“Man, I Loved That’: Trump Celebrates as MAGA Fans Attack Protester

President Trump celebrated violence at his rally in South Carolina Thursday night.

At least nine protesters interrupted his speech at Clemson University, according to a pool report. In one instance, a heckler was punched by a Trump supporter in the crowd, and the president loved it.

“Wow. Man, I love that. I watched that,” Trump said. “That was incredible. Wow. That was, that was unbelievable. Is everybody OK? Who’s the guy that threw that punch?

“You know, you reminded me of Evander, the real deal, Holyfield,” Trump added, referring to the champion boxer in attendance.

“You gotta give them credit. It takes courage to do that at a Trump rally. He got whacked.”

In another instance, a MAGA fan followed a protester as security escorted him out, and hit him on the head.

Trump has a history of celebrating violence in his rallies going back to the start of his political career. In February 2016, Trump wished aloud at a rally in Las Vegas that he would have liked to punch a protester in the face. The next month, he told a rally crowd in Iowa, “So if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of ’em, would you? I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. I promise.”

As the president’s dwindling popularity keeps setting records, more and more people are showing up to his pre-midterm election rallies to heckle and protest him. The economy continues to grow worse thanks to his failed economic policies and disastrous war in Iran, increasing dissatisfaction even in areas that voted for him by wide margins.

However, Trump still retains a core group of die-hard supporters, who are perfectly willing to engage in violence to demonstrate their loyalty, whether it’s storming the Capitol building or beating up protesters. To Trump, however, nothing can go too far.

Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott publicized the endorsements of 11 Democratic sheriffs. Three of them denied ever endorsing him.

Zapata County Sheriff Ramon Montes, Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez, and Webb County Sheriff Marin Cuellar all publicly announced that they were not endorsing Abbot after he posted them on his endorsement list on Monday. While Cuellar has been removed from the list, Montes and Martinez are still on it.

“Please remove my name from this for the Governor Abbott. This is Sheriff Martin Cuellar. The governor endorsed Tano my brother’s opponent,” Cuellar wrote in a text screenshot he posted on Facebook. Cuellar is the brother of Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar, who is currently running for Texas’s 28th House district.

“I want to make it unequivocally clear that I have not issued a political endorsement of Governor Greg Abbott, and I did not authorize anyone to use my name as an endorsement,” Martinez wrote in his own official statement. “I made it clear to the Sheriff who submitted the endorsement that I could not endorse Governor Abbott. I also made it clear that no one from the Governor’s office ever contacted me regarding an endorsement, and that I do not need anyone speaking on my behalf.”

Sheriff Montes’s office told Border Report that he “is not endorsing anyone at this time.”

Recent polling has Abbott sitting just three points ahead of his Democratic challenger, former state Representative Gina Hinosoja.

Virginia Senate President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas, the Democratic leader behind the state’s redistricting effort, was arrested Thursday in connection with an alleged bribery and racketeering scheme.

In a 45-page indictment filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, Lucas and six co-defendants were charged with conspiring to distribute and possess marijuana, conspiring to launder money, laundering money, and committing bribery by distributing large quantities of illegal marijuana under the auspices of her legal medical cannabis business.

Lucas, an 82-year-old great-grandmother, has served in the Virginia Senate since 1992. She faces five of the eight charges included in the indictment. These charges arrive five months after the FBI raided Lucas’s office in Portsmouth, Virginia, and the neighboring cannabis dispensary she co-owns.

Speaking at a press conference, FBI Director Kash Patel claimed that Lucas had accumulated nearly $5 million in ill-gotten gains over the past five years.

Lucas has been a frequent critic of Republicans and President Donald Trump, and is an ally to Virginia’s Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger. The state senator was a central figure in mounting her party’s redistricting efforts earlier this year, which were ultimately blocked by the Virginia Supreme Court.

Also listed in the indictment were Lucas’s daughters Theresa Lucas-Lamb and Lisa Lucas-Burke, who is currently running for Portsmouth City Council. The DOJ manual prohibits federal prosecutors from timing any action for the purpose of undermining a candidate in an upcoming election.

