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After a video clip circulated showing legendary guitarist Carlos Santana making anti-trans statements during a concert, the “Smooth” performer is apologizing to the transgender community. In a statement sent to Billboard on Thursday (Aug. 24), Santana shared his regret for what he said onstage. “I am sorry for my insensitive comments. They don’t reflect that […]
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The first Republican debate took place Wednesday night (August 23) in the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee. While party frontrunner Donald Trump elected to bypass the debate, his presence was undeniable all the same.
The Republican debate field was stacked with familiar faces from the GOP who have expressed aims of gaining the White House. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had all eyes on him as he was once seen as the party’s next big star. Joining DeSantis was young political upstart Vivek Ramaswamy, who managed to be the most emotive speaker of the night. Former Vice President Mike Pence was also in the group, although some observers feel his chances were dimmed after his showing.
Former governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and Nikki Haley of South Carolina brought their usual star power and camera-ready answers for the debate. Sen. Tim Scott, Gov. Scott Burgum of North Dakota, and Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas.
In our observation of the debate, Haley seemed to be the most poised for the debate stage, deftly deflecting countering shots sent her way. Given the momentum in the polls, DeSantis was expected to distance himself from the pack as he trails Trump but his showing might have him at the bottom half of the pack.
Even Christie, usually sharp during debates, didn’t bring his usual tenacity and instead took a more measured tone. As the one candidate who clearly has been critical of Trump, there was a telling moment during the debate.
When asked by the moderators to show their support via a show of hands, Christie and Hutchinson kept their hands lowered. The action stands in contrast to a pledge Christie signed to support whoever the Republican nominee for president would be.
Despite Trump’s current legal woes, the party remains aligned with him despite the few outliers. As we previously reported, the business mogul turned himself in to Georgia authorities in connection a large RICO case.
Under the hashtag #GOPDebate, the discussion surrounding the first Republican debate has been robust on Thursday (August 24). We’ve got some of the discussion listed below.
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While he may be best known for being “Smooth,” legendary guitarist Carlos Santana recently shared some comments about the trans community that left a bad taste in some people’s mouths.
A clip began circulating online recently of Santana performing in Atlantic City, N.J., in late July, where the star stopped during his show to share his thoughts on the transgender experience itself. “When God made you and me, before we came out of the womb, you know who you are and what you are,” he said. “Later on, when you grow out of it, you see things, and you start believing that you could be something that sounds good, but you know it ain’t right.”
The guitarist then took his comments a step further, making a commonly disputed claim that there are only two genders. “Because a woman is a woman and a man is a man — that’s it,” he said. “Whatever you wanna do in the closet, that’s your business. I’m OK with that.”
Santana also gave a shoutout to comedian Dave Chappelle — who has also been criticized in recent years for making anti-trans comments during his stand-up routine — by bringing his hands together and saying, “I am like this with my brother Dave Chappelle.”
In a statement provided to Billboard, Santana clarified his respect for individuals’ opinions, without specifically walking his comments back. “Here is my personal goal that I strive to achieve every day. I want to honor and respect all person’s ideals and beliefs whether they are LGBTQ or not,” he wrote. “This is the planet of free will and we have all been given this gift. I will now pursue this goal to be happy and have fun, and for everyone to believe what they want and follow in your hearts without fear. It takes courage to grow and glow in the light that you are and to be true, genuine, and authentic. We grow and learn to shine our light with Love and compliments. Have a glorious existence. Peace.”
The star’s comments come amid a wave of anti-trans legislation in the U.S., specifically targeted at restricting gender-affirming care for trans youth. While right-wing politicians claim that the risks of this kind of care do not outweigh the benefits, peer-reviewed research disagrees. Multiple studies show that gender-affirming care reduces the rates of depression and suicidality among transgender kids.
The “Black Magic Woman” performer isn’t the only person to come out with anti-trans comments recently. In an interview with Stereogum published Aug. 23, Alice Cooper called gender-affirming care “a fad,” and claimed that discourse surrounding the trans community has “gone now to the point of absurdity.”
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At the first Republican presidential primary debate on Wednesday night (Aug. 23), the first question posed to eight hopeful candidates for commander in chief was about the No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100.
“As we sit here tonight, the No. 1 song on the Billboard chart is ‘Rich Men North of Richmond,’” Fox News host Martha MacCallum said as the crowd at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum erupted in cheers. “It’s by a singer from Farmville, Virginia, named Oliver Anthony. His lyrics speak of alienation, of deep frustration with the state of government and of this country. Washington, D.C., is about 100 miles north of Richmond.”
