Booker slammed for alleged 'Nazi salute' to Cali Dems just months after Musk was dragged for same gesture
Conservatives are mocking Sen. Cory Booker for delivering an alleged "Nazi salute" to California Democrats, while quipping the New Jersey Democrat won't get the same scrutiny Elon Musk did when he raised his arm to MAGA supporters in January.
"NEW: Democrat Senator Cory Booker appears to do a 'Nazi' salute in front of a large crowd of Democrats. I'm looking forward to the wall to wall coverage from the 'honest' and totally not biased media," Trending Politics co-owner Collin Rugg posted to X, accompanied by footage of the gesture.
"If Elon Musk is a Nazi for doing this gesture… Cory Booker is one too. Sorry, I don't make the rules," X user Angela Belcamino posted.
Booker traveled to the Los Angeles area on Saturday, where he addressed the California Democratic Party's convention, calling on supporters to "stand up" to President Donald Trump and repeating a handful of messages he delivered during his marathon 25-hour speech on the Senate floor in March railing against Musk, the Department of Government Efficiency, and the Trump administration for its alleged attacks on "Americans' safety, financial stability, the core foundations of our democracy."
"Real change does not come from Washington. It comes from communities. It comes from the streets. It comes from the people who's standing up and have shown over and over again – against the powerful, against the elected, against the rich – that the power of the people is greater than the people in power," Booker said on Saturday to the California Democrats.
He capped off his roughly 15-minute speech with a gesture where he placed his right hand on his chest before raising it to the crowd.
Musk delivered a similar gesture in January on Trump's inauguration day, which yielded dozens of headlines from mainstream media outlets that Musk delivered a "Nazi-style salute" to Trump supporters. Liberals and critics frequently attacked Trump while he was on the campaign trail by calling him a Hitler-esque fascist, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, who compared Trump to the German dictator during a town hall in October.
Conservatives and others pounced on the footage of Booker, asking if media outlets would accuse the New Jersey Democrat of gesturing like a Nazi.
"Will Corey Booker be plastered all over msm with headlines claiming he's a 'Nazi'?" The Post Millennial's X account posted, accompanied by footage of the gesture.
"Here's a list of all the news networks who have not covered Cory Booker's salute: – NYTimes – CNN – Washington Post – MSNBC – NPR – USA Today – Reuters – Axios – ABC News Every single one of them wrote stories on Elon Musk's 'salute'… …do you get it yet?" former government scientist Matt van Swol posted to X.
Musk responded to van Swol: "Legacy media is one big psy op."
"Cory Booker is a straight up NAZI! WOW," conservative X user Gunther Eagleman posted.
Fox News Digital reached out to Booker's office for comment on the matter, but did not immediately receive a reply.
Booker did not appear to join fellow liberals in comparing Musk's wave to a Nazi salute in January, although he has previously slammed Trump as "worse than a racist," accusing him in 2019 of using "racist tropes" as "a weapon to divide our nation against itself."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Medscape
32 minutes ago
- Medscape
Wildfire Smoke Linked to Respiratory Admissions in Seniors
Among older adults in the western United States, exposure to high concentrations of smoke-related fine particulate matter (PM2.5) was associated with increased rates of hospitalizations for respiratory diseases, with weaker but suggestive ties to cardiovascular hospitalizations. METHODOLOGY: Researchers carried out a retrospective cohort study to analyze the association between exposure to smoke-specific PM2.5 and cause-specific hospitalizations in older adults in the United States. They used inpatient claims data of 10,369,361 Medicare beneficiaries (mean age, 74.7 years; 53.1% women) across 11 western United States during wildfire seasons from 2006 to 2016, with 57,974,120 person-months of follow-up. The causes of unscheduled hospitalizations were inferred from International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes and classified into various disease categories. codes and classified into various disease categories. Daily concentrations of surface-level smoke-specific PM2.5 were estimated through machine learning models that utilized ground measurements, satellite data, and reanalysis data sources. The associations between causes of hospitalization and smoke-specific PM2.5 were characterized by examining daily county-level rates of unscheduled hospitalization by disease category, modeling hospitalization rates according to same-day and prior-week smoke-specific PM2.5 exposure. TAKEAWAY: The leading cause of unscheduled hospitalizations was cardiovascular disease, with a