington, Nevada, Illinois, and Utah still mandate that their schools provide the products even with zero state funding, according to the Tribune.

“If we don’t talk about it, it’ll never be fixed,” 18-year-old Elif Ozturk of Golden Valley, Minnesota, told the Tribune. “These people who are in power, predominantly old men, have no clue what young girls go through every single day.”

Podcaster and comedian Joe Rogan seemingly endorsed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for president, but after drawing anger and scorn from the MAGA faithful, he quickly tried to backtrack.

Rogan made the initial show of support for RFK Jr. on Thursday on his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, attacking both Republicans and Democrats.

“They gaslight you, they manipulate you, they promote narratives, and the only one who is not doing that is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” Rogan said, adding that Kennedy is “the only one that makes sense to me.”

“He’s the only one that—he doesn’t attack people, he attacks actions and ideas, but he’s much more reasonable and intelligent,” Rogan said. “I mean, the guy was an environmental attorney and he cleaned up the East River. He’s a legitimate guy.”

Trump’s fans weren’t happy. Right-wing influencer johnny maga called the news “sad,” while fellow influencer Catturd attacked Rogan, calling him “the podcast Equivalent of a dumb blonde joke.”

Rogan was joined by right-wing podcaster Tim Pool, who initially posted on X that he was supporting Kennedy too. Later, though, both Rogan and Pool backtracked, with Pool claiming that he was trolling, and Rogan later claiming that his words weren’t an endorsement. But that was too late for Kennedy himself, who posted messages of appreciation to both Rogan and Pool.

The confusing messages from Pool and Rogan follow white supremacist Nick Fuentes’s rejection of Trump’s campaign earlier on Friday. The far-right Nazi sympathizer said that the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign was headed for a “catastrophic loss” and “declared a new Groyper War against the Trump campaign,” referring to his movement of white nationalist trolls.

Wherever Pool, Rogan, and Fuentes stand, they are very influential on the far right, which Trump depends on as a support base. Far-right movements and individuals could cause a lot of problems before and after November’s elections, but the question is whether they’ll be on Trump’s side or redirect their efforts elsewhere.

Donald Trump isn’t ruling out a ban of the abortion pill mifepristone, he said at his long and rambling press conference Thursday.

NBC News correspondent Garrett Haake asked Trump if he would take other measures against abortion rights besides an outright ban, specifically mentioning revoking access to mifepristone. Trump gave an open-ended answer.

“You could do things that will be—would supplement absolutely, and those things are pretty open and humane, but you have to be able to have a vote. And all I want to do is give everybody a vote, and the votes are taking place right now as we speak,” Trump said.

“Is that something you would consider?” Haake followed up.

“There are many things on a humane basis you can do outside of that, but you also have to give a vote, and the people are going to say …” Trump trailed off.

Beneath the former president and convicted felon’s word salad is a signal that he is open to banning the pill. The Supreme Court shot down a right-wing legal challenge to mifepristone’s FDA approval in June, but Republicans in Louisiana have successfully restricted access. It’s no secret that banning the abortion pill is a top priority of religious conservatives, as Project 2025 explicitly mentions banning “chemical abortion” and includes several ways to carry such a ban out.

During his presidential campaign, Trump has tried to publicly downplay Republican efforts to ban or restrict abortion, but his messages to the Christian right suggest otherwise. The conservative operatives crafting policies for a possible Trump administration are more concerned with framing rather than softening any anti-abortion measures, even if that means severe punishments for women who get abortions as well as the people who help them.

Trump has also pushed the Republican lie that Democrats like President Biden support “abortion after birth,” even repeating it in Thursday’s press conference. It seems that Trump is trying to hide his abortion views from the public, tell friendly audiences what they want to hear, and then carry out the bidding of conservatives if he returns to the White House.

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin announced this week that his state would only use paper ballots in the upcoming general election.

“We use 100% paper ballots with a strict chain of custody. We use counting machines, not voting machines, that are tested prior to every election and never connected to the internet,” Youngkin said in a statement announcing that he’d codified his administration’s election security procedures in Executive Order 35. “We do not mass mail ballots. We monitor our drop boxes 24/7.”