A 30-second clip of Anthony’s viral hit — which debuts atop the Hot 100 this week, despite the artist never having any previous Billboard chart history — played next, including the unedited line “‘Cause your dollar ain’t sh– and it’s taxed to no end/ ‘Cause of rich men north of Richmond.”
MacCallum posed the first question to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, asking: “Why is this song striking such a nerve in this country right now? What do you think it means?”
DeSantis — who’s been referencing Anthony’s song in recent campaign speeches — responded by saying voters “need to send Joe Biden back to his basement and reverse American decline” and that “we cannot succeed as a country if you are working hard and you can’t afford groceries, a car or a new home while Hunter Biden can make hundreds of thousands of dollars on lousy paintings.” He directly addressed the song while taking aim at government spending too, saying: “We also cannot succeed when the Congress spends trillions and trillions of dollars. Those rich men north of Richmond have put us in this situation.”
The song, billed to Oliver Anthony Music, has especially struck a chord with a conservative audience, with right-wing pundits immediately embracing its lyrical take-down of the rich and powerful, so it makes sense that Fox News would harness its popularity at the first Republican debate leading up to the 2024 presidential election.
In addition to DeSantis, the night’s debate stage included former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy, former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
Watch the moment here:
The very first question at tonight’s debate is about… Rich Men North of Richmond.”Why is this song striking such a nerve in this country right now? What do you think it means?” pic.twitter.com/ty26fBDnii— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) August 24, 2023
While Donald Trump plans to turn himself over to Georgia authorities on Thursday (Aug. 24) after being indicted for attempting to interfere in the 2020 election, internet star Randy Rainbow is making sure to take another shot at the beleaguered former president. On Tuesday (Aug. 22), Rainbow unveiled his latest parody video, mocking Trump for […]
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Brandon Flowers learned a lesson in diplomacy on Tuesday night (Aug. 15) during The Killers‘ show at the Black Sea Arena in Batumi, Georgia. In a portion of the show when the band typically invite a fan up to play drums on the song “For Reasons Unknown,” Flowers asked the crowd to weigh in on that night’s special guest.
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“We don’t know the etiquette of this land but this guy’s a Russian,” he told the audience in video posted by fans. “You OK with a Russian coming up here?” As it turns out, they were not. The question drew loud boos from the crowd in the country that came out from under the yoke of Russian rule in 1991 following the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia, however, still occupies around 20 percent of Georgia following a 2008 invasion.
According to local reports, a portion of the audience walked out in protest, further incensed by Flowers’ attempt at detente after the song ended. Asking the agitated audience if they were willing to let borders define them. “You can’t recognize that someone’s your brother? He’s not your brother? We all separate on the border of our countries?,” he said as the boos kept coming. “So I’m not your brother? Am I not your brother being from America? Am I your brother or no? I’m not your brother?”
Walking away from the mic in seeming exasperation, Flowers threw his head back and added, “One of the things we appreciate about being in this band is it brings people together. And tonight I want to celebrate that we’re here together. And I don’t want it to turn ugly. And I see you as my brothers and my sisters. “
Hours after the show, the band issued an apology, assuring their Georgian fans that they did not intend to cause an international incident more than a year-and-a-half into Russia’s devastating unprovoked war against Ukraine. “Good people of Georgia, it was never our intention to offend anyone! We have a longstanding tradition of inviting people to play drums and it seemed from the stage that the initial response from the crowd indicated that they were okay with tonight’s audience participation member coming onstage with us,” they wrote.
It continued, “We recognize that a comment, meant to suggest that all of The Killers’ audience and fans are ‘brothers and sisters,’ could be misconstrued. We did not mean to upset anyone and we apologize. We stand with you and hope to return soon.” The Killers are currently on tour in support of their 2021 album Pressure Machine. Their next scheduled show is in Bratislava, Slovakia on Friday (Aug. 18), after which they will head to England for the Reading and Leeds festivals, before flying back to the U.S. in September for a series of festival headlining gigs at Bourbon & Beyond, Sea.Hear.Now and Life is Beautiful.
Watch video of the moment and the read the full apology below.
