J.D. Vance’s Team Won’t Comment on His Viral Drag Photo

J.D. Vance evidently did some cross-dressing back in law school.

On Sunday, a photo of the Ohio senator and Republican vice presidential nominee allegedly wearing a blonde wig and dressed as a woman was posted on X.

It didn’t take long before the picture was trending with the hashtag #SofaLoren, a play on words referring to the false rumor that Vance performed a sexual act with a couch. When The Daily Beast reached out to Vance to see if the photo was real, the campaign did not deny its authenticity and also refused to comment further.

The source of the photo is from one of Vance’s classmates at Yale Law School, Travis Whitfield, who said the picture was taken by a different classmate in 2012, when they were all students. Whitfield sent the photo to podcast host Matt Bernstein, who then uploaded it to X.

“It’s from a group chat of Vance’s fellow classmates and is from a friend of a friend,” Whitfield said to The Daily Beast. “I believe it was grabbed from Facebook and was taken at a Halloween party.”

Whitfield posted on X about where the photo came from, offering proof in the form of the photo’s presence on his phone. Whitfield doesn’t appear to be a Vance supporter, saying in a different post that “from all the sources I’ve heard, JD was actually a good guy in law school. Not sure what happened after though…”

While a funny photo of a politician in a Halloween costume from college normally wouldn’t be a big deal, Vance has a history of attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, using the “groomer” slur against critics of “Don’t Say Gay” legislation. He introduced the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act” in the Senate, which promotes misinformation about transgender health care. Vance also stated that he would vote against codifying same-sex marriage and has promoted so-called “parents’ rights” talking points.

Just on Sunday, he falsely claimed that his Democratic counterpart, Tim Walz, promotes taking children away from parents who don’t consent to gender-affirming care. The fact that neither he nor the campaign has denied the truth of this photo is telling. In any case, expect this photo to make the late-night TV circuit, or at least persist on social media along with his fictional couch tryst.

Donald Trump just lost the ability to use yet another song from a musician who wants nothing to do with his divisive, hateful rallies.

The family of Isaac Hayes announced a sprawling lawsuit on Sunday, slamming the Republican presidential nominee for 134 counts of copyright infringement related to repeatedly using Hayes’s song “Hold On I’m Coming” at numerous campaign rallies between 2022 and 2024.

“We demand the cessation of use, removal of all related videos, a public disclaimer, and payment of $3 million in licensing fees by August 16, 2024,” announced Hayes’s son, Isaac Hayes III, on social media. “Failure to comply will result in further legal action.”

Isaac Hayes III explained Saturday on social media that his family had repeatedly asked Trump, his team, and the RNC not to use the song, but their requests went unheeded.

“Donald Trump represents the worst in integrity and class with his disrespect and sexual abuse of Women and racist rhetoric,” Hayes wrote on X.

The family has issued a cease and desist against further use of the song and has demanded that Trump, his campaign, and the RNC “remove all videos featuring the song and” issue a statement affirming that they never received authorization to play the song. The suit also demands that Trump issue a check for $3 million in licensing fees, according to legal documents shared by the estate.

“The normal fee for these infringements will be 10 times as much if we litigate, starting at $150,000 per use,” the documents read, describing the $3 million price tag as “very discounted.”

Trump has until Friday to respond to the notice before the family says it will “proceed with litigation.”

But that wasn’t the only musical loss for the Trump campaign over the weekend. On Sunday, Celine Dion’s team clarified on Instagram that it did not approve of or endorse Trump’s use of Dion’s song “My Heart Will Go On” at a rally in Montana.

“… And really, THAT song?” they added.

Hayes and Dion join a long list of artists who have yanked their rights away from Trump, including Sinéad O’Connor, The Beatles, Adele, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Guns N’ Roses, Leonard Cohen, Queen, Prince, Pharrell, the Rolling Stones, The Smiths’ Johnny Marr, Rihanna, Neil Young, Linkin Park, the late Tom Petty, the Village People, and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler.

Donald Trump has taken his size insecurity to the next level, falsely accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of using artificial intelligence to make a crowd appear bigger in photos and videos.

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, arrived at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Michigan on Wednesday, where they were reportedly greeted by a crowd of 15,000 people. Only, Trump and his cronies are pushing the conspiracy theory that it never even happened.

“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Sunday night.

Trump wrote his thoughts above a screenshotted post from conservative commentator Chuck Callesto, a font of misinformation whose faux–breaking news posts are regularly seen by hundreds of thousands of people.

Trump claimed that Harris had been outed by an airport maintenance worker and that the rumor had been “confirmed by the reflection” in the finish of the plane, which did not appear to show the crowd.

“She’s a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the ‘crowd’ looked like 10,000 people! Same thing is happening with her fake ‘crowds’ at her speeches. This is the way the Democrats win Elections, by CHEATING—And they’re even worse at the Ballot Box,” Trump wrote.