Youngkin also said the state would identify voters using DMV data and other data sources to update voter rolls daily, “scrubbing the lists to remove those who should not be on it.” The scrubbing would target the deceased, people who had moved out of state, and “non-citizens that have accidentally or maliciously attempted to register,” Youngkin explained.

During an appearance on Fox News Thursday, Youngkin—who was reportedly a potential candidate for Donald Trump’s running mate—insisted that “American elections should be decided by American citizens, and Virginia elections should be decided by Viriginians.

“This executive order is so important because it does make sure that we have clean voter rolls, it makes sure that votes are counted accurately, and it recognizes the fact that elections need to be trusted by voters,” said Youngkin, before diving into criticisms of Kamala Harris.

Ninety-three percent of votes cast in 2020 had a paper record, whether it was a paper ballot, a mail-in ballot, or a slip printed by an electronic voting machine for voters to review before officially casting, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Not only are paper ballots useful for voters who want to verify the accuracy of their ballots, but crucially, paper ballots are integral to postelection audits.

Trump posted about the order on Truth Social Wednesday, apparently thrilled with Youngkin’s efforts to supposedly secure his state’s elections.

“All votes will be on paper ballots and counted safely and fairly, not by machines connected to the internet—A big security risk. We must work hard to make sure the Election is FAIR and SECURE!!! EVERY STATE SHOULD FOLLOW VIRGINIA’S LEAD. We need volunteers to watch the polls—So important,” Trump wrote.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that electronic voting machines used in 2020 were rigged in favor of Joe Biden. Since then he and his allies have continued to spread conspiracies about electronic voting. Fox News was even hit with two lawsuits from electronic voting machine companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic for pushing Trump’s claims. Dominion settled with Fox, while the Smartmatic lawsuit has not yet gone to trial.

But despite Trump’s insistence on paper ballots, they don’t automatically guarantee a win for him. In 2020, the use of paper ballots allowed a hand-count of every ballot cast in Georgia, which certified Biden as the winner of that state’s presidential election.

Even that recount did not satisfy Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in Georgia or stop his ultimately failed attempts to have the results overturned—something that he was still complaining about as recently as Thursday. Ultimately, Trump doesn’t actually care about ensuring secure elections—only about winning.

White supremacist, Hitler fan, and far-right political pundit Nick Fuentes shockingly revoked his support from Donald Trump’s campaign early Friday, announcing on social media that he and his allies believed that the presidential bid is headed for a “catastrophic loss.”

“Tonight I declared a new Groyper War against the Trump campaign,” Fuentes wrote on X (formerly Twitter) shortly after midnight, referring to a group of far-right activists known as groypers.

Fuentes explained that he and his far-right squad of online trolls “support Trump” but that they view his 2024 campaign as being “hijacked” by lobbyists, consultants, and donors that had aided Trump’s 2016 Republican opponents. All in all, Fuentes believed they were “blowing it.”

“Without serious changes we are headed for a catastrophic loss,” Fuentes wrote.

“This is NOT a purity spiral, this is about living up to the AMERICA FIRST credo put forth by Trump in 2016 which will ensure VICTORY in 2024,” Fuentes continued. “On Monday I will present a detailed statement of the facts, a mission statement, and a plan of action on my Rumble channel. STAY TUNED.”

In another post two hours later, Fuentes shared a screenshot of trending hashtags on Truth Social, including “#GroyperWar2”, “#FireLaCivita,” and “#FireWiles,” the latter two of which refer to senior Trump advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, who helped engineer Trump’s political resurrection following his loss in 2020.

“We haven’t even started,” Fuentes captioned the screengrab.

Despite white men making up a massive part of Trump’s primary support base—and his attempts to pander to them this election cycle—the Republican nominee has seen a stunning slip in support within this demographic.

Former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton was thoroughly unimpressed with Donald Trump’s last-minute presser at Mar-a-Lago, criticizing him as a man so dishonest that he can no longer perceive the difference between the truth and his lies.

Responding to a clip from Trump’s Thursday speech in which the former president claimed he had been “protective” of Hillary Clinton during his administration (despite telling crowds at the time that she should “be in jail” and be “locked up”), Bolton told CNN that Trump “can’t tell the difference between what’s true and what’s false.”

