Cory Booker Responds To Ridiculous MAGA Republicans Accusations of Doing A 'Nazi Salute'
Source: Getty Images / Cory Booker / Elon Musk
Cory Booker is shutting down claims he was out here throwing up a Nazi salute.
MAGA Republicans and Elon Musk are losing their sh*t and doing their best to compare a moment where Cory Booker put his hand on his heart and waved goodbye to the crowd at the Democratic National Convention in California to when Musk clearly did a Nazi salute.
Through a spokesperson, Booker shut down those ridiculous claims.
'Cory Booker was obviously just waving to the crowd. Anyone who claims his wave is the same as Elon Musk's gesture is operating in bad faith,' Maya Krishna-Rogers, spokesperson for Booker, said to Newsweek in a statement sent via email on Sunday. 'The differences between the two are obvious to anyone without an agenda.'
Musk also doubled down on his acceptance of th use of the word 'retard' as an insult.
🤨 https://t.co/HP6RApoMju
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2025
MAGA Republicans going hard trying to make something out of nothing about Cory Booker waving goodbye to the crowd, comes after Musk and Steve Bannon both were both accused doing nazi salutes during events.
Musk was accused of doing a Nazi salute during Trump rally during his second inauguration following his unfortunate election win.
Elon Musk has gone full mask off Nazi. He is actively promoting Nazism. Tesla is now a hate symbol. pic.twitter.com/gO2VFS0x1B
— James Jansson (@jamesjansson) January 20, 2025
Still despite Booker's statement and the video evidence, you can't tell these MAGA fools a damn thing as continue to take photos of other elected officials clearly waving bye, and using them as evidence of them doing Nazi salutes in order to vindicate the alleged ketamine abuser Elon Musk.
🤨 https://t.co/E7NzAWCuJB
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2025
SMH.
You can see more stupid reactions in the gallery below.
Cory Booker Responds To Ridiculous MAGA Republicans Accusations of Doing A 'Nazi Salute' was originally published on hiphopwired.com
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 NewsEvery single one of them wrote stories on Elon Musk's salute.
do you get it yet? pic.twitter.com/uIGJ5TfvQL — kekius tees (@kekmaximusk) June 1, 2025
I'm literally shaking right now. Cory Booker is literally Hitler.
I can't wait for fake news to cover this as extensively as they did Elon when gave his heart out to everyone! pic.twitter.com/UBMwOOfWvY — Sara Rose 🇺🇸🌹 (@saras76) May 31, 2025
Hello, @NewsHour — will you be making a post comparing Cory Booker's apparent 'fascist salute' to the 'Sieg Heil?"Your post about Elon Musk making a very similar gesture amassed over 36M views.
Since you assure US taxpayers that PBS is a non-partisan organization, and all. pic.twitter.com/OPcwtD1Cjv — Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) June 1, 2025
It's most amusing to watch all the people who branded @elonmusk a Nazi now tying themselves in tortured knots trying to explain why Cory Booker isn't… for doing the EXACT SAME THING.
