Breaking News
Breaking News
from Washington and beyond

Damning Video Shows Roger Stone Is Plotting a Coup for November

The Donald Trump ally has some sick plans for a potential Republican victory.

Roger Stone is seen from the side
Nick Oxford/AFP/Getty Images

A nine-minute, unedited, undercover interview with Roger Stone revealed some of the MAGA ally’s more disturbing goals for a second Trump administration.

The covert recording of a discussion between Stone and an undercover journalist at a meet and greet in Jacksonville, Florida, on August 4, published by documentarian Lauren Windsor, caught Stone admitting live on camera that he already intends to send “armed guards to dispute the election in Detroit” and to imprison “former Attorney General Bill Barr if Trump returns to power.”

Under the guise of discussing a far-right program to get more like-minded people back into the federal government, Stone shared his disdain for Barr, deriding him as a “traitorous piece of human garbage.” He also lamented that, while president, “Donald Trump never controlled the Justice Department.”

“He’s a CIA general counsel,” Stone said. “He’s a piece of shit. Trump read a law review article, never checked his background, and made him attorney general. Once we get back in, he has to go to prison! He has to go to prison. He’s a criminal.”

On the topic of retaking the government, Stone specified that it’s a “state question, not a federal question.”

“So it’s not who controls the federal government, it’s who controls the state government,” Stone continued. “They use the election system to harass you when you’re in office, but this is about an election. We gotta fight it out on a state-to-state basis.”

At the same event, Stone was witnessed insisting that millions of voters were being purged from voter rolls in battleground states, including North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Nevada, as well as Republican strongholds like Florida.

It’s not even the first time this year that Windsor has caught Stone on a hot mic.

During a Catholics for Catholics event at Mar-a-Lago in March, the liberal filmmaker got Stone to spill the beans on the right’s preemptive effort to undermine the 2024 election results.

“We’re working on this,” Stone said at the time, noting that “overconfidence” in voter turnout was one of the biggest issues for Republicans. He then said that Trump’s side would be armed with “lawyers, judges, [and] technology” to challenge the official results if necessary.

“At least this time when they do it, you have a lawyer and a judge—his home phone number standing by—so you can stop it,” Stone said. “We made no preparations last time, none.… There are technical, legal steps that we have to take to try and have a more honest election. We’re not there yet, but there’s things that can be done.”

Trump Exposed for Having More Fake Fans at His Rally

Donald Trump has been caught faking his support from firefighters.

Donald Trump gestures while speaking at his rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania
Alex Wong/Getty Images

Another voting bloc advertised as pro–Donald Trump has turned out to be a bust.

The Republican presidential nominee’s rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday featured a crowd of people holding signage that read, “Scranton Firefighters for Trump.” But by Friday, it became clear that the Scranton Fire Department firefighters’ union had absolutely nothing to do with the initiative, and the people waving the signs at Trump’s campaign event were not, in fact, firefighters.

The International Association of Fire Fighters union has not yet endorsed a candidate in the 2024 presidential election, nor has its Scranton chapter, Local 60, reported The Scranton Times-Tribune.

“Local 60 would like to address the rally held earlier today in Scranton for former President Trump and the Office of President of the United States,” the chapter wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday. “This is not a political post, rather a clarification post for anyone who sees or may see the event. Multiple CITIZENS were seen with ‘Scranton Firefighters for Trump’ signs at today’s rally. It is noted that no member of Local 60 were carrying those signs as the IAFF has chosen not to endorse a candidate this election.

“We honor and respect each and every person’s political opinions as well as our members own opinions on what they believe is the right choice for them,” the post continued. “We just want to clarify that Local 60 has not endorsed a candidate for the Office of President following the path of the IAFF. The signs seen were not a representation of SFD Local 60 nor an endorsement of any candidate.”

The Trump campaign also attempted to distance itself from the charade. In an interview with the Times-Tribune, campaign spokesperson Kush Desai claimed that the “Firefighters for Trump” signs “were not something that the campaign made or handed out.”

But that doesn’t mean that Trump didn’t try to reap the rewards of the signage’s confusing appearance there. Just shy of an hour into the rally, Trump called out to the supposed firefighters, claiming that he got their union’s endorsement.

“We got the firefighters endorsed us, you probably heard,” Trump said.

JD Vance Tried to Turn an Emergency into a Weird Dig at Harris

JD Vance made a sick joke about what could have been a health emergency.

JD Vance smiles and waves at an October 7 memorial event
Luke Johnson/The Washington Post/Getty Images

It turns out, there isn’t a single thing JD Vance isn’t willing to politicize.

During a town hall in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Thursday, Vance made a weirdly hostile joke after a woman in the audience fell down, letting out a shriek of terror.

Vance stood up and walked over to see what had happened, while security rushed to her. “We OK?” Vance asked. There was a moment of silence and awkward laughter from the crowd.

“Kamala Harris built this platform behind us, that’s what happened,” Vance joked, and the audience started to laugh and clap.

“We doing OK, ma’am, we good?” Vance asked again, before returning to his seat on stage.

While awkwardly joking about bleachers was just one weird moment of divisiveness, Vance also politicized the federal response to Hurricane Helene, claiming that Donald Trump would not abandon the people of western North Carolina.

When speaking about his favorite topic, illegal immigration, Vance tried to connect it back to what was happening in North Carolina by falsely claiming that programs for immigrants come at the expense of North Carolina residents.

“And if the message that our country sends after 25 million illegal aliens coming into this country is you get to stay here, you get to collect housing benefits, you get to collect welfare benefits, while folks in western North Carolina are struggling to survive, we will never have a border in this country again,” Vance said, according to The Independent.