“It’s not that he lies a lot because to lie, you have to do it consciously. He just can’t tell the difference,” Bolton continued. “So he makes up what he wants to say at any given time. If it happens to comport with what everybody else sees—well, that’s fine. And if it doesn’t comport with anybody else, he doesn’t really care and he’s had decades of getting away with it.

“So in his mind, the truth is whatever he wants it to be. And that’s what you heard today,” Bolton added.

Trump’s list of lies on Thursday was almost the length of his speech. Among them included claims that his January 6 crowd size was bigger than Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington (it wasn’t even close). He insisted that Democrats want to gut Social Security (they don’t, but Republicans are trying to). And he swore that no one died on January 6 (four of his own supporters died from the events, including Ashli Babbitt, whom Trump and his allies attempted to morph into a MAGA martyr).

He also, strangely, drew out an entirely fabricated tall tale about nearly dying in a helicopter crash with Vice President Kamala Harris’s old boyfriend, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. Hours after the press conference, it became clear that the actual passengers who shared the 2018 helicopter ride with Trump were former California Governor Jerry Brown and current California Governor Gavin Newsom, both of whom called bullshit on the story.

Donald Trump isn’t going to be taking part in his trademark rallies until after the Democratic National Convention ends on August 22.

The Republican presidential nominee and convicted felon said he’ll resume traveling at that point, at a rambling press conference Thursday. 

Trump was asked by a reporter why he hadn’t been campaigning this week, to which he replied, “Because I’m leading by a lot and because I’m letting their convention go through and I am campaigning a lot.”

When the reporter asked if Trump would increase his travel, Trump said, “After their convention, yeah.”

When another reporter compared Trump’s schedule to Harris’s, Trump got defensive, saying, “What a stupid question.”

Trump’s light schedule is in stark contrast to Vice President Kamala Harris’s and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s. Harris announced Walz as her running mate in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, and the pair have since traveled to rallies in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan. They will travel to Arizona Friday and Nevada on Saturday.

Even J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate, has kept up a busy schedule, following the Harris campaign in visits to Michigan and Wisconsin on Wednesday and traveling to North Carolina on Thursday. In contrast, Trump has only visited Montana, a solid red state, this week. So why is Trump taking the next two weeks lightly? It was quite different in 2016, when Trump held seven different rallies between August 9 and 13 in four different states.

Usually, the last three months of a presidential campaign are a sprint, with candidates rushing to make stops in critical areas after their party’s convention. Is Trump taking it easy due to his age or even cognitive issues? His press conference was all over the place, and to many, it indicated that Trump is not well. Would he be able to handle a rigorous schedule if he returns to the White House? 

Vice President Kamala Harris has scored a historic endorsement from the country’s oldest and largest Latino civil rights group, which could signal a significant shift in her campaign against Donald Trump, who has successfully attracted Latino voters.

The League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, will endorse Harris on Friday through its political arm, the LULAC Adelante PAC, according to CBS. This will be its first presidential endorsement since the organization’s founding in 1929.

The LULAC Adelante PAC’s chairman, Domingo Garcia, gave a statement about the endorsement to CBS. “Vice President Harris has proven herself a stalwart ally and advocate of the Latino community throughout her career and is the right choice for the continued prosperity of Latinos in the United States and the future of our country,” Garcia said. “The politics of hate-mongering and scapegoating Latinos and immigrants must be stopped!”

LULAC’s endorsement comes just as Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, arrive in Arizona, a swing state where nearly one in four voters is Latino. The PAC’s board members are expected to join Harris before her rally in Nevada on Saturday to officially declare their endorsement.

Since the last election, the Democratic Party has lost significant ground with Latino voters. A 2020 poll showed that a significant percentage of Latino voters supported Biden over Trump, 61 percent to 36 percent.

Cut to four years later, and a recent Pew Research Poll found that the two candidates were tied among Latino voters, at 36 percent. Pew also found that nearly a quarter of Latino registered voters supported Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent run for president, accounting for roughly 9.5 million votes that could potentially be claimed by either major-party candidate.

Despite Trump’s hateful rhetoric about immigrants, the former president has found inroads with Latino voters, who view him as being good for the economy, among other issues.

