MAGA Influencers Are Salivating Over Jailing Each Other
And it’s all over a supposed DOJ probe into whether foreign money is influencing conservative content on Iran.
THE WORLD OF MAGA INFLUENCERS is growing more divided over Donald Trump’s war with Iran. But so far, those influencers largely aren’t blaming the president for their divisions.
Instead, they are pointing to a new culprit: The reason conservatives are at each other’s throats, they argue, is that they’re being paid by foreign sources to, essentially, bicker.
On Wednesday, the right descended into a feeding frenzy over unsubstantiated rumors of a Justice Department investigation into whether certain conservative commentators were being paid by foreign sources to argue for and against the war.
Social media luminaries as grand as “Catturd” himself were thrilled at the idea of seeing fellow influencers arrested.
“DO IT !!!” declared Mr. Turd.
Others went even further, calling for banishments. “Influencers who take foreign money and don’t disclose it should be deported to the country they took the money from,” declared right-wing commentator Jack Posobiec, a former key booster of a Russian intelligence hack himself. He eagerly welcomed the prospect of the imagined probe.
We don’t take foreign cash. We don’t fantasize about jailing our fellow ideological travelers. We just do our thing. Join us.
It’s worth noting early that, while there is a rich and well-documented history of conservative influencers being on the dole, there’s so far no evidence of that happening in this particular instance. The idea of there being an investigation appears to have come from a popular anonymous right-wing account, “0H0UR,” which posted what appeared to be a news bulletin on X Wednesday morning: “United States to investigate American Influencers taking foreign money.”
In a right-wing media landscape divided between pro-Israel supporters of Trump’s war with Iran, like Mark Levin, and war critics and Israel opponents, like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, each side welcomed the prospect of the Justice Department getting ready to put their ideological foes in handcuffs.
Imagining the DOJ investigation as some kind of national pundit audit, podcaster Graham Allen offered to preemptively hand his financials over to the government to prove he’s clean of foreign-funding and not one of the “grifters.” Alex Bruesewitz, a Trump associate who functions primarily as the president’s Nicki Minaj whisperer, treated the discovery of a foreign influence campaign as a fait accompli in a Wednesday morning post on X.
BECAUSE SO MANY conservative influencers have actually engaged in pay-to-post arrangements in the past, it’s become commonplace for members of this community to accuse their intramural foes of being on the take.
Just a few weeks ago, country music sensation Alexis Wilkins, the girlfriend of FBI director Kash Patel, claimed she had uncovered a wide-ranging foreign influence network to make people think she’s a Mossad operative. And who could forget Laura Loomer’s nickname for Carlson: “Tucker Qatarlson”?
But the enthusiasm for a Justice Department probe is notable not just because it suggests influencers believe the MAGA civil war now requires federal intervention. It sticks out because many of these influencers calling for a DOJ probe have taken foreign money themselves.
Consider MAGA personality Rob Smith, for example. Smith was thrilled by the idea of a DOJ investigation, and vowed to “PERSONALLY investigate” anyone running for office who made money off the war through foreign-funded posting.
Perhaps that’s because Smith has swum in these waters.
Just four months ago, he spent Thanksgiving on a luxury MAGA influencer junket to Qatar. While Smith wouldn’t disclose how his trip was funded, he came away from it posting about the “mutually beneficial military and financial partnerships” that await the United States and Qatar.
But the most shameless of all has to be pundit Benny Johnson, who declared the nonexistent investigation “good” in a post on X. Johnson said the news of the probe would prompt right-wing influencers who were on the take to panic, revealing their true motives.
“Will be telling who crashes out over this,” Johnson wrote on X. “I welcome it.”
Left unmentioned was that Johnson himself was previously caught in the most famous right-wing media influence scandal in years, taking millions of dollars to make YouTube videos for Russian-funded Tenet Media. Perhaps Justice Department investigators could ask Johnson, who has claimed he didn’t know the money came from Russia, to send some tips about how these schemes tend to work.
Of course, the idea of a Trump Justice Department investigating foreign influence is laughable, given the foreign financial entanglements and conflicts already rife in the administration. Recently booted Attorney General Pam Bondi scaled back Foreign Agents Registration Act enforcement early in her tenure at DOJ, signaling the administration’s stance on policing foreign influence in our politics.
As a sign of how seriously the White House takes foreign-media operations, the Canadian founders of Tenet Media have not only been allowed back into the United States, but attended the White House Easter egg roll this week.
Sorry, Catturd. We don’t imagine the FBI will be kicking down any pro-Trump bloggers’ doors after all.
Trouble in the House of Taibbi
CAN FAMOUSLY CANTANKEROUS journalist Matt Taibbi round up enough of his fellow contrarians and cranks to fill a thriving Substack account? The answer, judging by the events of the past few months, appears to be no.
Taibbi bruised his reputation in 2023 by embracing Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter as a stand for free speech. That relationship, predictably, soured. And in February, Taibbi tried for a “reboot,” announcing that his Substack, “Racket News,” would become a “home for reporters,” with a focus on investigative journalism.
Things have not gone well since.
First, Taibbi announced he was hiring Daily Caller News Foundation reporter Emily Kopp—seen as a heroic but controversial figure in the COVID-19 origins community, where people argue about “gain of function” research and the lab-leak hypothesis—to retool Racket.
That appears to have infuriated Walter Kirn, the eccentric novelist, dyspeptic commentator, and frequent Gutfeld! guest who is probably best known for writing the novel-turned-movie Up in the Air. Up until Kopp was hired, Taibbi and Kern had cohosted a current-events podcast for Racket called America This Week.
But on February 9, Taibbi, wearing a hat from the magazine Kirn founded, logged in alone to announce Kirn was quitting.
“Apparently this is the last episode of this show, as I’ve just discovered,” Taibbi said, adding, “I’m sorry that Walter feels the way he does.”
Kirn would later describe Kopp’s hiring as “the basis of the whole rift” with Taibbi, without offering further details.
But Kopp herself has offered an additional theory. According to a Substack post she published on February 13, Kirn’s beef centers around their differing takes on National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya—a hero to some in the right’s COVID-obsessive community. Kopp has criticized Bhattacharya for ducking her questions about gain-of-function research. Kirn, on the other hand, is very invested in Bhattacharya’s image. He’s working on a pandemic film entitled The Rash, which is financed by former Robert F. Kennedy Jr. running mate Nicole Shanahan and stars a Bhattacharya-type figure.
No one involved in this story responded to requests for comment. So it’s impossible to verify how big a role Bhattacharya’s honor played in the Kirn-Taibbi breakup.
And while Taibbi at least got his rebooted Racket, even that appears to be in trouble. Kopp is already apparently no longer working at the site as of late March: She removed any mention of it from her X profile and an apparently delighted Kirn announced on April 3 that she was gone.
But that doesn’t mean Kirn plans on restarting his former cohosted podcast. He reposted a message that he was “biding” his time “while all the big ‘podcasters’ wipe one another out with their bizarre rivalries,” adding that he would be “wielding a platinum scepter, in ruby slippers.”
What a great bunch to work with. I can’t imagine why it didn’t work out!
““DO IT !!!” declared Mr. Turd.”
Kind of says everything about the age we’re living in
Man, I honestly don’t know how you follow this stuff day in and day out without losing your mind. Thanks for absorbing the pain for our entertainment. 👊