Trump argued that Harris should be “disqualified” for election interference, over the use of the image. “Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING,” Trump wrote.

Like many of Trump’s accusations, this conspiracy theory is actually an admission.

Ever since he lied about the crowd size at his inauguration, Trump has continued to establish himself as an unreliable source for numbers of any kind. In May, his campaign pushed the false claim that his rally in the Bronx had attracted a crowd of 25,000 people, while in reality it was more like 1,000.

One thing is for certain: Trump cares a lot about appearances. Apparently, he even has a weird habit of waving at no one as he boards his plane.

The Republican presidential nominee’s sensitivity to Harris’s groundswell of popularity comes just as his running mate, J.D. Vance, trailed Harris and Walz across the country, attracting meager crowds just miles away from Harris’s massive gatherings.

Trump’s ravings were easily answered by actual journalists and photographers who had covered the event, whose reporting revealed a sizable crowd inside a packed airplane hangar, with many rallygoers spilling out onto the tarmac.

Hany Farid, a professor at UC Berkeley specializing in digital forensics, said he analyzed the image for evidence of A.I. generation. “While the lack of evidence of manipulation is not evidence the image is real. We find no evidence that this image is AI-generated or digitally altered,” he wrote in a post on LinkedIn.

Harris’s campaign hit back at Trump on Sunday night, claiming that the image was genuine. “1) This is an actual photo of a 15,000-person crowd for Harris-Walz in Michigan,” the Harris campaign wrote in a post on X. “2) Trump has still not campaigned in a swing state in over a week.… Low energy?”

Renowned white supremacist and Charlottesville protester Nick Fuentes personally attacked J.D. Vance and his wife, Usha, last month for her Indian heritage, claiming that the Republican vice presidential pick “clearly doesn’t value his racial identity” and is unlikely to be a “defender of white identity” due to his wife’s ethnicity.

But even that isn’t enough for Vance to take a stand against the racist rhetoric.

In a sitdown interview with ABC News’s This Week on Sunday, Vance continued to defend a dinner between Donald Trump, Fuentes, and Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, falsely insisting that Trump had “issued plenty of condemnations” on Fuentes while agreeing that the Hitler-loving livestreamer’s comments about his wife amounted to “racist garbage.”

After ABC’s Jonathan Karl pushed back, Vance claimed that Trump “doesn’t know anything about” Fuentes and “frankly, doesn’t care.” (Trump had shared clips from Fuentes’s internet show before the dinner took place.)

Instead, what matters to Vance is how Trump personally treats his wife—not the fact that the Republican presidential nominee entertains political rhetoric that makes the country significantly less safe for people of color.

“The one thing I like about Donald Trump is he actually will talk to anybody, but just because you talk to somebody doesn’t mean you endorse their views,” Vance said. “Donald Trump has spent a lot of quality time with my wife. Every time he sees her, he gives her a hug, tells her she’s beautiful, and jokes around with her a little bit.

“I’m not at all worried about Donald Trump,” Vance continued. “I’m worried sometimes about these ridiculous attacks. This is what you sign up for when you come into politics. I wish people would keep it focused on me. They’re gonna say what they’re gonna say. My wife’s tough enough to handle it, and that’s a good thing.”

The interview came just two days after Fuentes shockingly revoked his support for Trump, announcing on social media that he and his allies were declaring a “groyper war” against the Trump campaign over the belief that the candidate was headed toward a “catastrophic loss.”

Fuentes’s renunciation hits the Trump campaign at the same time as a slip in support from white men, according to recent polls, despite Trump’s attempts to pander to them this election cycle.

After being absent for nearly a year, Donald Trump returned to X (formerly Twitter) early Monday morning, posting a new campaign ad shortly before 3 a.m. E.T.

The post and campaign ad used a question taken from Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign for president, when he asked, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Trump’s post makes this point by also claiming, “Our economy is shattered. Our border has been erased. We’re a nation in decline.”

Trump was banned from Twitter more than three years ago following the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. Shortly after acquiring the microblogging service, Elon Musk reinstated Trump to the platform in November 2022. But Trump refrained from posting to the platform, except for posting his Georgia mug shot in 2023 after being indicted on election interference charges. Commentators have speculated that he was either deliberately focusing on his own social network, Truth Social, or he has some legal requirement to post on his own social network.

So why has he posted on X after so long? Perhaps he’s desperate after plummeting in the polls thanks to the surging Kamala Harris campaign. He’s lost a lot of ground in the last month after President Biden withdrew from the race and after Harris chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate. Trump’s selection of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate has done him few, if any, favors, inviting attacks from Democrats calling Republicans weird.