It’s clear that one endorsement won’t be enough for Harris to appeal to Latino voters around the country, but it marks a positive direction for Harris’s recent swell of enthusiasm and support. Harris has also gained the support of LULAC’s large grassroots network, which stretches throughout key battleground states.

For Harris, grassroots campaigning could make all the difference among this critical voting block in swing states such as Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, as well as Southwest states like Arizona, where Biden won by fewer than 10,000 votes.

One day after Donald Trump was caught red-handed lying about his storied relationship with Project 2025, the president of the group behind the scheme is claiming it’s actually a good thing that the Republican presidential nominee is playing down his favor with the agenda—all while admitting that the two are, actually, very close.

Speaking with right-wing commentator Michele Tafoya on her podcast Thursday, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said “it’s good” that Trump is trying to “distance [his] campaign” from Project 2025, which he described as a platform for “any candidate to lean on.” But in doing so, he also let slip that his relationship with Trump—who insisted in July that he had “no idea who is behind” Project 2025—was “very good.”

“To the heart of your question, our relationship with Mr. Trump and his advisers remains very good,” Roberts said. “It’s one where we’re not coordinating at all.”

Instead, according to Roberts, the massive overlap between Project 2025, the RNC, and Trump’s official campaign platform, Agenda 47, is simply because they all fall in the same “big lane.”

Donald Trump has spent weeks trying to disavow Project 2025 since it became clear just how deeply unpopular the christo-nationalist agenda is among American voters. He even went as far as to claim that he knew “nothing about Project 2025” after Roberts called for a “bloodless” revolution. But the renewed insistence that the two have no direct correlation comes just one day after photographic evidence emerged of Trump and Roberts taking a private flight together in April 2022 to a Heritage Foundation conference—where Trump was slated as the keynote speaker.

“I personally have talked to President Trump about Project 2025,” Roberts told The Washington Post that month, “because my role in the project has been to make sure that all of the candidates who have responded to our offer for a briefing on Project 2025 get one from me.”

Project 2025 reflects Trump’s core political philosophy and was designed to be a transition playbook to expedite the first 180 days of a potential second Trump presidency. But the 920-page Christian-nationalist manifesto boasts what would otherwise be considered outrageous policy positions, including dismantling staples of the executive branch, such as the Department of Education.

Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance seems perfectly happy to dish out criticism of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz over his military record, but he just can’t take it.

Vance blew up at CNN anchor Brianna Keilar on Thursday, after she called Vance an “imperfect messenger” to criticize Walz over his military service.

“At what point did military service become a liability?” Keilar asked rhetorically on CNN’s Inside Politics. “I also think that J.D. Vance as a messenger on this may be an imperfect messenger.”

Vance served a single four-year enlistment in the public affairs section in the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, and according to his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, the Republican nominee was “lucky to escape any real fighting.” Still, that hasn’t stopped Vance from accusing Walz, who served with the Army National Guard for 24 years, of exiting the service before his unit was deployed to Iraq.

Walz actually left his unit months before it received a mobilization order for Iraq. The unit deployed to Iraq almost a year after Walz retired.

Keilar, who is married to an active duty Green Beret, took issue with how Vance’s own military service was being framed.

“You introduced him as a combat correspondent, which was what his title was, but when you dig a little deeper into that, he was a public affairs specialist, someone who did not see combat, which certainly the title ‘combat correspondent’ kind of gives you a different impression. So he may be the imperfect messenger on that,” Keilar said.

Keilar conceded that, “At the same time, then you have this argument going on where it seems to be, ‘Did you really serve your country unless you were shot at a lot?’ And I just think that’s a very, kind of, gross place to be because there is so much service and sacrifice that goes on in the military.”

Apparently Vance was incensed by Keilar’s criticism, which had been startlingly similar to his own.

“It’s easy to sit in the comfort and safety of a @CNN studio and trivialize the service of countless men and women who risked their lives. I served with some of the people mentioned in this thread. I miss them all very much. Shameful of @brikeilarcnn to slander an entire MOS,” Vance wrote in a post on X, referring to military occupation specialty.

But Vance felt perfectly comfortable questioning the legitimacy of Walz’s service just days before.

“When were you ever in war?” Vance demanded at a Michigan rally on Wednesday. “What bothers me about Tim Walz is this stolen valor garbage. Do not pretend to be something that you’re not.”