Of course, neither is.. but the hypocrisy stinks. https://t.co/4ozBbrBFSe — Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) June 1, 2025
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Los Angeles Times
13 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Candidates for California governor face off about affordability, high cost of living in first bipartisan clash
SACRAMENTO — In a largely courteous gathering of a half dozen of California's top gubernatorial candidates, four Democrats and two Republicans agreed that despite the state boasting one of the world's largest economies, too many of its residents are suffering because of the affordability crisis in the state. Their strategies on how to improve the state's economy, however, largely embraced the divergent views of their respective political parties as they discussed housing costs, high-speed rail, tariffs, climate change and homelessness on Wednesday evening at the first bipartisan event in the 2026 governor race to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. 'Californians are innovators. They are builders, they are designers, they are creators, and that is the reason that we have the fourth largest economy in the world,' said former Rep. Katie Porter., a Democrat from Irvine 'But businesses and workers are being held back by the same thing. It is too expensive to do things here. It is too expensive to raise a family. It is too expensive to run a business.' Conservative commentator Steve Hilton, a Republican, argued that state leaders need to end the 'stranglehold' of unions, lawyers and climate change activists on California policy. 'I've been traveling this state. Everywhere I go, it's the same story, this heartbreaking word that I get from every business I meet, every family is in such a struggle in California,' he said, with a raspy voice he explained immediately upon taking the stage was caused by a sore throat. The candidates spoke to about 800 people at a California Chamber of Commerce dinner at an 80-minute panel at the convention center in Sacramento. The chamber's decision on who to invite to the forum was based on which ones were leaders in public opinion surveys and fundraising. Making the cut were former Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, Hilton, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, Porter and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The sharpest exchange of the evening was between Kounalakis, a Democrat, and Bianco, a Republican. After the candidates were asked about President Trump's erratic tariff policies, Kounalakis cited her experience working for her father's reat estate company as she criticized Bianco for arguing for a wait-and-see approach about the president's undulating plans. 'You're not a businessman, you're a government employee,' she said to Bianco. 'You've got a pension, you're going to do just fine. Small businesses are suffering from this, and it's only going to get worse, and it's driven, by the way, it is driven by Donald Trump's vindictiveness toward countries he doesn't like, countries he wants to annex, or states he doesn't like, people he doesn't like. This is hurting California, hurting our people, and it's only going to make things worse, until we can get him out of the White House.' Bianco countered that Kounalakis and the other Democrat gubernatorial candidates are directly responsible for the economic woes facing Californians because they have an 'unquenchable thirst' for money to fund their liberal agenda. 'I just feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. I have a billionaire telling me that my 32 years of public service is okay for my retirement,' he said. 'It's taxes and regulations that are driving every single thing in California up. We pay the highest taxes, we pay the highest gas, we pay the highest housing, we pay the highest energy.' The Democrats on stage, though largely agreeing about policy, sought to differentiate themselves. The sharpest divide was about whether to raise the minimum wage. On Monday, labor advocates in Los Angeles proposed raising it in Los Angeles County Atkins reflected most of her fellow Democrats' views, saying that while she wanted to see higher wages for workers, 'now is not the time.' Villaraigosa said that while he believes in a higher minimum wage, 'we can't just keep raising the minimum wage.' Kounalakis, though, said not increasing the minimum wage would be inhumane. 'I think we should be working for that number, yes I do,' she said. 'You want to throw poor people under the bus.' California's high cost of living is a pressing concern among the state's voters, and the issue is expected to play a major role in the 2026 governor's face. Nearly half feel worse off now compared with last year, and more than half felt less hopeful about their economic well-being, according to a poll released in May by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies that was co-sponsored by The Times. Nearly exactly a year before the gubernatorial primary next year, the event was the first time Democratic and Republican candidates have shared a stage. It was also the first time GOP candidates Bianco and Hilton have appeared together. Although the state's leftward electoral tilt makes it challenging for a Republican to win the race – Californians last elected GOP politicians to statewide office in 2006 — Bianco and Hilton are battling to win one of the top two spots in next year's primary election. The pair expressed similar views about broadly ending liberal policies in the state, such as stopping the state's high-speed rail project and reducing environmental restrictions such as the state's climate-change efforts that they argue have increased costs while making no meaningful impact on the consumption of fossil fuels. A crucial question is whether President Trump, who both Bianco and Hilton fully support, will eventually endorse one of the Republican candidates. The gubernatorial candidates, some of whom have been running more than a year, have largely focused on fundraising since entering the race. But the contest to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom is growing more public and heated, as seen at last weekend's California Democratic Party convention. Several of the party's candidates scurried around the Anaheim convention center, trying to curry favor with the state's most liberal activists while also drawing contrasts with their rivals. But the Democratic field is partially frozen as former Vice President Kamala Harris weighs entering the race, a decision she is expected to make by the end of the summer. Harris' name did not come up during the forum. There were a handful of light moments. Porter expressed a common concern among the state's residents when they talk about the cost of living in the state. 'What really keeps me up at night, why I'm running for governor, is whether my children are going to be able to afford to live here, whether they're going to ever get off my couch and have their own home,' she said.