Trump’s time on Twitter, from the start of his 2016 presidential campaign through his four years as president, was marked by belligerence, schoolyard insults against his opponents, and incitement of violence. From Trump’s standpoint, his four years as president were probably the peak of his political career, so maybe he’s desperately trying to bring the old magic to revive his flagging fortunes and make himself feel better. Maybe Musk asked him to post again in advance of his interview with the egotistical tech mogul Monday night. Or maybe he’s returning to X because his own social network is losing a lot of money.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is trying to draw the support of Arab and Muslim American voters with a Palestinian American running mate.

NBC News reports that Stein has been looking for a vice presidential candidate to take advantage of the frustrations from Muslim and Arab Americans over Democratic Party support for Israel in its brutal war on Gaza. 

Since the start of the war in October, President Biden has given unequivocal support to Israel, costing the Democratic Party support from Muslim and Arab Americans, who not only are a key part of its base but also make up a large number of voters in Michigan, a battleground state. Calls for a cease-fire have not brought one about, and the war has stretched for 10 months and caused a massive humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

Stein has spoken with three prominent Arab Americans as potential candidates: Abed Ayoub, the executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; Amer Zahr, a Palestinian American comedian and activist; and Abdullah Hammoud, the Democratic mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, who, at age 34, is constitutionally ineligible to be vice president. 

Zahr, who lives in Dearborn, said that he was initially open to voting for Vice President Kamala Harris but lost enthusiasm after she “disrespectfully” shut down protesters who interrupted her at a Detroit campaign rally, and after an aide said that she would not support an arms embargo against Israel.

“She could have said, ‘I hear you, we’re going to address this, and if you want it to get better, elect me instead of Donald Trump,’” Zahr told NBC. “But instead she suggested we want to help get Trump elected … as if we owe her something and she doesn’t owe us.”

Zahr is one individual, but there are likely many other Muslim and Arab Americans who were dismayed by Harris’s response to the protesters and who would like to see a change in U.S. policy toward Israel, including an end to weapons shipments. If Stein makes a big overture by putting an Arab or Palestinian American on her ticket, it could draw away enough voters to tip the balance in Michigan.

Plus, it’s not just Muslims and Arab Americans who care about Palestine: Young Americans of all backgrounds have seen the destruction and violence and want things to change. Can Harris convince them that she will end the war and change policy, or will a third-party candidate like Stein get their votes?

After Joe Rogan spoke favorably of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and then tried to backtrack and claim it wasn’t an official endorsement, he drew the ire of Donald Trump.

The Republican presidential candidate and convicted felon took to Truth Social Friday afternoon to attack the conservative comedian, podcaster, and UFC commentator, speculating that UFC fans might not be happy with Rogan’s stance.

The notoriously thin-skinned Trump has courted the UFC and mixed martial arts fans during his presidential campaign, even having UFC CEO Dana White introduce him at the Republican National Convention. Trump attended three UFC events in 2023 alone, and continued to show the organization his support in 2024. He has even floated the idea of UFC matches between migrants and native-born Americans.

Attacking Rogan, who hosts one of the most popular podcasts in the country and one listened to by many on the right, is not the wisest decision for Trump. Rogan has survived criticism over his views on Islamophobia, vaccines, Covid-19, racism, and the LGBTQ+ community, particularly transgender people, among other controversies. Despite courting a nuclear level of criticism, he continues to retain millions of listeners, and his UFC fan base predates the podcast. And again, Rogan said he hasn’t actually made his endorsement yet.

Rogan’s following mostly consists of young men, just like that of Adin Ross, who recently interviewed Trump for his livestream. Trump wants and needs that audience to turn out and vote for him, and in recent weeks, young people, both men and women, have been flocking to the Harris-Walz campaign and helping to sell out rallies. If Trump alienates them, he might find himself at a disadvantage on election night.

Why in the world is Elon Musk trying to stoke violence and disorder in the United Kingdom? Free speech, of course!

Following a stabbing last month in Southport in the northern U.K. that killed three young girls, disinformation quickly spread on Elon Musk’s platform, X, including the rumor that the attacker was an asylum-seeker.

On Sunday, hundreds of far-right anti-immigrant protesters attacked a hotel housing asylum-seekers in Rotherham, a town in South Yorkshire, England. From there, rioters continued to take to the streets in other cities and towns.

As violent mobs took to the streets, Musk tweeted that “civil war is inevitable” and blamed “open borders.”

As the week went on, anti-fascists and U.K. police faced down the rioters, eventually quelling the protests. On Tuesday, the U.K. government promised to bring rioters and their online agitators to justice.

In response, Musk went so far as to call the U.K. authorities pursuing the right-wing violent perpetrators the “Woke Stasi” and clashed with new Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?” Musk asked in another tweet.

“Let me also say to large social media companies and those who run them: Violent disorder, clearly whipped up online, that is also a crime,” responded Starmer. “It’s happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere.”

Days have passed, and still, Musk seems unfazed by Starmer’s threats or by the real-world violence his social media site has platformed. With no hint of remorse, he tweeted on Friday afternoon, “Support freedom of speech in the UK!”

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.