State Department Unveils Plan to Only Promote Trump Supporters

The Department of State has asked civil servants up for promotions who they voted for in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential elections.

Top State Department officials have indicated that the only candidates eligible for mid- to upper-level foreign service roles were people who had supported President Donald Trump, and that political donations to any Democrat would be disqualifying, The Washington Sun reported Thursday.

The publication spoke to six current and former State Department officials with knowledge of these conversations, including three sources who spoke directly to employees who were asked about their politics.

Federal law prohibits federal officials from making personnel decisions based on political affiliation, but it has seemingly become a regular practice during the second Trump administration. This latest move comes as the State Department has attempted to push out its most senior career officials, in order to ensure the top ranks are all politically loyal to the current president.

In a statement to the Sun, a spokesperson for the State Department declined to comment on the outlet’s reporting about voting history questions, but expounded on the importance of employees’ “fidelity.”

“Fidelity means upholding the Constitution and the law and executing policy with loyalty to the American people and their interests,” the spokesperson said. “It emphasizes the critical importance of service, integrity, and policy alignment across the Foreign Service. It is not about partisan behavior but rather about executing the president’s vision for foreign policy.”

In July 2025, the State Department added a “fidelity” section to the foreign service’s performance-evaluation process, requiring managers to assess whether their employees had succeeded at “completely aligning oneself and one’s team to the most current [U.S. government] goals.”

Apparently, the agency has taken that to mean high-ranking diplomats are required to have personally supported all of Trump’s bids for presidency over the last decade.

Three male escorts have claimed that they had sex with the late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham—with one engaging in relations with him when he was just 17.

The men are featured in a documentary from The Young Turks, which they worked on for a year. Graham, who was one of the most conservative, anti-LGBTQ senators during his long tenure, had also been plagued by rumors about his alleged homosexuality until the day he died.

“His last words to me were ‘I needed that,’” said Cory, who started as a sex worker after he was kicked out of his parents’ house for coming out in 2005. He detailed his first meeting with Graham at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.

“He was very professional looking.… He looked like a different class than I’m used to.… But the thing that stood out to me was his accent. He had this big, grandiose Southern accent that I hadn’t heard in years,” Cory said. He then claimed that Graham liked being “degraded,” spanked, and called “faggot.” Cory said Graham paid him $1,500, and The Young Turks shared various travel logs that place both him and Graham in D.C. at the same time.

Two other men, Jesse and Kelvin, had similar stories with Graham.

“It’s not exactly a secret that he was a homosexual,” Jesse said.

Kelvin alleges he met Graham in Arizona in 2001 when he was 17 years old. “He contacted me, said that he had heard about me from someone, that I came recommended,” he said. “I asked Lindsey what was bringing him into town. He said that a buddy of his was having some major event that he was gonna be there for.” That buddy was Senator John McCain, whom Graham was visiting for a Fourth of July party.

“As he was adjusting his pants, he got a good look at me. And then that was when he was a bit startled, and almost terrified. He looked at me then with a very stern, angry scowl on his face, and he was like, ‘You’re under the age of 18, you’re 17 aren’t you?’” Graham panicked, but then gave in after Kelvin lied and told him he had just turned 18. He was paid $120.

“So after spending his whole life being homophobic, Lindsey was having sex with underage male prostitutes???” liberal commentator Harry Sisson wrote online.

This is one of the longest-running rumors in Washington. It matches what others said in the days after Graham’s death, and makes every one of Graham’s homophobic votes, policies, and comments—including voting against gay marriage multiple times—all the more despicable.

Watch the full documentary here.

A federal judge has ordered President Trump to sit for a deposition by December 11 with attorneys for the British Broadcasting Corporation, which he is suing for $10 billion for defamation.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett ruled Thursday that Trump can’t delay answering questions from the BBC’s lawyers, the Associated Press reports. The president had canceled a planned October 16 deposition based on a “matter of national importance.” According to the BBC’s attorneys, Trump was in fact campaigning in Georgia for the midterms that day.

“He was participating in party politics and prioritized that over sitting for the deposition,” BBC attorney Charles Tobin told the AP, adding that “we still haven’t been able to depose the plaintiff” with only two months left in the discovery period of the case.

