Latest news with #CollegeRepublicans
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Dozens across Tampa Bay participate in May Day demonstrations opposing Trump Admin
PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) — From workers' rights rallies to marches for social justice, people around the country and in Tampa Bay took part in May Day demonstrations Thursday. 'Unless we have intense public pressure, nothing is going to change,' said Cathy O'Gara, while holding a sign in Seminole Thursday. State parks in Florida appear off-limits to development as lawmakers react to outcry It's been 100 days and President Donald Trump has signed several executive orders and made a lot of changes in the federal government. But protesters said they are not pleased and rallied outside local Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna's office. 'I'd like to see the Republicans stand up for democracy. I just don't see that happening,' said John Wise, a protester. A spokesperson for Representative Luna sent a statement reading in part, 'We hope all of these people join our upcoming tele-town hall with thousands of other Pinellas residents so they can get accurate information….' In St. Petersburg, people held signs on an overpass to get their points across. 'We need to be in a place that there's a greater diversity of people passing by — there's nowhere more diverse than I-275,' said Amy Weintraud, with the St. Pete League of Women Voters. 'I think democracy is at risk right now because we have unilateral power without due process,' said Nicole Jones, also with the St. Pete League of Women Voters. They said President Trump's actions on immigration have disrupted the norms of American democracy. They said they fear people who are here legally are being deported. Micahel Fusella, a member of the College Republicans of the University of South Florida, said he's not aware of that happening, and said if you are here legally you shouldn't be touched. 'I do believe in due process. But at the end of the day, this needs to happen… You need to see immigration enforcement and (it) went on way too long unchecked, too many bad people got into the country,' Fusella said. Protestors also expressed concern for the administration only catering to the needs of the president and not all Americans. 'I think that's one reason you can say he is a president of all people because he's trying to get his message out there — whether you agree with him or not, that's a whole other issue. At least he's trying. He's transparent enough where he tells you what he, he believes and what he's trying to do,' Fusella said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
UW-Eau Claire professor placed on leave after flipping College Republicans table
The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire placed a faculty member on administrative leave after he allegedly flipped over a table set up by the university's College Republicans chapter in support of conservative Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel. Tatiana Bobrowicz, who chairs the chapter, said she had just finished setting up the table outside the student center about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, with candy, doughnuts and literature promoting Schimel and Brittany Kinser, the conservative-backed candidate for state superintendent. Bobrowicz said a man came up to the table and asked what the group was doing so close to the polling location, which is inside the student center. More: All our reporting on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race between Susan Crawford, Brad Schimel Wisconsin law does not allow electioneering — defined as any activity intended to influence voting at an election — within 100 feet of an entrance of a building where voting is taking place. Bobrowicz said she explained the chapter always tabled in that location and UW-Eau Claire had approved it. The man told her "the time for this is over," flipped the table over and walked away. She immediately called police and filed a report. She said UW-Eau Claire later notified her the man was José Felipe Alvergue, who chairs the English department. Alvergue did not immediately return a call and email seeking comment. "This takes it to a whole new level," Bobrowicz said. "Not just a professor, but a chair of a department. He's supposed to set an example for students and here he is setting an example of violence." Bobrowicz credited UW-Eau Claire for its response, saying police immediately responded and campus officials took her report seriously. The university did not immediately respond to a Journal Sentinel message seeking comment. The entire incident lasted only about 10 seconds, Bobrowicz said, but it reinforced to her the hostility conservatives face on campus. She said the student body's reactions in the aftermath were disheartening, saying she heard comments like the chapter "had it coming" and deserved it because of "how hateful" their views were. "It's scary to see how much hatred there is toward us," she said. In a statement reported by local TV stations, UW-Eau Claire Interim Provost Michael Carney said the campus is working with the University of Wisconsin System and the Office of General Counsel, which is "conducting a comprehensive investigation." "I