Ultra right-winger linked to $50M funneled through beloved charity to fund extreme agenda
Three nonprofits associated with dark money megadonor and architect of the conservative Supreme Court supermajority Leonard Leo funneled more than $50 million into the world’s largest lay Catholic organization — whose donations, in turn, advanced anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ causes, according to analysis of the two most recent years of tax returns.
The Knights of Columbus, the all-male Catholic service organization commonly associated with local Tootsie Roll fundraisers and pancake breakfasts, spent eight figures on funding unregulated pregnancy centers, political initiatives campaigning against abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, and donated money to nonprofits directly tied to Leo, according to tax filings from 2023 and 2024.
Leo has a well-documented history of using his networks to funnel money to ultraconservative causes from working to limit access to abortion medication to supporting anti-trans laws.
Leo, co-chair of the Federalist Society, is best known for his part in building the Project 2025 blueprint for Trump's presidency and for helping build the conservative supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court, advising President Donald Trump on the appointments of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, along with recommending lower court appointees who would rule favorably on conservative causes.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh ahead of a state dinner held by President Donald Trump in honor of Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla at the White House on April 28. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
On Wednesday the Supreme Court’s ruling in the gerrymandering case, Louisiana v. Callais, weakened Section 2 of the Voting Act — a cause for which Leo has engaged his dark money networks.
Investment from Leo groups into the Knights of Columbus “certainly fits ideologically with Leo's aims,” said Robert Maguire, vice president for research and data at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who has investigated how Leo’s firms have raked in millions from his own dark money network.
But, most people who contribute dues and donations to the Knights of Columbus are likely unaware of the extent to which the organization supports more extreme conservative hot button issues — and its recent ties to Leo groups.
The Knights of Columbus “invest a considerable amount of money and energy in political campaigns that have the blatant stated objective of restricting reproductive freedom and of restricting LGBTQ rights, and the Knights of Columbus just do not represent the views of most Catholics,” said Kate Hoeting, director of education and research at Catholics for Choice, a nonprofit advocating for reproductive rights.
“It is really kind of shocking at the end of the day, the disconnect between the story that you might see in a parish bulletin and the story that the money tells when you actually follow it.”
About 60 percent of Catholics support abortion rights, according to a 2025 Pew Research report, and about 75 percent of Catholics support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people and around 70 percent support same-sex marriage, according to research from the Public Religion Research Institute released in March.
“Most people do not know who Leonard Leo is, but Leonard Leo is impacting almost every aspect of their life because Leonard Leo is the Catholic billionaire who, from my perspective, his mission appears to be taking his … unpopular interpretation of Catholicism and making sure that everybody must follow it,” Hoeting said.
Leo and the Knights of Columbus could not be reached for comment.
‘Outsized influence’
The three Leo-affiliated groups who gave significant grants to the Knights of Columbus in 2024 are The 85 Fund ($39 million), Rule of Law Trust ($1.4 million) and Marble Freedom Trust ($500,000), according to tax filings.
The Rule of Law Trust gave the Knights of Columbus $4.05 million and Marble Freedom Trust gave $6.7 million in 2023, according to tax filings.
The 85 Fund, managed by Leo, is formerly known as the Judicial Education Project and is the oldest in the network, Maguire said.
Both tied to Leo, the Rule of Law Trust is “a very large dark money group,” and “Marble Freedom Trust seems to be the really the hub of Leo's financial network,” Maguire said.
Marble Freedom Trust received a $1.6 billion infusion from industrialist Barre Seid in 2022.
“You have these shell groups that are holding themselves out as social welfare organizations, but they essentially exist as shell entities funded by a small set of extremely wealthy donors who, by virtue of the amounts of money they're giving, have outsized influence over policies, over nominations, over the outcomes of elections,” Maguire said.
The Knights of Columbus 501(c)(8) — a tax-exempt status for fraternal society organizations who provide life and accident benefits to its members in a lodge system — brought in revenue of $2.76 billion in 2024 and has $31.2 billion in assets, according to the tax filing.
Knights of Columbus in Slidell, Louisiana (TineyHo/Wikimedia Commons/Flickr)
That year the Knights of Columbus gave more than $2 million to anti-abortion groups and Leo-affiliated groups. For instance, the Knights of Columbus donated $825,000 to March for Life, a nonprofit that puts on the largest anti-abortion demonstration in the world.
