MAGA Enters Meltdown Mode Over Tim Walz’s Son at the DNC

The internet fell in love with vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s son Gus on the third night of the Democratic National Convention after the neurodivergent 17-year-old started tearing up seeing his father on stage.

But not everybody seemed to be on board the love train. Instead, the so-called “party of family values” decided to take potshots at the emotional high schooler.

“Talk about weird …” posted conservative media pundit Ann Coulter, sharing an article about Gus.

“Walz’ kid is acting just like his dad! BIZARRE!” wrote X user ProudArmyBrat.

Failed MAGA congressional candidates also got in on the action, outright mocking a kid with a learning disability.

“Tim Walz stupid crying son isn’t the flex the left thinks it is,” Mike Crispi, chairman of the America First Republicans of New Jersey, wrote in a since-deleted post on X. “You raised your kid to be a puffy beta male. Congrats.”

Conservatives also spent the week mocking Vice President Kamala Harris’s stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, for her outfit the first night of the convention, which consisted of a camouflage Harris-Walz merch hat and a sleeveless, caped gown that showed off her tattoos. And on Thursday, Donald Trump ally and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell got into (and badly lost) an argument with 12-year-old content creator Knowa De Brasco.

Meanwhile, MAGA Republicans are embracing something that is objectively weird: Trumpy Trout, an orange, fish-head version of the former president with a matching toupee.

“I am the hugely, bigliest fish in the pond,” the open-lipped animatronic says in a very real advertisement reportedly airing on Newsmax.

Donald Trump threw out a claim on Fox & Friends Thursday morning that the show hastily corrected.

According to Trump, President Joe Biden “sent comrade Kamala to see Putin in Russia three days before the attack [on Ukraine],” falsely claiming that it was a “little-known fact” that the “press doesn’t want to talk about.”

Trump didn’t stop there, saying that in this meeting, Harris “gave her case” to Putin, who still attacked Ukraine days later.

“He laughed at her,” Trump said. “He thought she was a joke. Now he’s really laughing when he sees her. Can you imagine her negotiating with President Xi of China, with Kim Jong Un of North Korea? The whole thing is like we’re living in a fantasy land.”

After the interview, host Brian Kilmeade quickly tried to correct Trump’s comments.

“Just as a quick clarification, we don’t have confirmation that the vice president went to Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin,” Kilmeade said. “I know she went over to Europe right before the incursion when Russia invaded Ukraine, and it’s a war that’s still going on right now.”

In true Fox News fashion, one of Kilmeade’s colleagues tried to defend Trump, claiming to have heard about the meeting.

“I’ve heard that said a lot,” Ainsley Earhardt said to Kilmeade. “You don’t have confirmation that that’s true?”

“No,” Kilmeade replied. “I don’t think that—I don’t know if the vice president ever met Vladimir Putin.”

In reality, Harris traveled to the Munich Security Conference in Germany before the 2022 invasion, but Putin did not attend. Instead, she met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. And, according to a Russian spokesperson, it’s unclear whether Harris and Putin have ever met at all.

While it’s no surprise that Trump would make something up, it is unusual to see Fox News correcting him, even after the fact, considering the network’s efforts to help his campaign. Even this week, they let Maria Bartiromo repeat lies about noncitizens voting. Maybe in Trump’s case, they’re starting to worry about his cognitive decline.

Former television star Donald Trump might be heartbroken to learn this: His Republican National Convention television ratings pale in comparison to the numbers coming out of the Democratic National Convention.

The number of viewers tuning into the DNC night after night continue to beat out the television ratings from the Republican Convention in Milwaukee last month.

Night one of the DNC reached an average of 20 million viewers, versus the 18 million who watched night one of the RNC. The disparity on night two was even more extreme, with 20.8 million viewers tuning in to the DNC as Barack and Michelle Obama spoke, while only 14.8 million watched the RNC with keynote speakers Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley.

Even Fox News couldn’t get its fan base to care. While over 5.1 million people watched the DNC’s late night speeches on Tuesday, Fox News averaged a measly 1.7 million viewers.

Democrats also continue to stream on Twitch, X, Amazon Prime Video, as well as vertically on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Roughly one-third of young Americans under 30 say they regularly watch their news vertically on TikTok.

Data from the third and fourth night of the DNC is still to come—but meanwhile, it’s almost certain Trump is having a full-blown panic attack behind closed doors.

Donald Trump had a Freudian slip on live TV Thursday while discussing President Joe Biden’s administration.

In the middle of complaining about Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s foreign policy during a phone interview with Fox News, the Republican presidential nominee accidentally seemed to throw them a huge compliment.

“Most importantly, they’ve made our country very safe,” Trump said. “And internationally, they’ve made it even more safe!”

But the bombastic populist regained his linguistic footing shortly afterwards.

“As bad as—when you Chicago and the cities—as bad as they are, much worse internationally. We’re going to end up in World War III because she’s incompetent,” Trump continued. “Biden sent her—Russia would have never happened with Ukraine if I were president. Israel, the attack on Israel, would have never happened. Iran had no money, they had no money to give to Hamas or Hezbollah.”