am deeply concerned that our students' peaceful effort to share information on campus on election day was disrupted," Carney said. Republican Party of Wisconsin chairman Brian Schimming retweeted a video on X showing the aftermath of the flipped table. Schimming said Alvergue "violently overturned a College Republican table on campus today." UW-Eau Claire sits along the western border of Wisconsin and has about 8,800 undergraduates. A ward in Eau Claire that serves a number of university dorms voted about 29% for President Donald Trump in November, an increase for Republican candidates in recent elections. More: Trump gained ground in battle for Wisconsin college voters, even flipping one UW campus ward This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UW-Eau Claire professor placed on leave after flipping GOP table
Forbes
01-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Elon Musk's PAC Gave $1 Million To College Republican Leader In Wisconsin Giveaway—Why That Might Not Be A Coincidence
Billionaire Elon Musk and his America PAC gave $1 million to two Wisconsin voters at a rally Sunday, one of whom leads the state's College Republicans and has worked in GOP politics—a choice that's garnered scrutiny but may have been intentional, as past statements by America PAC suggest the Musk-helmed group does not select its giveaway winners at random. Elon Musk presents a $1 million check to Nicholas Jacobs during a town hall March 30 in Green Bay, ... More Wisconsin. Musk and America PAC have been spending millions to elect Republican Brad Schimel in Wisconsin's Supreme Court race, including offering money to state voters who sign the PAC's petition against purportedly partisan judges—ranging from lower $20 and $100 payments to people who sign the petition or recruit others, to two $1 million prizes given out Sunday when Musk campaigned in the state. Musk gave $1 million to two individuals in Wisconsin Sunday, including one — Nicholas Jacobs — whose long history in Republican politics in the state raised scrutiny, while the other, graphic designer Ekaterina Diestler, was chosen to be a spokesperson for the PAC but did not appear to have any background in politics. Jacobs said in a video posted by America PAC he 'didn't believe it' when his name was called as a prize winner and that Musk is 'motivating people to go out and vote in a way that hasn't been done before.' Musk has classified the $1 million prizes as payments for the winners to be 'spokesmen' for America PAC and its petition against purportedly partisan judges—after outraging legal experts by suggesting in a now-deleted post on X that he was giving the million-dollar prizes out to voters who had already cast ballots 'in appreciation for you taking the time to vote.' Jacobs introduced himself in the America PAC video as the chair of the Wisconsin Federation of Young Republicans—with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporting he's also worked on multiple congressional campaigns and with right-wing group Turning Point USA—and his win has garnered scrutiny on social media, as users have speculated Musk did not pick Jacobs at random given his background in GOP politics. Past statements by America PAC suggest Jacobs may have been chosen intentionally: When the PAC gave away $1 million to swing state voters during November's presidential election, lawyers for the committee admitted in court that winners were not chosen at random, but were selected based on their ability to be good spokespeople for the group. America PAC hasn't clarified how winners in Wisconsin were chosen, and the PAC and the Wisconsin College Republicans have not yet responded to requests for comment—but neither Musk's announcement of the Wisconsin giveaways nor court documents America PAC has filed in Wisconsin characterize the winners as being chosen at random. The Wisconsin Supreme Court race is taking place Tuesday, with Schimel facing off against Democratic-backed candidate Susan Crawford. Polls will close at 8 p.m. CDT, though it's unclear how long after that it will take to determine a winner. America PAC claimed last year it did not choose its $1 million giveaway winners at random, after Philadelphia's district attorney sued Musk and his PAC over their cash prizes being given out to swing state voters. While Philadelphia argued the $1 million giveaways violated Pennsylvania's rules against unauthorized lotteries, America PAC claimed the giveaways weren't actually lotteries at all, because winners were not chosen by chance. Instead, PAC director Chris Young testified during a hearing the winners were chosen based on their suitability to be spokespeople, and likened the petition that voters signed—which made them eligible to win the $1 million prize—to a 'job application' for a position as a PAC spokesperson. America PAC used a 'multi-step process' to select winners of the $1 million giveaways during the presidential election, Young said, as recounted by the judge in his decision allowing the giveaways. That process included looking at winners' public social media posts and meeting them in person before they were given the cash prizes 'to make sure their personality would be a good fit for the role.' How the winners in Wisconsin were chosen. While Wisconsin attorney general Josh Kaul sued Musk and America PAC to stop the giveaways, that lawsuit did not take issue with whether or not the winners were chosen at random, so Musk and America PAC did not disclose its process for choosing the winners. Both Jacobs and Diestler made videos for the PAC after being chosen. America PAC's admission in court that $1 million winners weren't chosen at random during the presidential election sparked a class action lawsuit against the PAC, as voters who had signed its petition because they wanted a shot at the $1 million prizes alleged they were defrauded. 