mean daily rate of 7.92 per 100,000 persons, followed by digestive system disease at 3.62 and respiratory disease at 3.53 per 100,000 persons. Respiratory hospitalizations increased as smoke-specific PM2.5 exceeded 25 μg/m 3 , with average daily rates increasing by 2.40 (95% CI, 0.17-4.63) per 100,000 persons when PM2.5 levels rose from 0 to 40 μg/m 3 over a week. , with average daily rates increasing by 2.40 (95% CI, 0.17-4.63) per 100,000 persons when PM2.5 levels rose from 0 to 40 μg/m over a week. Hospitalizations due to cardiovascular diseases were unrelated to smoke-specific PM2.5 at exposure levels < 20 μg/m 3 but showed an increasing trend at higher concentrations. but showed an increasing trend at higher concentrations. No significant associations were seen for hospitalizations related to injuries, digestive issues, neuropsychiatric conditions, or endocrine disorders. IN PRACTICE: 'This information can be used by both policymakers and clinicians to design policies and guidelines to protect vulnerable older adults from the escalating health threats posed by wildfire smoke,' the authors wrote. SOURCE: This study was led by Sofia L. Vega, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston. It was published online on April 30, 2025, in JAMA Network Open . LIMITATIONS: Estimating concentrations of smoke-specific PM2.5 proved challenging due to the lack of direct measurements. County-level exposure measures may not have accurately reflected the exposures experienced by individual residents. This study did not include information on wildfires from recent years when their intensity increased. DISCLOSURES: This study was supported by the Harvard Climate Change Solutions Fund and grants from the National Institutes of Health. One author reported receiving support through an environmental fellowship at the Harvard University Center. The authors reported having no conflicts of interest.
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump news at a glance: US-China trade relations falter amid fragile trade truce
President Donald Trump had this May hailed a 'total reset' of US-China relations, but trade relations between the world's two-largest economies have faltered since, highlighting the fragility of the truce. The US is now complaining that China not delivered on its promises to roll back restrictions on the export of key critical minerals, with Trump saying on Friday that China had 'totally violated' the agreement. China has also hit back, with its commerce ministry saying this week that China 'is determined to safeguard its rights and interests'. It also denied the accusation it had undermined the 12 May agreement. Here are the key stories at a glance: China has accused the US of 'seriously violating' the fragile US-China detente that has been in place for less than a month since the two countries agreed to pause the trade war that risked upending the global economy. Read the full story A pro-Donald Trump journalist says she was fired from her job after criticizing the president's secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, over his attempts to restrict media access at the Pentagon. Read the full story At least 20 Planned Parenthood clinics across seven states have shuttered since the start of 2025 or have announced plans to close soon – closures that come amid immense financial and political turbulence for the reproductive health giant as the United States continues to grapple with the fallout from the end of Roe v Wade. Read the full story Millions of acres of Alaska wilderness will lose federal protections and be exposed to drilling and mining in the Trump administration's latest move to prioritize energy production over the shielding of the US's open spaces. Read the full story Political leaders across the US have condemned what they describe as a horrific, antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colorado, after a man allegedly used a makeshift flamethrower and incendiary devices to target people at a rally calling for the release of the hostages held by Hamas. Read the full story Donald Trump has pardoned two south Florida shark divers convicted of theft for freeing 19 sharks and a giant grouper from a fisherman's longline several miles from shore. Pardons for Tanner Mansell and John Moore Jr were signed on Wednesday. They had been convicted in 2022 of theft of property within special maritime jurisdiction. Read the full story Trump administration officials sparked a huge protest in a Boston suburb after immigration agents detained a high school student while they were seeking his father. US senator Joni Ernst triggered fierce criticism after making light of voters' fears that Republican Medicaid cuts could prove fatal. Massachusetts Institute of Technology barred its 2025 class president from attending her graduation ceremony after she delivered a speech condemning the war in Gaza and criticizing the university's ties to Israel. Catching up? Here's what happened on 1 June 2025.
