The Golden Age of Sh*tposters
They’ve risen to higher and higher ranks in the MAGA ecosystem. But has one of them finally gone too far?
Breaking news this morning: CBS News reports that a man was arrested after sending texts that he planned to “eliminate” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at an event in New York City last weekend. “I cannot allow this terrorist to live,” Christopher Moynihan said in a text message, according to a court filing. “Even if I am hated, he must be eliminated, I will kill him for the future.”
The kicker: Moynihan was a convicted January 6th rioter. He was among those pardoned by Donald Trump in January. Happy Tuesday.
Paul, Interrupted
by Andrew Egger
Wake up, babe! Another young Republican operative just had his insanely racist text messages leaked.
But the latest guy in the barrel isn’t some random right-wing apparatchik. He’s Paul Ingrassia, Trump’s 30-year-old nominee to lead the Office Special Counsel, one of the federal government’s key internal watchdogs. In a Truth Social post from May, Trump, who has shared Ingrassia’s content dozens of times, called him a “highly respected attorney, writer, and constitutional scholar.”
He’s also quite the group-chatter. Politico reported yesterday afternoon on a set of text chains in which Ingrassia, speaking to other young GOP men, offered his opinion about Martin Luther King Jr.—the “1960s George Floyd” whose holiday “should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs”—while admitting that “I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time.” Other comments about the merits and demerits of various population groups piled up from there:
“We need competent white men in positions of leadership . . . The founding fathers were wrong that all men are created equal.”
“Blacks behave that way because it’s their natural state. . . . All of Africa is a shithole, and will always be that way.”
“Never trust a chinaman or Indian.”
What a guy! In response to the story, Ingrassia’s lawyer offered the most hilariously wishy-washy statement imaginable: “In this age of AI, authentication of allegedly leaked messages, which could be outright falsehoods, doctored, or manipulated, or lacking critical context, is extremely difficult . . . We do not concede the authenticity of these purported messages.”
Which to us sounds a lot like: Look, man—Paul says a lot of insanely racist stuff about a lot of ethnic groups. How can we possibly know if these particular instances are real or not?
A few things about all this.
The first and most obvious: As I wrote about a similar story last week, the kids are not alright. For many young Republican professionals coming up today, especially men, performative ultrabigotry is social currency—a way of showing you’re an edgy freethinker who isn’t afraid to hold dangerous opinions and, as importantly, not some crypto-lib. A lot of times it starts out as a posture of semi-irony—before long, it becomes a habit of mind, then hardens into actual belief.
The second is about the Hill response. The timing of the leak is terrible for Ingrassia, who was scheduled to have his confirmation hearing Thursday. If that were still weeks or months out, GOP senators might be able to sit back and wait to see if the story goes away on its own.1 As it is, they were compelled to respond immediately.
“He’s not gonna pass,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters yesterday.
“I’m not supporting him,” said Florida Sen. Rick Scott. “I can’t imagine how anybody can be antisemitic in this country. It’s wrong.”2
But the White House has so far been silent—which brings us to the third thing. During Trump’s second term, his team has modeled a hard-and-fast rule on scandals like these: Young Republicans are never, ever to face consequences for horrible texts.
The field general here has been Vice President JD Vance, who has rushed again and again to the defense of young MAGA bigots. When 25-year-old DOGE staffer Marko Elez was fired in February over year-old X posts like “I was racist before it was cool,” “You could not pay me to marry outside my ethnicity,” and “Normalize Indian hate,” Vance successfully campaigned for him to get his job back. “I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life,” Vance said.
Last week, it was Vance who laid out the playbook for the GOP response to obscenely racist texts from Young Republican leaders: “The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys.”3
That grace, of course, only extends where Trump supporters in good standing are concerned. Vance has been among the loudest voices, for instance, encouraging the MAGA faithful to try to ruin the lives of anyone posting terrible things about the murder of Charlie Kirk. And he hasn’t had a problem with the administration’s punishing of the social media activity of literal college kids, revoking their visas and booting them from the country.