'Had Plaintiff been aware that the lottery was not random, or that she did not have a fair chance to win the prize, or that her selection hinged on her perceived favorability to Defendants as a marketing prop, she would not have signed or supported the America PAC petition and would not have provided her [personal information] to Defendants,' voter Joy Harvick's lawyers wrote in the lawsuit. The litigation is still playing out in federal court. The Wisconsin Supreme Court election has become a major focus for Musk and his America PAC, with the PAC spending more than $12 million on the race, on top of millions spent by other groups Musk is associated with and donations the billionaire has given directly to the state's Republican Party. The election is the first downballot race Musk has waded into since he emerged as a major political force last summer, when he formed America PAC and became one of President Donald Trump's top political donors and most outspoken supporters. Musk said in the aftermath of Trump's win that America PAC would keep up its campaign operations, announcing the PAC would 'keep grinding' and 'increasing Republican registrations in key districts around the country, in preparation for special elections and the midterms.' Musk has highlighted the Wisconsin Supreme Court race as being important given that it will determine the ideological balance of the court, which is likely to decide key issues like redrawing House districts and voting rules for the 2028 election. Payments to voters have become a hallmark of America PAC's efforts—albeit a controversial one, given laws that prohibit giving things of value to persuade voters to cast ballots—and the committee has also offered smaller payments to Wisconsin voters who sign its petition or recruit others to do so.
USA Today
20-03-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
It's Barron Trump's birthday: The 'King of the internet' and MAGA crown prince turns 19
It's Barron Trump's birthday: The 'King of the internet' and MAGA crown prince turns 19 Show Caption Hide Caption Who is Donald Trump's youngest son, Barron Trump? Donald Trump and Melania Trump's son, Barron, largely stayed out of the spotlight while his father was in office, but now he is about to help with campaign efforts. WASHINGTON – One of the first times Donald Trump introduced his youngest son in public, he painted a picture of a merciless figure who would grow up to be a killer businessman. Barron Trump was all of nine months old. "That's Barron. He's strong, he's smart, he's tough, he's vicious, he's violent…all of the ingredients you need to be an entrepreneur,' Trump told the crowd at a Los Angeles ceremony honoring him with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2007. 'And most importantly, hopefully, he is smart because smart is really the ingredient. Good luck, Barron. You have a long way to go." More: Will Trump visit Barron Trump in NYC? When is Barron Trump's NYU spring break, birthday? As Trump and his wife Melania left the podium, the infant Barron seized the microphone. 'Uh-oh, he won't give up the mic,' his father exclaimed. Fast forward to 2025: Barron Trump will turn 19 on Thursday, a 6-foot-7 enigma who's treated by admirers as a MAGA crown prince. A freshman at New York University's Stern School of Business, the president's son commutes from his home in Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan to the Greenwich Village campus downtown by motorcade with U.S. Secret Service protection. More: Who is Barron Trump? What to know as his family steps back into the White House While he has maintained a low profile in public, he has been credited by his parents for helping connect to the typically apathetic young voters who the former president relied on last fall to win back the White House. Barron Trump encouraged his father to talk to popular bro-centric podcasters like Joe Rogan and Adin Ross and amp up his digital presence on social media platforms such as TikTok, leading his father to declare him the "king of the internet." 'He was very vocal. He brought in so many young people," Melania Trump told Fox & Friends, a month after Trump's victory. "He knows his generation, because nowadays the young generation, they don't sit in front of TV anymore.' More: 'He knows his generation': Melania Trump praises Barron's role in 2024 White House race Barron Trump: Future of the conservative movement? While he's made appearances during a couple of public events such as Election Night and Inauguration Day, Barron Trump has been largely absent from most other high-profile engagements. He was the only Trump offspring to skip the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and the president's address to a joint session of Congress earlier this month. But his sparse appearances, and even the sound of his voice, have generated intense interest. More: Barron Trump is 'future of conservative movement' say College Republicans Consider the seconds-long clip of an upcoming documentary series based on Trump's 2024 re-election campaign that was recently made public. In it, Barron Trump can be heard saying, 'How are you? It's very nice to see you' while greeting someone on Election Night. That was enough to send the Barron Trump fan base into a tizzy. 