If Trump does not attend a deposition before the deadline, he could face sanctions including the dismissal of his case. The only reprieve he can get is if the lawsuit’s discovery period is extended beyond December 18.

Trump is accusing the BBC of defaming him in a 2024 documentary about the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, claiming the media company used deceptive editing to make it appear that he was urging his supporters to use violence to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. The network denies Trump’s accusations.

But the president was almost certainly trying to shake down the network, which appears to have backfired. BBC attorneys are trying to get his nemesis, former special counsel Jack Smith, to testify, and Trump has also fought attempts to subpoena his children and dig into his finances. He should have known better than to go after the BBC, which, being backed by licensing fees from the U.K.’s TV-owning public, wasn’t likely to settle with him. Now, he either has to win his case on its nonexistent merits, or drop it altogether.

This story has been updated.

President Donald Trump went post-verbal Wednesday at his rally in South Carolina.

After holding 20 campaign rallies in the span of just two months, the evidently exhausted 80-year-old president has started to insert wild sound effects into his already incoherent rants.

At one point, Trump appeared to short-circuit in the middle of a sentence. Instead of saying former North Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s name, the president produced a gagging sound.

“I’d say 90 percent of the reason I took the governor—EUHH,” Trump said. “I took the governor, I put her over at the United Nations, because I wanted this guy to be, I wanted the guy to become governor.”

Trump has repeatedly misspelled or misstated Haley’s name. Recently, Trump has appeared to forget the names of candidates he’s shown up to support.

Later, Trump described the unlawful military strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats using one of his favorite sound effects. “We brought the flow of deadly drugs coming in by ocean and sea down by 97—pew, pew, pew. Ninety-seven,” he said. Trump has been repeating this number for months, but the Pentagon’s own statements don’t support this claim.

It then appeared that Trump has given up on pretending that the flow of energy through the Strait of Hormuz has been restored. He’s also given up on trying to say it.

“Oh, and when Iran ends. POW,” Trump said, miming a downward flow. “The oil,” he clarified.

Trump’s nearly eight-month “six-week war” against Iran has caused a sustained spike in energy prices, creating a quagmire for Republicans in the coming midterm elections. The president’s pathetic deal to lift sanctions on Russian oil hasn’t helped. Trump continues to promise that an end is near, but indirect negotiations are still ongoing.

It’s hard not to view this latest rally as one humiliating moment after another. Speaking in front of thousands of people, Trump ranted about wanting to change the name of the Atlantic Ocean to “Trump Ocean,” insisted that he should’ve won the Pulitzer Prize for writing (after confusing it for his much-coveted Nobel Peace Prize), cheered on a rallygoer who assaulted a heckler, and leered at Senator Tim Scott, of all people.

JD Vance was ghosted by practically every player on the Cincinnati Bengals football team during what he apparently believed would be a spontaneous meet and greet Wednesday evening.

The vice president waited outside the locker room. Just about every team member looked at Vance and decided not to interact with him—save for tight end Drew Sample, who gave Vance’s son a fist bump. Sample then gave Vance a handshake.

The entire situation—and its terrible optics—echoed a similar locker room visit by FBI Director Kash Patel, who unexpectedly appeared in videos with the U.S. men’s hockey team after their Olympic gold medal win earlier this year.

At the time, Patel was caught on tape chugging beers inside the locker room in Milan, spurring nationwide backlash as the American public questioned if the conspiracy podcaster turned intelligence chief had utilized taxpayer funds for the excursion. But at least Patel made it inside.

Despite occupying the number two office in America, Vance quietly waited for attention in the Bengals’ hallway. When it became clear that a meet and greet wasn’t going to happen, Vance wandered off with his entourage.

It was not immediately clear why the team snubbed Vance, but either way, the vice president should have bigger things on his plate. Earlier Wednesday, Vance sparked statewide backlash across Ohio for defending a disturbing advertisement by Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that featured the estranged mother of Ramaswamy’s opponent, Democratic candidate Dr. Amy Acton.

The advert had Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, claim that “Amy has a serious problem.” Acton has not spoken to her mother since she was 12 years old, ABC News reported. Arthur abandoned her two children to skip town with her husband, Acton’s stepfather, who was indicted for sexually abusing the Democratic candidate as a young girl.

“Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar,” Vance said on Wednesday.