Then, the interview took a turn for the worse.

“Let me tell you a little-known fact that the press doesn’t want to talk about,” Trump told the news outlet. “Biden sent, I call her Comrade Kamala, sent comrade Kamala to see Putin in Russia three days before the attack. She went, she said, she gave her case, he attacked three days later.”

That last point ushered an immediate fact-check by the station, with Fox News co-host Brian Kilmeade clarifying that there was zero evidence for Trump’s story about Harris.

“Just as a quick clarification, we don’t have confirmation that the vice president went to Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin,” Kilmeade said. “I know she went over to Europe right before the incursion when Russia invaded Ukraine, and it’s a war that’s still going on right now.”

Trump has been panicking since Harris was announced as the Democrats’ presidential nominee. Since then, he has wavered on backing out of debates against her, attacked her personally, and has completely reprogrammed his campaign strategy, downsizing from large, boisterous rallies to small, supposedly narrowly focused pressers.

All the while, Trump’s numbers have plummeted. The Republican nominee has even lost some of his staunchest supporters, including white supremacists, with alt-right political pundit Nick Fuentes pulling his endorsement from Trump earlier this month under the belief that his presidential campaign is headed for a “catastrophic loss.”

Kamala Harris is beginning to face the consequences of not pushing for a Palestinian American speaker at the Democratic National Convention, amid widespread backlash to Israel’s deadly U.S.-backed military campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 40,000 people.

Muslim Women for Harris-Walz announced late Wednesday that it would disband after members of the Uncommitted delegation at the DNC were notified that Harris’s team had denied their many requests to have a Palestinian American speaker appear on the main stage.

“We cannot in good conscience, continue Muslim Women for Harris-Walz, in light of this new information from the Uncommitted movement that VP Harris’ team declined their request to have a Palestinian American speaker take the stage at the DNC,” the group said in a statement.

“The family of the Israeli Hostage that was on the stage tonight, has shown more empathy towards Palestinian American speakers than our candidate or the DNC has,” the statement said. “This is a terrible message to send to Democrats. Palestinians have a right to speak about Palestine.”

Earlier Wednesday, Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg, the parents of 23-year-old Israeli American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, had been invited to speak from the main stage, making an emotional plea for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and the safe return of the remaining hostages. “There is a surplus of agony on all sides of the tragic conflict in the Middle East and a competition of pain,” Polin said. “There are no winners.”

In a statement posted to X, the Uncommitted Movement, which organized massive “uncommitted” votes during the Democratic primaries, wrote that they supported the decision to have the family of an Israeli hostage speak, and asked the DNC “to reject a hierarchy of human value by ensuring Palestinian voices are heard on the main stage.”

“Excluding a Palestinian speaker betrays the party’s commitment in our platform to valuing Israelis and Palestinian lives equally. Vice President Harris must unite this party with a vision that fights for everyone, including Palestinians,” the statement said.

The 30 Uncommitted delegates in attendance at the DNC began a sit-in outside of the convention center Wednesday night, requesting that Harris’s team reconsider their decision. Representative Ilhan Omar sat with them, and Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez called in via FaceTime to lend her support, although earlier this week, she had neglected to advocate for Palestinians during her rousing primetime speech.

The United Auto Workers, which has endorsed Harris, posted a statement to X Thursday, urging Harris’s team to reverse course on its decision. “If we want the war in Gaza to end, we can’t put our heads in the sand or ignore the voices of the Palestinian Americans in the Democratic Party,” the statement said. “If we want peace, if we want real democracy, and if we want to win this election, the Democratic Party must allow a Palestinian American speaker to be heard from the DNC stage tonight.”

Earlier this week, the Uncommitted Movement was invited to host a panel discussion about Palestinian human rights at the DNC, the first time such an event has happened. At the time, the group thanked the DNC and reiterated a request that Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a Palestinian American pediatric physician who has been working in Gaza throughout Israel’s assault, should be invited to speak from the convention’s main stage.

Inside the United Center, pro-Palestinian speech has been entirely absent, and attempts to protest have been repeatedly quashed. On Monday, several members of the Florida delegation dropped a banner that read “Stop Arming Israel” during Joe Biden’s speech but were blocked and even hit with signs by others standing around them. The protesters were then escorted out of the main room. Outside the convention center, more than 2,000 pro-Palestinian protesters marched in Chicago for a third day, after violent clashes with the police outside of the Israeli consulate.

“The word Palestine is not allowed inside the Democratic National Convention. The word cease-fire has barely been uttered,” said Rabbi Brant Rosen, a founder of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council, Wednesday night. “This is a Hollywood-style coronation of a candidate. They assume they are entitled to our votes, but they are not entitled to our votes.”

As the DNC enters its fourth and final day Thursday, the clock is ticking on Harris’s team to reverse its decision to exclude Palestinians from its big tent.