'He speaks!' exclaimed one eager fan in a social media post. Entertainment Tonight did an entire segment on "grown up" Barron Trump's voice in the election night footage. The episode also established that Barron Trump had not retained his childhood Slovenian accent inherited from his mother, by contrasting it with a viral resurfaced clip of a four-year-old Barron, saying "I like my suitcase." In the clip, which was part of a 2010 Larry King Live interview on CNN, Melania Trump says her son speaks three languages. The first lady's parents, Viktor and the late Amalija Knavs, immigrants from Slovenia, were a constant presence around Barron as he grew up in New York, Washington D.C. and Florida. Asked if Barron Trump could speak Slovenian, the first lady's office said it did not want to comment. Unlike the usual Trump family practice of maximalist exposure - their last name has been prominently displayed on hotels, golf courses, buildings, water bottles and steaks - Barron Trump has flown under the radar for most of his life. It's a stark contrast from the very public presence of his other four adult half-siblings. And for good reason - he was still a minor during Trump's first presidency when his older half-brothers, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, ran the family business and his half-sister, Ivanka Trump, served in the White House. 'Barron seems to be a screen upon which Republicans can imagine and see whatever they want to see in him,' said Elisabeth Anker, professor of American Studies and Political Science at George Washington University. That was brought into sharp relief last month when the president of the New York University chapter of the College Republicans of America was forced to resign for the way she described Barron Trump. "He's sort of an oddity on campus. He goes to class, he goes home," NYU Chapter president Kaya Walker told Vanity Fair magazine. Her comment did not sit well with the national leadership of the College Republicans of America, who deemed the quote 'inappropriate' and something that 'does not align with the values and principles upheld by our organization.' In a letter posted on X announcing Walker resignation, Will Donahue, the president of the College Republicans of America, invited Barron Trump to join the organization and described him as the 'future of the conservative movement." Asked why Barron was seen as their standard bearer, Donohue told USA TODAY: 'We believe that MAGA is the future of the conservative movement, and that the youth will spearhead the institutionalization of Trump's policies in our politics.' To Donahue, the Barron Trump effect was apparent by the Gen-Zer's rightward shift in the 2024 election. The 60-year-old Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, saw her support in 2024 drop among voters ages 18-24 by 19 percentage points compared with Joe Biden in 2020, when he won the presidency at age 77, according to Tufts University's Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement., one of the leading researchers on young voters. Barron Trump: Spotlight or privacy? A president's children under the age of 18 have generally enjoyed a degree of privacy. Even after their parents leave office, those under 16 get U.S. Secret Service protection under federal law. But that does not mean the first family's children are kept out of sight. As president, Barack Obama made stops at his daughters' high school soccer games with the White House press pool in tow. One of the most iconic images of presidential children features a young John F. Kennedy Jr. peering out of one of the "secret doors" beneath the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. First children have also often been the subject of ridicule and bullying. In Barron Trump's case, first lady Melania Trump has been fiercely protective of her son, writing in her memoir that one incident caused him 'irreparable damage.' In 2016, when the youngest of the president's children was 10 years old, Rosie O'Donnell, the TV personality, shared a video linking him to autism. 'Barron Trump Autistic?' O'Donnell tweeted. 