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Space Force Budget Faces Uncertainty as White House Bets on Supplemental Money from Congress
Newly released documents from President Donald Trump's proposed 2026 budget show the White House has requested less money for the Space Force, a move which experts say doesn't match up with his rhetoric about the service and its national security importance. An appendix for budget documents released last week shows a total of around $26.3 billion requested for the Space Force in fiscal 2026 for personnel, procurement, operations and maintenance, as well as research and development. It's a notably lower figure than the $29.4 billion the service requested in fiscal 2025 -- which was already lowered from the previous year. The detailed budget documents show the White House requesting nearly $1.5 billion for personnel; nearly $6 billion for operations and maintenance; a little more than $3 billion for procurement; and nearly $15.5 billion for research, testing and development. Specifics on what programs and technology those funds would be used for were not included in the White House's latest budget documents. Read Next: Veterans with Mental Health Conditions Face Challenges Getting Care Outside VA, Study Finds White House officials told that additional funding currently being weighed and debated by Congress amounts, ultimately, to an increase for the service. However, defense budget experts and Space Force advocates told the proposed decrease in discretionary funding outlined in the budget plan released last week is at odds with what Trump and his administration have said about the importance of keeping America competitive with adversaries in space. "I would be highly skeptical of what the administration is saying publicly," American Enterprise Institute fellow Todd Harrison, speculating on what the Space Force should take away from the budget documents, told "I would worry that they are not willing to follow up on their rhetoric and are going to leave the Space Force hanging." A White House official, who spoke to on condition of anonymity to relay information from the Office of Management and Budget, defended the discretionary funding decrease, saying that with roughly $13.8 billion in related mandatory funding being debated in Congress in what's called a reconciliation bill -- named One Big Beautiful Bill and meant to enact Trump's agenda -- it "is not a decrease at all, it's nearly a 40% increase!" The reconciliation bill marks $7.2 billion "for the development, procurement and integration of military space-based sensors" for the so-called Golden Dome -- a proposed missile shield for the U.S. -- which the official said is part of that increase. It was not clear where the remaining $6.6 billion in existing programs was accounted for in the $13.8 billion figure provided. Spokespeople for the Department of the Air Force declined to comment on the White House's budget documents. Speaking at Joint Base Andrews in March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reiterated the need for the administration to focus on being prepared for conflicts in space. "I feel like there's no way to ignore the fact that the next and the most important domain of warfare will be the space domain," Hegseth said, according to a Space Force news release. "So, you're going to see far more investment from this administration into that domain, both offensively and defensively ... because that's where we can continue to maintain an advantage." Trump has proudly touted his support for the Space Force since it was created during his first term by legislation he signed into law in late 2019. Last month, while announcing that a Space Force general would oversee the creation of Golden Dome, the president said the service "has turned out to be a tremendous success" and added "we're No. 1 in space by a lot." Major funding for Golden Dome and other military projects was included in Congress' reconciliation bill, which is still working its way through the Senate. In an unprecedented move, the Trump administration has included part of its proposed $1 trillion defense budget for fiscal 2026. Without that supplemental congressional funding -- which has not yet been approved -- defense spending will stay the same as last year at nearly $893 billion. Retired Air Force Col. Bill Woolf, the president and founder of the nonprofit Space Force Association, told that the decrease in the top-line numbers, without the supplemental funding, is disappointing. "The campaign strategy that was used by this administration doesn't match the budget proposal," Woolf told "It is interesting that we're seeing a decrease in funding for a critical service at a time when we need it more than ever." Related: Space Command Headquarters in Colorado 'Not Sustainable' Without New Construction, GAO Finds