Newsweek
14 minutes ago
- Newsweek
EXCLUSIVE: Women Allegedly Filmed Nude By Guards While in Prison Speak Out
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Women who were allegedly recorded during strip searches by prison guards' body cameras told Newsweek in exclusive interviews that the mental and emotional aftermath has led to fear, anger, and the feeling of being less than human. Six women in a Michigan correctional facility spoke for the first time with Newsweek, detailing the impact that purported nude strip searches beginning in January had on their psyche. They are among around 675 female inmates (as of June 3) of an approximate total prison population of 1,800 at Michigan's only women's prison, Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility (WHV) in Ypsilanti, suing Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) officials in a $500 million lawsuit alleging that prison guards recorded body camera footage of naked women at a detention facility. Attorneys from Detroit-based Flood Law are representing the plaintiffs, claiming that guards' actions constitute a felony as a violation of a Michigan law (MCL 750.539j) in addition to violating other fundamental constitutional rights. A policy directive was issued by MDOC on March 24 of this year, saying, "Employees issued a body-worn camera (BWC) as part of their job duties shall adhere to the guidelines set forth in this policy directive." Michigan is currently the only state that has a policy to videotape strip searches. Litigators point to language stated within the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), which outlines MDOC's "zero-tolerance standard toward all forms of sexual abuse and sexual harassment involving prisoners." A clause within PREA alludes directly to voyeurism, which states: "An invasion of privacy of a prisoner by an employee for reasons unrelated to official duties, such as peering at a prisoner who is using a toilet in their cell to perform bodily functions; requiring a prisoner to expose their buttocks, genitals, or breasts; or taking images of all or part of a prisoner's naked body or of a prisoner performing bodily functions." The PREA policy also includes the following language, underlined within: "The Department has zero tolerance for sexual abuse and sexual harassment of prisoners." Newsweek did not receive responses to multiple inquiries sent to Whitmer's office and the Michigan Department of Corrections. A spokesperson for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told Newsweek that the department's involvement would only be to provide legal representation for the State of Michigan defendants named on the lawsuit, deferring comment to those individuals. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Canva 'Humiliating And Demeaning' Lori Towle, 58, has been incarcerated for 22 years and never quite experienced anything like she did with the body cam recordings. Towle, who is serving life for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, told Newsweek that the effect on her was "immediate." She reported asking guards, consisting of males and females, many questions and expressed her discomfort with the policy itself. Guards purportedly told her it was the department's policy and that if she had an issue, she had to take it up with the captain. "Oh, I grieved it," Towle said. "The first officer that stripped me on camera also told me that I was lucky that she wasn't making me spread my vagina apart and letting her look in there." Tashiena Combs-Holbrook, 49, is in her 26th year of incarceration. She's serving life for first-degree murder. Her conviction has been in the Oakland County Prosecutor's Conviction Integrity Unit for more than three years. Combs-Holbrook told Newsweek that she's done basically every job behind bars she could, from cleaning toilets to mentoring to working in the law library. She had heard rumors about strip searches being recorded but then experienced it herself in January. "For me, it just escalated the already problematic procedure of strip searches in general," she said. "The strip searches here are extremely humiliating and demeaning and horrifying, and the fact that they started recording them just made it even worse. "I think that actually the day that they told us that the cameras were actually going to be in use, I had a visit ,and I had it canceled because just the thought of having to be strip-searched is already horrific enough—and then to be recorded just took it over the top." That was a sentiment shared by LaToya Joplin, who is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder. The 47-year-old has been in prison for 18 years, 17 of which have been spent as a chaplain. She's also been working as an observation aide for 12 years, helping individuals with suicidal ideations. "I felt degraded, I felt humiliated, and I felt embarrassed as a woman," Joplin told Newsweek of being recorded in the shower, the first such instance she's ever been recorded behind bars. The