John McEntee, who served as the Director of the Trump White House Presidential Personnel Office, in a 2023 video said the U.S. should have “male only” voting. The video (below) resurfaced Monday, drawing outrage. It went viral, with over one million views in just 24 hours.
McEntee is the co-founder of a dating app for Republicans and conservatives, backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, called Date Right Stuff.
He is also a senior advisor at The Heritage Foundation’s far-right Project 2025. He leads “the group’s efforts to compile a database of thousands of vetted conservatives to staff a new conservative administration,” The New York Times reported last week.
McEntee got his start in the White House as Trump’s “body man,” a personal aide, but was fired by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly in 2018 because he was “under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security for serious financial crimes,” CNN reported at the time.
After Kelly’s exit, Trump brought McEntee back into the White House, but as the head of the White House personnel office. He was charged with purging the Executive Branch of anyone who was not deemed sufficiently loyal to Donald Trump.
ALSO READ: Not all former Trump 'spiritual advisors' appear in public to support his 2024 campaign
“So I guess they misunderstood,” McEntee says in the video, one of his many that show him eating in a restaurant. “When we said we wanted mail-only voting, we meant male — M A L E.”
The short clip (below) ends with him smiling. It was originally posted to his Date Right Stuff dating app TikTok account last year, which is filled with dozens if not hundreds of short clips showing McEntee opining on social and political issues. It was reposted Monday to an account on X that bears his name but says it is a supporters’ account.
That video is captioned: “Sorry we want MALE only voting. The 19th might have to go,” although McEntee did not say that specifically in the video.
Monday was the 50th anniversary of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), signed into law by Republican President Gerald Ford. TIME reports that before the law, “banks required women to have a male cosigner—typically a husband or father—on applications for credit cards, loans, and mortgages. It was an archaic policy in an archaic system that was designed to fail women—and for women to fail.”
MSNBC’s Jen Psaki profiled McEntee and his videos in July:
The Atlantic in November of 2021 called McEntee, “The Man Who Made January 6 Possible.”
In May, Rolling Stone reported on the “widespread outrage” over McEntee claiming he gives unhoused people counterfeit cash.
“I always keep this fake Hollywood money in my car, so when a homeless person asks for money then I give them a fake $5 bill,” he said in a TikTok video. “So I feel good about myself, they feel good — and then when they go to use it they get arrested. So I’m actually helping clean up the community, you know, getting them off the streets.”
“The video, posted to the TikTok account of the dating app The Right Stuff, drew widespread outrage, not only because it could be a crime if he was really handing out counterfeit money, but also because it’s the kind of thing you expect to hear in an interview with Tucker Carlson, the depths of 4chan, or in the replies to Elon Musk’s recent posts — not from a dating app,” Rolling Stone added.
“‘Just a joke. Everyone calm down,’ McEntee — who co-founded the app in 2022 after serving as an aide in the Trump administration — wrote in the caption.”
Critics responded to the resurfaced “male only” voting video with outrage.
Political commentator Molly Jong Fast warned: “If trump wins this guy will have a powerful position in the administration.”
People for the American Way CEO and President Svante Myrick, said: “This is, and I’m not joking here, the guy in charge of hiring for the entire Trump administration.”
Podcaster Fred Wellman added, “this week in their effort to get more bro’s they have attacked Puerto Ricans/Latinos, Muslims, and now women on top of the usual transphobia, immigration, and day-to-day racism and bigotry.”
USA Today opinion columnist Michael J. Stern wrote: “Ladies, this is MAGA. They don’t want women to vote. Yes, they want to repeal the 19th Amendment. This is a close ally of Trump’s and may have a place in his administration if he’s elected. If that does not motivate you, I don’t know what will.”
Watch the videos above or at this link.
Sorry we want MALE only voting. The 19th might have to go. 👨🏼#JohnMcEntee#McEntee2028pic.twitter.com/OJzXadROgo
— McEntee 2028 (@JohnMcEntee28) October 28, 2024