All this makes the Ingrassia storyline particularly tricky for the White House. It suggests there may finally be a level of shitposting that even loyal MAGA footsoldiers can’t get away with and still expect to get through the GOP Senate. And it shines a 450-watt floodlight on the ludicrousness of Vance’s ridiculous talking point. These “young boys” are too immature and half-formed to refrain from pouring pure hatred against minorities out at all times. But they’re not too immature, apparently, to run major government agencies. They’re the fearless foot soldiers of MAGA who are going to take this country back—but hush, don’t be mean—can’t you see the baby is sleeping?
Demolition President
by William Kristol
In October 1943, the British Parliament debated the rebuilding of the House of Commons, which had been destroyed a couple of years before in the Blitz. Against others who favored using a more modern, semicircular design—more like that of many other parliaments—Prime Minister Winston Churchill made the case for preserving the original shape of the Commons.
Part of Churchill’s argument was simply the case for honoring tradition. But Churchill also argued that the original, rectangular layout of the House, with benches facing each other in close proximity, encouraged vigorous and direct debate between the parties. And he claimed that the small size of the House, with not enough seats for every member, created a sense of intimacy and urgency for the discussion, especially during important moments.
How much did all this matter? Well, as Churchill said: “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”
Eighty-two years later, the president of the United States is reshaping the White House. In July, Donald Trump announced he wanted to add a 90,000-square-foot ballroom to the existing building. The ballroom would dwarf the 55,000 square feet footprint of the main part of the White House. Still, Trump assured one and all, “It won’t interfere with the current building. It’ll be near it but not touching it—and pays total respect to the existing building.”
It turns out Trump was lying. Shocking, I know. Yesterday, construction workers began the demolition of part of the East Wing in order to build a new, Mar-a-Lago-like ballroom.
Trump hasn’t gotten approval for this project from the National Capital Planning Commission, which regulates the construction of federal buildings. The Trump-appointed head of the commission, Will Scharf—who, conveniently, is also the White House staff secretary—said during the only public meeting about the matter that the board has no jurisdiction over demolition or site preparation.
While Trump is proud of his new ballroom, others in the administration seem touchy. The Wall Street Journal reported last night that the Treasury Department instructed employees not to share images of the demolition, after photos of construction equipment dismantling the front of the building made their way online.
It’s unclear what legal authority the Treasury Office of Public Affairs has to tell employees what photos they can take during their lunch break. But why would that matter to the Trump administration?
In any case, Trump—aided and abetted by all the corporations and wealthy donors who have contributed money to his project—will presumably be able to do as he pleases. And perhaps it’s foolish to object. If we’re going to transition under Trump’s rule from a (mostly) dignified democratic republic to an ostentatious oligarchic autocracy, our buildings should reflect and reinforce that progress. After all, we shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.
AROUND THE BULWARK
How a Bizarre Healing-TV-Screen Tycoon Is Funding MAGA Media… In False Flag, WILL SOMMER had to try it out for himself. For science.
Trump’s Phony “Karma Defense”... The claims that he was a victim of inappropriate “lawfare” are wildly inflated, and they don’t justify his government’s lawsuits against his critics, argues PHILIP ROTNER.
The Disney Heiress, the Soybean Farmer, and Trump’s Dangerous Decisions… Two views of how the president’s senseless economic and moral acts put the country at risk, from JILL LAWRENCE.
Trump Hates America… On the flagship pod, BILL KRISTOL joins TIM MILLER to argue why Democrats should claim the banner of patriotism since Trump’s idea of it is phony and sophomoric.
The Military Still Has Integrity… On The Mona Charen Show, KORI SCHAKE joins MONA CHAREN to unpack Donald Trump’s latest stunt with the military, the danger of turning U.S. troops into political props, and how Congress has let civilian control slip away.