mental and emotional anguish have contributed towards a more defensive posture, she said, that includes not even wanting to go to work anymore because she's "scared of the unknown" and whether recordings of her and other women will reach the wrong hands. Recordings have made Paula Bennett, 35, wary of continuing to visit with family members—something she's taken advantage of to the fullest in her 17 years in prison. After hearing rumors around the facility of body cam recordings, she thought it was just hearsay. Then, one day prior to a scheduled visit, she was strip-searched by a female lieutenant who allegedly told Bennett that it was just a "passive recording" and that only certain people could access the footage. Bennett told Newsweek she began canceling visits due to not wanting to submit herself to the recorded searches. That included seeing her father, who has Alzheimer's and has visited her twice a week for the entire duration of her prison stint. "It was really hard to choose between not wanting to be recorded naked and seeing my father. ... I just came to the conclusion that I couldn't be giving up time that my dad needed," Bennett said. "So, I did go on a visit and was super upset as soon as I walked into the visiting room. I was crying to [my family] because I knew at the end what was going to happen. "And when I got to the end of the visit that day, the officer's body camera battery had died. So, I didn't get recorded. I remember feeling like I had just won the lottery." Bennett is serving life for first-degree murder after she aided and abetted her boyfriend, resulting in a mandatory life sentence. But she will be resentenced due to being a juvenile when the crime was committed. Another prisoner, 50, requested anonymity and will be referred to as Jane Doe. She's been imprisoned 31 years, serving life for first-degree murder; however, the Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that her sentence is unconstitutional. She will be going back for resentencing in Wayne County. Jane Doe initially asked guards if they could turn off their records, to which they declined due to policy. She wondered why inmates were even being recorded, who was going to observe the footage, and feared the footage being "hacked" and obtained by outside parties. The dental technician who makes dentures for inmates statewide has the highest clearance of any prison job, she said, and it requires walking through a metal detector before the searches take place. "I work four days a week, so we have to be strip-searched every day," she told Newsweek. "I would say [I've been recorded] about 75 to 90 times. You literally disassociate. That's the only way that I can be able to get through it because you end up breaking down in prison. One [search] is hard enough to take the abuse that we that we're subjected to." Baby Born In Front of Cameras The experience for 21-year-old inmate Natalie Larson was a different type of traumatic: On March 6, she gave birth to a son in front of multiple guards who recorded the event. Larson has been in prison for about one year and is serving two to 15 years for creation/delivery of an analogue-controlled substance. She told Newsweek that she entered prison pregnant and understood it would be different than the births of her first two children. She just didn't realize that the entire delivery would be etched in footage handled by MDOC officers, one male and one female. Natalie Larson, inmate. Natalie Larson, inmate. Larson's mother "What was supposed to be one of the most sacred and happiest moments of my life was completely taken from me by a corrections officer and their body camera," Larson said. "I felt extremely humiliated and degraded. I was ashamed that I even had to experience that. ... It was just very inhumane to me. They had no decency or respect for the fact that I had just given birth to my child." The male officer was a bit further away from her, while the female officer "was literally within arm's length" and sitting near her mother. To add insult to injury, Larson said she received less than 48 hours with her new child. As someone who said she's experienced a lot of trauma in her life, she said this was arguably the worst incident to endure. Due to her delivery, which was one of three births in prison that were recorded, Larson said she doesn't really like to leave the housing unit anymore. She's also declined to look into higher-paying job opportunities due to the high frequency of strip searches. "I feel like they should take away the body cameras," she said. "There's cameras all over the prison that have audio, video. I don't really see the need for the body cameras. And it's not only like they're just recording strip searches; they're recording us in the bathroom, us in the shower. "We have very little privacy in this prison as it is, and for them to be recording us in a state of undress like that is just absurd to me." Fears of Retaliation Of the women who spoke with Newsweek, the majority are victims of