'If so — what an amazing opportunity to bring attention to the AUTISM epidemic.' After years of not addressing the viral post, the former and future first lady clarified in her 2024 memoir 'Melania' that her son was not autistic. But the experience of 'being bullied both online and in real life following the incident is a clear indication of the irreparable damage caused,' she wrote. The experience also was the catalyst for her "Be Best" anti-bullying campaign during her first turn as first lady, she revealed in her book. Chelsea Clinton, who moved into the White House with her family in 1993 at the age of 12, had also been a target of bullying comments. She stood up for Barron Trump more than once when he has been the subject of online mockery. More: Barron Trump urges on cheering crowd "Barron Trump deserves the chance every child does -to be a kid," she wrote in a 2017 Facebook post after a Saturday Night Live writer tweeted a joke about then 10-year-old Barron Trump and school shootings. Jen Naparstek Klein, a New York-based psychologist who specializes in child and family psychology, said she believes part of why Barron Trump has remained private is to avoid public scrutiny and to ensure his physical safety. But that hasn't stopped Trump from shining a spotlight on his son almost anytime he's in public with him. 'I have a very tall son," Trump said in introducing an 18-year-old Barron Trump during his January 2025 Inauguration Day, to a standing ovation. "Has anyone ever heard of him?" Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal
Yahoo
22-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Well, We Have Barron Trump's First College Scandal
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Barron Trump recently started his second semester at New York University, but if you're wondering how it's been going for him, too bad—we continue to know precious little about the college life of Trump's youngest, and tallest, kid. The strange thing is that despite the information vacuum with Barron, he still managed to cause a minor scandal with his campus's College Republicans group in recent days, a scandal that has then, even more mystifyingly, been widely covered in the media, earning articles in People, the New York Times, USA Today, and more. Though the competition for this week's stupidest news event will no doubt be fierce, I'd venture to say we've got a contender in this nonstory about Barron Trump leading to the forced resignation of the president of the NYU Republicans. This all started last week, when NYU senior Kaya Walker was quoted in a write-around Vanity Fair piece about Barron Trump, his life at NYU, and the fascination surrounding him, particularly among his fellow members of Generation Z. Walker, who was identified as the head of her school's chapter of the College Republicans, told the magazine, 'He's sort of like an oddity on campus. He goes to class, he goes home.' This seems anodyne enough, so much so that you might question whether it's a sentiment worth quoting at all—'sort of like an oddity'? Not exactly trenchant commentary! Honestly, I have more questions about Walker citing Lana Del Rey as the most exciting celebrity in right-wing culture in the same article. But apparently the 'oddity' quote was enough to get her in trouble with the College Republicans bigwigs, who pressured Walker to resign and said in a press release that her statement 'does not align with the values and principles upheld by our organization.' (In their statement condemning Walker's comments, the College Republicans of America also took it upon themselves to extend an official invitation to Barron Trump 'to join us in reshaping the Republican Party.' Good luck with that!) In her resignation letter, which the NYU College Republicans shared on X, Walker apologized but said that her comments were 'ridiculously misconstrued.' In a later interview with the New York Post, Walker elaborated, blaming the conservative X account AF Post, which shared the story, for taking her comments out of context. AF Post 'took it to say that I was saying that Barron was strange for being a commuter—which I thought was crazy because I'm a commuter,' Walker told the Post. The tweet was viewed millions of times and sparked many outraged-on-Barron's-behalf reactions. 'They [made it] look like I was calling the president's son weird, but I feel like anybody who can read would know that's not what I was doing,' she went on. I mean, since when is seeing a world-famous 6-foot-7 teenager flanked by Secret Service agents on a college campus not an oddity? Did they want her to lie and say that Barron doesn't stand out, that actually no one notices him? Trick question: What anyone who got remotely caught up in a tizzy about this on social media obviously wants is for Walker never to have spoken to the evil media at all, never mind that speaking to the media, though it's usually the campus paper and not Vanity Fair, is often part of the job description for these sorts of roles in college organizations. While it's hard to feel too bad that a college student has been forced to step down from an extracurricular activity—she'll be fine—it's pretty ridiculous that anyone is being punished for this. Just so we're clear, the conservative movement's stance is that if your wildly racist tweets surface, you deserve another chance to do important government work, but if you acknowledge the existence of Barron Trump on the record in your capacity as a leader of a relevant group at his college, that's out of line. Walker seemed very dedicated to the group, and the cause, and while this certainly seems like one of the milder examples of casualties of the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party, it's an example nonetheless. Meanwhile, we're left still knowing nothing, maybe less than nothing, about Barron Trump, whose legend has only grown.