Quick Hits
THE ETERNAL VACATION: Being a member of Congress these days is good work if you can get it. With uncomfortable votes over the Jeffrey Epstein files looming, Speaker Mike Johnson hustled the House into an early and prolonged recess over the summer—and with those same votes still hanging in the air and the government shut down, he’s had his chamber idling again since mid-September. The result, as reporter Jamie Dupree points out on X: The House has conducted exactly 20 days of business in the 16 weeks since July 4.
Johnson would tell you the House has done the only meaningful thing on its agenda at this point—passing a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government open—and that they’ll come back when the Senate gets its act together and passes their package. Johnson would also unequivocally deny that keeping the House in recess serves a larger aim of stifling the Epstein-files discharge petition, by giving him an excuse to continue refusing to seat Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who was elected nearly a month ago.
That convenient arrangement may be near its sell-by date, however. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday afternoon that the House should start considering reconvening to pass a longer-term CR. The one Republicans are sitting on and which Democrats continue to stymie, after all, only funds the government through late November: Even if Schumer and co. caved today, they’d have to negotiate the next spending bill in a month.
SPENDING SPREE: A chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, a gun in every new ICE agent’s hand. Over at Popular Information, Judd Legum has some solid new reporting showing that ICE’s spending on small arms and related paraphernalia is up 700 percent over 2024 levels:
New spending in the small arms category from January 20, 2025, the day Trump was inaugurated, through October 18, totaled $71,515,762. Most of the spending was on guns and armor, but there have also been significant purchases of chemical weapons and “guided missile warheads and explosive components.” . . .
Spending by ICE on guns and other weapons this year not only dwarfs spending during the Biden administration but also during Trump’s first term. In 2019, for example, ICE spent $5.7 million on small arms through October 18. Average ICE spending on small arms during Trump’s first four years was about $8.4 million.
The data likely understates new spending on weaponry deployed in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, since many other federal agencies beyond ICE have been involved. But it provides a window into how ICE and other agencies are bringing an unprecedented number of high-powered weapons into American cities.
Now, that may sound pretty unsettling—why does ICE need guided missile warheads?—but hey, as long as they’re using all that ordnance responsibly—
Cheap Shots
They seemed to have accommodated themselves alright, for instance, to Ingrassia’s record of saying truly insane things right out in public, like his 2023 Twitter post that Trump should “remove his three Supreme Court picks and replace them with true loyalists” upon his return to office, and his follow-up assertion that “Trump is the Constitution.”
Zeroing in on Ingrassia’s antisemitism is interesting here: Rhetoric about Jews was some of the milder bigotry the guy displayed in those texts. But expressing concerns about antisemitism remains more permissible in today’s MAGA mores than expressing concerns about racism, which codes to many as impermissibly libbish.
It’s amazing how the “young boys” in these stories keep being guys in their mid-twenties or early 30s. I am 30. I grew up Republican. I have never felt the urge to post the horrible things these guys do. Somebody give me the Presidential Medal of Freedom, I guess.
So the demolition of the White House is being paid for by wealthy donors and corporations. What are the chances that the contractors defiling the building end up getting stiffed, and Trump walks away with the donations?
Seriously, who would do work for this guy at this point? When has he ever paid anyone without spending years litigating it? Is ICE going to do raids on the construction site, or are all the goons he's sent to DC just going to avoid this little slice of real estate?
RE: Paul Ingrassia, Young Republican Shit Poster
Per young Mr. Ingrassia: "The founding fathers were wrong that all men are created equal.”
Well, congratulations on a succinct and skillful exercise in Q.E.D. my fine young friend!
It's plainly and painfully obvious from your own words that *you* were created *less* equal in far too many respects to the young men and women of today who don't actually think that the color of their skin or their wealth or social power and privilege (or anything else about themselves for that matter) make *them* the center of the universe of grievance and wrongfully denied entitlement.