previous sexual violence. All expressed their concerns, one way or another, to different officials within the facility, all the way up to the warden. Some guards were receptive to their concerns and iterated it's just a requirement of their jobs, while others have been claimed to be more power-hungry and use the cameras to intimidate. "A lot of them were pretty cocky," Towle said. "They were like, 'Don't tell me about it, take it to the captain. Nothing I can do about it.' But I believe that everybody has a choice because there were some officers that turned to the side and the camera was not faced at us." Bennett, who has also been recorded multiple times, said she tried raising concerns to a female officer with whom she's developed a positive rapport. But when she tried to explain, from one woman to another how she felt, the officer "had no empathy whatsoever." "It deters us from even like having visits with our own families," she said. "It's something that affects us every single day. You're having non-confrontational regular encounters with staff and they're directing their bodies at you. ... It's like they're trying to create a hostile environment." 'We're Still Human Beings' Colmes-Holbrook said that from 2000 to 2009, she followed procedure because she wanted to be a model inmate. She said that in 2009, an MDOC officer asked her to scoot to the edge of a chair, put her legs in the air, and touch her heels together. She then had to place her hands around her buttocks and spread her labia for a search. Now, with the recordings and her own track record of never being accused or in possession of contraband, she feels the prison is in a new era of violation—even though she knows the resilience of her fellow inmates. "What it has done to my mental health, to the autonomy of my body, is something that I take very seriously," she said. "I've experienced not only sexual abuse; I've experienced various forms of domestic violence. I take it very seriously to be able to say 'yes' and 'no' when I mean 'yes' and when I mean 'no.' Jane Doe, who was sexually assaulted by two male guards at a previous facility also in Michigan, said she and the other plaintiffs who've signed onto this litigation are doing so because they know it's a violation of the department's own policies. "You can't commit voyeurism," she said. "If you're watching it and you're putting it on camera, that's the epitome of voyeurism. And so if you're violating your own policy, why would we not challenge it?" "To protect us, that's what they're supposed to do," she added. "And they weren't protecting us. We're all trying to help as much as we can [with the lawsuit] because we're trying to help ourselves." Towle felt oppressed and then depressed from her being recorded. She said it "triggered" her past history of being sexually abused. "We're still human beings, whether we're in prison or not," Towle said. "It seems like a lot of people don't consider us to be human beings. If you become incarcerated, but once you walk out the door, then you're a human being again. "It just doesn't make sense to me that we are not given the respect as other human beings, and what really gets me is that it was other females doing this to us. This was intentional. This is not professional. They planned this out and they did this to us."
Newsweek
14 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Welcome to the Age of Dumb Kissinger
Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. For all his controversies, Henry Kissinger, who would have turned 102 last month, was a master strategist. His vision of realpolitik—rooted in cold calculation, balance of power, and pragmatic diplomacy—helped shape global politics for decades. His legacy is instructive—and not just because Marco Rubio is the first person to serve simultaneously as secretary of State and national security advisor since Kissinger. President Donald Trump has stripped down and distorted the lessons of the late statesman into a crude, transactional, impulsive worldview that mistakes bluffing for strength and coercion for strategy. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty Welcome to the Age of Dumb Kissinger, where Washington is undermining its leverage, weakening alliances, and emboldening adversaries. Kissinger understood that power isn't just about threats—it's about credibility, relationships, and patience. Trump's transactional instincts betray an obsession with performative actions regardless of long-term costs. Kissinger believed that power stemmed from a combination of economic strength, diplomatic influence, national self-interests, and military deterrence—but most importantly, the perception of resolve and strategic consistency. Trump's version of power, however, is modeled on a shallow and superficial grasp of the bar takeover in Goodfellas—all chest-puffing bravado, but without the discipline, foresight, or grasp of power dynamics that true grand strategy requires. In repeatedly weakening the coalitions that sustain