Part of the audience left concert of @thekillers at the Black Sea Arena in Georgia in protest after amid booing the group’s frontman who invited a Russian drummer to the stage and said everyone are “brothers and sisters” pic.twitter.com/mhtklWIOKf— Formula NEWS | English (@FormulaGe) August 15, 2023
Trevian C. Kutti, a former Kanye West and R. Kelly associate, is one of 18 people named in the indictment against former President Donald Trump that was unsealed on Monday night (Aug. 14). Others on the Fulton County, Ga., indictment include former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Trump lawyer John Eastman, another Trump attorney Sidney Powell, and former […]
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Donald Trump and his legal issues hit new heights this week after he and over a dozen other individuals were indicted in the Georgia election interference case. The former president of the United States has until August 25 to turn himself in according to the charges announced by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
In the charges read on Monday (August 14), Donald Trump and 18 others were indicted in connection to efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. The 19 individuals named in the indictment face the charges under the state’s RICO act, essentially accusing Trump of running a criminal enterprise.
As seen in local outlet Fox 5 Atlanta, the indictment is almost 100 pages in length and lays out several dozen actions done by Trump and his allies. Among the charges was an attempt to sway Georgia’s secretary of state, who is a member of the Republican Party, to secure votes for Trump to win the state for its coveted electoral college votes.
Other criminal acts listed in the indictment include the harassment of an election worker while accusing them of voter fraud and pushing members of Georgia’s legislature to appoint electoral college electors who were in support of Trump. Adding to this, there were also details of a scheme to gain illegal access to data from a voting machine company.
DA Willis spoke to the press on Monday, laying out the terms of arrest warrants for the 19 defendants and the expectations of her office.
“After the indictment, as is the normal process in Georgia law, the grand jury issued arrest warrants for those who are charged. I am giving the defendants the opportunity to voluntarily surrender no later than noon on Friday the 25th day of August 2023,” Willis shared.
Also named in the indictment were Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, Jenna Lynn Ellis, Ray Stallings Smith III, Robert Cheeley, Michael Roman, David Shafer, Shawn Micah Tresher Still, Stephen Cliffgard Lee, Harrison William Prescott Floyd, Trevian C. Kutti, Sidney Powell, Cathleen “Cathy” Latham, Scott Graham Hall, and Misty Hampton (Emily Misty Hayes). While the charges among them vary, they all were charged with one count of Violation of the Georgia RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act.
On X, formerly known as Twitter, reactions to the latest indictment suffered by Donald Trump have been ongoing. We’ve got those reactions below.
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A former associate of Kanye West and R. Kelly is listed among the 18 names in the 41-count indictment against former President Donald Trump that was unsealed in Fulton County, Ga., Monday night (Aug. 14). Trevian C. Kutti is facing three charges under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law — a statute typically associated with organized crime — wherein prosecutors claim the former president and his compatriots ran a “criminal enterprise” to keep Trump in the White House after his 2020 presidential election loss.
Kutti was associated with West for a period of time following his own failed 2020 presidential run, according to a source formerly close to West’s team.
Previously, Kutti worked with disgraced singer R. Kelly as his publicist until 2018, according to a 2020 Chicago Sun-Times article covering her work as a lobbyist to legalize marijuana in Illinois. Kelly is currently serving a 20-year sentence in Chicago after convictions on child pornography and enticement of a minor charges.
Kutti, whose unverified Instagram bio lists her as a “solutionist… equal opportunity capitalist… media manipulator,” is facing charges of conspiracy to commit solicitation of false statements and writings and influencing witnesses. She did not respond to Billboard‘s request for comment on the charges at press time.
The latest indictment against Trump includes 41 criminal charges against 18 Trump associates alleging acts aimed at trying to reverse his election loss, including Trump famously calling Georgia’s Republican secretary of state in a bid to have him “find” enough votes to help him win the pivotal state, as well as harassing an election worker with false claims of fraud and trying to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the state’s citizens and appoint their own slate of pro-Trump electors. In one of the most shocking claims, the indictment says the Trump team allegedly attempted to gain access to voting machines in a rural county in order to steal data from the voting machine company.
Reuters reported that Kutti’s online biography from 2021 identified her as a member of the “Young Black Leadership Council under President Trump,” while also claiming that beginning in Sept. 2018 she was “secured as a publicist to Kanye West” and served as his “director of operations.” In Dec. 2021 a spokesperson for West said that Kutti was not “associated” with the rapper at the time she is accused of pressuring a Georgia election worker to confess to false allegations of committing voter fraud.
A spokesperson for Ye could not be reached for comment at press time.