Vance’s appearance in North Carolina comes as the Republican ticket pushes the lie that the federal government has been using money meant for FEMA to assist immigrants. Similar versions of this claim have been repeated by Trump, Elon Musk, and other Republican lawmakers. Both FEMA and a White House spokesperson have said the claim is false.

Vance also repeated his racist attacks against immigrant children. While he pretended to soften his hard-line message, he still managed to baselessly claim that immigrant children were somehow decreasing the quality of American education.

“It’s nothing against those kids,” Vance said. “It’s saying something against Kamala Harris who let those kids come in and deprive Americans of good education.”

Earlier this week, Vance falsely claimed that second-generation immigrant students, who by definition were born in the U.S., were creating a strain for schools.

At one point, moderator Danica Patrick referred to “globalists” who want Americans to own nothing. Vance agreed with Patrick, noting that “they want you to live in a pod, eat bugs, and own nothing.”

While Vance may have put on the sheen of civility during his vice presidential debate performance, his appearance in North Carolina shows that he is anything but civil, and his talking points rely on the most base of misinformation and fearmongering.

Melania Trump Faces Uproar After Being Caught in Fake Charity Scandal

It turns out Melania Trump is a grifter just like her husband.

Melania Trump
Leon Neal/Getty Images

While promoting her new book, Melania, on Fox News Tuesday, Melania Trump mentioned two websites, MelaniaTrump.com, and USMemorabilia.com, that she said supported “fostering children” and “fostering community.”

But neither website contains much information about specific charity efforts, Juliet Jeske of Decoding Fox News posted on X Thursday evening. Her research into USMemorabilia found that the website doesn’t mention any charities, or whether any proceeds from the website go to any charities. Instead, the website was focused on selling United States merchandise and NFT collectibles.

Likewise, MelaniaTrump.com seemed focused on selling products and not on charitable efforts. Jeske found that there was a section on Trump’s “Be Best” anti-bullying program that she spearheaded as first lady, but it didn’t have any links to a charity. She went to a section on the website titled “Fostering the Future,” but again, there was no information about a charity there either, only a link to send emails about scholarships or corporate sponsorships.

So, was the former first lady taking a page out of her husband’s book, and talking a big game about charity while doing very little? For years, Donald Trump had the Donald J. Trump Foundation, only for it to be exposed as a money-laundering grift, with Trump having to shut it down. His son, Eric, was even involved in the particularly egregious transgression of taking away money meant to fight against cancer in children. And this isn’t the first time Melania was caught in a fake charity scandal of her own.

On the surface, Melania Trump doesn’t appear to have committed any fraud or crimes, but, considering her own past and her family’s, maybe she ought to be more careful speaking. After all, the last thing the Republican presidential nominee needs is another scandal or extensive criminal investigation.

Trump Hit With Brutal Fact-Check After Bragging About Winning an Award

Donald Trump bragged about winning “Man of the Year” and cited an article as proof.

Donald Trump holds his arms out while speaking at the Detroit Economic Club
Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s claim about being Man of the Year just got debunked… again.

During a speech at the Detroit Economic Club Thursday, Trump took aim at The New York Times’s Peter Baker, whom he dubbed an “Obama disciple,” for asserting that the former president had never won any such award.

Trump claimed that Baker “said that uhhh, I would go around saying that ‘I was honored here, years ago as the Man of the Year’ or whatever.”

“And he made the statement that that never took place. That honor never took place. I was never honored here,” Trump said. “Which was quite insulting, actually.”

Last month, when asked about his plan to keep jobs in the U.S., Trump launched into a rant about being “honored as the Man of the Year” by “a group,” and complained that the news media had said it “never happened.” Baker, and others, have noted Trump’s insistence that he won the non-existent award as evidence of his cognitive decline.

“I didn’t remember the specifics of it, it was 18 or 20 years ago, but he said it never took place. Very much like Kamala she said she worked at McDonalds, and she didn’t,” Trump noted.

In an attempt to clear up uncertainty, Trump had his team search for proof of the award. “I asked my people, ‘you gotta find it,’” Trump said. Why not? It’s not like they have anything better to do, like work on fleshing out his “concepts of a plan” health care proposal.

“And guess what? They found it,” Trump said, holding up a printed-out copy of a 2023 article from The Oakland Press. The article, titled “Oakland County GOP to Honor Donald Trump,” was not an original article about the Republican nominee being named Man of the Year, but mentioned the fact that he had previously been awarded the honor by the local Republican party in 2013—not 18 or 20 years ago.

“And it says down here, ‘The county party gave Trump the Man of the Year Award at the dinner’…and he was honored. So here’s your article, right here,” Trump said.

But shortly after Trump’s speech concluded, an editor’s note appeared at the top of the Oakland Press article online.

“A story published in May 2023 online and print editions of the Oakland Press reported that former President Donald Trump was honored with a Man of the Year award at the 2013 county GOP Lincoln Day dinner,” the note read. “A reference in the 2023 story, headlined ‘Oakland County GOP to honor Donald Trump,’ about the 2013 award was incorrect.”

“Trump was the keynote speaker at the 2013 dinner in Novi, which drew a record crowd. He was not honored as Man of the Year. During the 2023 dinner, Trump was honored as the Man of the Decade which was reported in the 2023 story,” the note continued.

“We’re setting the record straight after the former president incorrectly cited the 2013 Man of the Year award during a recent speech to the Detroit Economic Club,” the note added.

So, it appears that Trump’s inane brag was based on a reporting error.