American influence, Trump has demonstrated that he fundamentally misunderstands the sources of American power. His public skepticism of our NATO treaty commitments, at least unless allies pay more, ignores the alliance's strategic value as a bulwark against Russian expansionism and source for democratic resilience. His efforts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into making concessions, while credulously accepting Russian President Vladimir Putin's lies and manipulations has not only undercut Kyiv's fight against Russian aggression but also signaled to Moscow that U.S. support for Europe is transactional and unreliable—a message Beijing appears to be taking away about Taiwan as well. Trump can oscillate between impatience with Putin, even threatening Russia with sanctions coordinated with Europe, and backtracking after Putin makes just a marginal counteroffer in bad faith. Trump can be quick in throwing his fellow European leaders under the bus. Why? For no other reason than being entranced by Putin's lies and flirtations. This is a sign of profound weakness, damaging to our nation's credibility, and, on the other side of the world, showing Chinese President Xi Jinping exactly who he's dealing with in Washington—a president prone to endless temper tantrums, whose mind can be changed in the last minute, sometimes with as little as a vague public statement, with no higher strategic thought than that. Similarly, Trump's erratic behavior toward key economic partners further reflects his shallow grasp of power dynamics. His repeated tariff threats against Canada—a cornerstone of North American economic might—and bizarre musings about Greenland reveal a mindset that conflates economic leverage with diplomatic strategy. And in perhaps the one instance where a much tougher stance on trade would engender broader public and even allies and partners' support—China—Trump has made it remarkably clear that his actions are driven by his feelings rather than solid, long-term policy planning to bring jobs and industry back to the United States. A strategic approach would have consulted and coordinated with like-minded countries, especially in Europe and Japan, to put Beijing on notice about its beggar thy neighbors practices—such as overcapacities that erode others' industrial base. But instead he went on his own, slapping a 145 percent rate on Beijing, convinced that it would bring China to the table to make concessions, only to back down later—generating "TACO" ("Trump always chickens out") headlines that describe his tariff hammer as less mighty than he claims because, very narrowly and without regard to the larger national interest, it would hurt his own base. Taking America Off Center Perhaps where Dumb Kissinger rings most true is in Trump's inability to understand Kissinger's ultimate goal: that maintaining a stable balance of power was consistent with our interests. Kissinger knew that stability required a web of relationships where each great power balanced the others—and where Washington operated as the fulcrum around which the system pivoted. Trump's foreign policy, however, leans on disruption rather than order. Kissinger's diplomacy excelled because he understood the value of predictability—that rivals must understand the limits of your ambition and the consequences of crossing redlines. Trump, however, mistakes unpredictability for strength and chaos for leverage. His admiration for strong men mirrors a mafioso-style belief in dominance and intimidation, rather than the calculated balance Kissinger sought. The legacy of Dumb Kissinger diplomacy is a world less stable and certain of American leadership. By misunderstanding the foundations of power, Trump is squandering U.S. influence. By misapplying coercion without strategy, he is inflaming conflicts rather than resolving them. And by failing to understand the delicate balance that Kissinger worked to maintain, Trump is making America's rivals stronger and its allies more vulnerable. Kissinger's realpolitik may have had its flaws—often ruthless and always morally ambiguous— but it was grounded in a coherent understanding of power and diplomacy. Trump's misunderstanding of the lessons of this approach have resulted in a foreign policy that is simple, crude, and ineffective. Trump is showing what happens when realpolitik is reduced to mere transactionalism—and where spectacle outweighs strategy. So welcome to the Age of Dumb Kissinger—a world of bluster without balance, power without purpose, and chaos without control. Michael Schiffer served as assistant administrator for Asia at USAID in the Biden administration, senior advisor and counselor at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and prior to that, at the Department of Defense in the Obama administration. Anka Lee served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia at the Pentagon and led China policy and strategy at USAID in the Biden administration. The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