Trump is facing 13 charges in the case, which contains the most potential legal jeopardy for the twice-impeached MAGA real estate mogul who was indicted in March in a New York case tied to hush payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels. He was indicted again in June by a federal grand jury in Miami in his classified documents case and earlier this month by special counsel Jack Smith in a federal probe into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
While Kutti is not well-known, some more familiar names were in the Fulton County indictment, including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Trump lawyer (and the mastermind of the bogus elector scheme) John Eastman, another Trump attorney, Sidney Powell, and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
“I believe that the charges that were filed on me are for a lack of better words baloney,” Kutti reportedly said in a text to the Wall Street Journal. “I completely stand by what I said to the election worker that I was simply a crisis manager.”
Forbes reported on Tuesday that leading up to the 2020 election, Kutti worked as a campaign manager for QAnon conspiracy supporter Angela Stanton King, who lost an election for the congressional seat of late civil rights icon John Lewis.
Kutti also made headlines as the person who Reuters said was caught on video trying to convince frightened Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman — whom Trump had attacked in public and who later faced death threats — to confess to Trump’s false voter fraud allegations by saying that if she didn’t she would be hauled off to jail.
Count 30 of the indictment says that Kutti and two others, “unlawfully conspired to solicit, request, and importune Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County, Georgia, election worker, to engage in conduct constituting the felony offense of False Statements and Writings, O.C.G.A. § 16-10-20, by knowingly and willfully making a false statement and representation concerning events at State Farm Arena in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia.” It also claims that Kutti “traveled to Fulton County, Georgia, and placed a telephone call to Ruby Freeman while in Fulton County, Georgia, which were overt acts to effect the object of the conspiracy, contrary to the laws of said State, the good order, peace and dignity thereof.”
Count 31 alleges that around Jan. 4, 2021, the trio, “knowingly and unlawfully engaged in misleading conduct toward Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County, Georgia, election worker, by stating that she needed protection and by purporting to offer her help, with intent to influence her testimony in an official proceeding in Fulton County, Georgia, concerning events at State Farm Arena in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia, contrary to the laws of said State, the good order, peace and dignity thereof.”
While Trump continues to be the Republican presidential front-runner by a wide margin despite his multiple layers of legal jeopardy, CNN noted that Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ case is insulated from any potential Trump meddling if he is re-elected in 2024 because he would be unable to pardon himself or any of his allies on the state charges or dismiss Fulton County prosecutors who brought the charges.
In a predictable pattern, Trump described his latest indictment as part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” while labeling DA Willis as “racist and corrupt.” Giuliani, who famously used RICO statutes to combat organized crime in New York, called the charges “an affront to democracy.”
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Rudy Giuliani made strong accusations against a pair of Georgia election workers connected to the state swinging in favor of President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election against former president Donald Trump. In a court filing earlier this week, Rudy Giuliani conceded to making false statements against the workers that he accused of tampering with ballots.
Rudy Giuliani, 79, stated his admission in a court filing this past Tuesday (July 25) in connection to a defamation lawsuit brought by the two Georgia election workers that the former New York mayor accused of fixing the ballots in favor of President Biden. Back in 2021, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss filed a defamation lawsuit in Washington, D.C.
In the statement filed by Giuliani, he is no longer contesting the statements he made against Freeman and Moss, which could essentially be seen as an admission that he falsified the claims. Politico adds in its reporting that this isn’t a signal Giuliani is allowing the lawsuit to move ahead unchallenged but instead moves the case to the legal arguments stage in order to determine if he will be held responsible for the damages requested in the lawsuit from the mother and daughter.
“Mayor Rudy Giuliani did not acknowledge that the statements were false but did not contest it in order to move on to the portion of the case that will permit a motion to dismiss,” aide Ted Goodman said. “This is a legal issue, not a factual issue. Those out to smear the mayor are ignoring the fact that this stipulation is designed to get to the legal issues of the case.”
While Giuliani’s side maintains that his statement falls just short of an admission of making the charges against the workers, the legal team for Freeman and Moss are seeing this as a favorable outcome for their clients.
“Giuliani’s stipulation concedes what we have always known to be true — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss honorably performed their civic duties in the 2020 presidential election in full compliance with the law, and the allegations of election fraud he and former-President Trump made against them have been false since day one,” Michael J. Gottlieb, partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, offered in a statement. “While certain issues, including damages, remain to be decided by the court, our clients are pleased with this major milestone in their fight for justice, and look forward to presenting what remains of this case at trial.”
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