But speaking at the press conference, Attorney General Todd Blanche insisted that the government’s actions were proper and “consistent with past practices.” When asked whether the investigation was political payback, Blanche said: “We don’t do political paybacks,” and claimed the probe had begun years before Trump reentered office. The A.G. couldn’t offer a good explanation, however, for why he and the FBI director had bothered to give an official press conference for charges related to a declassified drug.

The indictment contains wiretap transcripts illustrating Lucas’s involvement in an alleged illegal money-making scheme. In a phone call in February 2026, Lucas discussed the language surrounding the state’s pending recreational marijuana legislation with an unindicted co-conspirator, according to the charging document. Lucas spoke about the possibility of the co-conspirator receiving a license, and sharing the proceeds with her because “this is our last chance at generational wealth.”

“I’ve got too old to not be greedy,” Lucas said, according to the indictment.

In another phone call a month later, Lucas said she hoped that the cannabis legislation would pass in order to make what she’d done legal, because “when I did it, it was obviously illegal.”

In a statement, Lucas indicated she intended to fight the allegations in the indictment.

“Today, the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the full weight of the federal government have been wielded against an 82-year-old great grandmother,” she wrote.

“I grew up under Jim Crow. I’ve seen what happens when people in power try to silence those who stand up to them. I spent my life fighting back, and I’m not stopping now. I’m not new to this. I’m true to this,” she wrote. “I will not be intimidated. I will not be bullied. And I will not back down.”

This story has been updated.

The president is tacking on to his White House media ban.

The White House stripped media access from CNN and The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg on Wednesday, despite the fact that both were scheduled to provide pool coverage.

“Today is CNN’s turn to fulfill both in-town and out-of-town TV pool duties, but the White House press office left the network off the list for Donald Trump’s trip to South Carolina, so as a result there will be no pooled TV coverage of the trip,” wrote CNN’s chief media analyst, Brian Stelter, on X.

CNN attorney Ted Boutrous had warned the Justice Department earlier this week that the network would take legal action if the White House continued to exclude CNN from Air Force One.

Boutrous is also representing MS NOW and Politico, which faced the initial wave of Trump’s restrictions alongside CNN last month. He noted in a letter that the White House had until 5 p.m. on Thursday to respond to the developing situation with CNN, or the organization “will be forced to pursue additional judicial relief.”

Semafor’s Maxwell Tani confirmed that Feinberg was also on the outs, sharing on X that “without explanation, the White House told him today that he would no longer be the print pooler on Trump’s Thursday trip.”

The decision came just two days after Trump tore into Feinberg during a White House presser, shushing and demeaning the well-reputed journalist.

“I don’t know who the hell you are, but you better be careful,” Trump said on Tuesday, minutes after Feinberg had introduced himself.

Moments later, Trump called Feinberg a “sick person” and added, “I actually think there’s something wrong with you.”

The president’s official rapid response account on X added fuel to the fire later that day, recirculating the exchange with a new description for Feinberg: “Mongoloid Moron.”

President Trump isn’t done trying to rename things.

The president told a rally audience in South Carolina Wednesday evening that he tried to rename the Atlantic Ocean to “Trump Ocean,” but ultimately decided against it.

“I only like two oceans, the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, I’m not going to put either Trump or America on any other ocean but these two. So, we seriously looked at the Atlantic Ocean and I called Google Maps who were really great with the lake and really great with …” Trump said, trailing off but referring to the Gulf of Mexico.

Trump said he called Google CEO Sundar Pichai and asked him, “I’m thinking of the Atlantic Ocean, can you handle it? ‘No no no, this time I’m not doing it,’ he said.”

The audience and Trump laughed.

“He said, he said, he said, ‘Oceans are different, sir. You know, they cover, they cover a lot of, they cover really a lot of countries. Please, don’t ask us to do that.’ So I’ll probably pass. Should I pass it? I think let’s keep it the Atlantic Ocean,” Trump said.

Trump’s ego knows no bounds if he was seriously considering having Google change the name of the Atlantic Ocean. He has signed executive orders changing the names of the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario to the Gulf of America and Lake America, respectively. He’s proposed renaming the Strait of Hormuz to “Trump Strait,” and earlier this week again mused about renaming New Mexico to “New America.” Meanwhile, the economy is suffering as a result of his failed policies and ill-advised war with Iran, and the Republican Party is facing heavy losses in November’s midterm elections.