'I’ll go down with the ship!' MAGA candidate not sorry for sparking international incident

A MAGA congressional candidate in Georgia has claimed credit for igniting the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on a local Hyundai battery plant that led to hundreds of workers being arrested and the government of South Korea, where Hyundai is based, turning on President Donald Trump in fury.

Now, she is defending her actions as the local press and commenters online deluge her in criticism for undermining Trump's economic negotiations, according to The Daily Beast.

Tori Branum, 47, who identifies herself as a Marine Corps veteran and firearms instructor on her campaign website and is running for Georgia's 12th Congressional District, "said in social media posts and in interviews that she had reported the battery plant, which is under construction near Savannah, to ICE several months before officials conducted the largest work-site immigration raid in Department of Homeland Security history there."

This raid, which produced shocking public scenes of armored vehicles surrounding the plant and workers being taken out in shackles, came after South Korea agreed to invest $350 billion into the U.S. economy, as part of a deal to ease Trump's crippling tariffs on goods from that country. Korean officials and the general Korean public are enraged over the raid, which has jeopardized one of the few agreements Trump has touted.

Branum has now found herself the subject of an avalanche of scorn and criticism from the internet and from the local press in South Korea — but is unrepentant.

“I have gotten hate mail from all over the country with people telling me to die or that I should be in fear,” Branum said in a Facebook post, according to The Beast. “I served this country and I’ll go down with the ship before someone silences me.”

But many commenters are still furious with her.

“So MAGA wanted tariffs to bring manufacturing back to the US. But when a company tries to open a plant here, MAGA undermines it. Once again you proved what an embarrassment your party is to our country,” one poster on Instagram said. “Imagine backing Trump’s ‘bring jobs back’ tariffs then cheering the ICE raid that nuked Georgia’s $4.3B Hyundai plant — 475 workers arrested, 40k jobs gone. That’s not America First, that’s economic suicide. You’re a walking contradiction and a clown,” said another person.

Meanwhile, a Korean business publication, CEO News, laid into Branum, writing, “Her justification of ‘protecting American jobs’ rings hollow when her actions sabotage Georgia’s long-term prosperity.”