The Knights of Columbus gave $500,000 to Florida Voters Against Extremism, a political action committee opposing Florida Amendment 4, the “Right to Abortion Initiative.” The amendment got 57 percent of the vote but fell short of the 60 percent supermajority required to pass.
The group gave $200,000 to oppose South Dakota Constitutional Amendment G that would’ve established a right to abortion in the state but did not pass.
Leo is on the board of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which received $325,000 from the Knights of Columbus, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which received $100,000.
The Becket Fund received a grant of the same amount in 2023, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center received $200,000 that year, according to tax filings.
In 2023, the Knights of Columbus contributed at least $2.8 million to anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ causes, including an $877,000 to March for Life that year.
The Southern Poverty Law Center designated Do No Harm, a medical policy advocacy group opposing gender affirming care and DEI in medicine, as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group. Knights of Columbus granted the group $100,000 in 2023.
Among the Knights of Columbus’ other donations to anti-abortion groups in 2023 was $1 million granted to Protect Women Ohio, which opposed Issue 1 which protected the right to abortion in the Ohio state constitution. The amendment passed.
“You're giving your $10 to the Knights of Columbus — you're probably not thinking they're going to put $1 million towards a losing anti-abortion campaign in Ohio,” Hoeting said.
‘Evade scrutiny’
The Knights of Columbus has other nonprofits and charitable funds who've contributed significantly to Leo-affiliated groups and anti-abortion causes.
The Knights of Columbus Charities gave nearly $2.6 million in 2023 and at least $2.4 million in 2024 to anti-abortion groups as part of its “culture of life” program, according to tax filings.
Knights of Columbus at a ceremony (Photo by Robert F. Farmer/Creative Commons)
The Knights Of Columbus Charitable Fund, a donor-advised fund, gave more than $11.5 million in 2024 to groups where Leo serves on their boards. That includes $10.7 million to the Catholic University of America, $455,000 to the Ethics and Public Policy Center, $240,000 to the Napa Legal Institute and $135,000 to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
At least $424,000 was donated to unregulated pregnancy centers and anti-abortion groups, according to the tax filings.
Those same Leo-affiliated groups brought in more than $6.1 million in 2023 and anti-abortion causes received at least $534,000.
“Whether that's a donor advised fund or another dark money entity .. people who might not want the blowback for the types of large investments that they're making and controversial causes are increasingly using these types of dark money vehicles to evade scrutiny, evade the spotlight,” said Michael Beckel, money in politics reform director at Issue One, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on reducing the influence of money in politics.
“That's one of the reasons that you see these types of entities being increasingly popular, especially when it comes to funding lightning rod issues and highly controversial advocacy campaigns.”
‘Weaponized’
The Knights of Columbus has become part of Leo’s “huge network that is set on imposing its will on all Americans,” said Alyssa Bowen, deputy executive director at watchdog group True North Research.
“He has his hand in many kinds of avenues to impose his agenda and his unpopular will on all Americans through the courts and the legal system.”
While Trump has recently started turning on Leo after receiving unfavorable rulings to the administration, Leo’s influence on advancing Trump policies remains undeniable.
“A lot of the conservative advocacy that we see, whether that's advancing President Trump's agenda, his economic agenda, his immigration related agenda, the attacks on voting rights that we're seeing, some of the money flowing through Leonard Leo's network ends up in that ecosystem,” Beckel said.
“His organizations are part of a central hub of money flowing into Republican politics and conservative nonprofits these days.”
Bowen said the lack of transparency around the causes the Knights of Columbus supports might mislead donors who don’t realize their donations may support extreme conservative causes.
“The takeover of Knights of Columbus is significant because it allows him to use this long-standing organization that has legitimacy in the eyes of a lot of Catholics, and most Catholics probably don't understand that it's being weaponized to push this anti-abortion, anti-trans, very political agenda,” Bowen said.
“Now that it's been weaponized, you see millions and millions of dollars going to these extremely political causes that the people contributing to Knights of Columbus are likely not to know about.”
'I'm not afraid': Tariff-hit toy store owner vows to risk jail to stand up to Trump
After weathering years of challenges, from online competition to the COVID pandemic, President Donald Trump’s tariffs became “the last reason” why Jennifer Bergman decided to close down the New York City toy store her mother opened in 1981.
As small businesses currently navigate a complex tariff refund process and still face rising costs, Bergman, 59, is one of five business owners speaking out in a new $200,000 YouTube ad campaign launched Wednesday by Small Businesses Against Tariffs, a project from the Defending Democracy Together Institute, an advocacy group formed by anti-Trump conservatives.
“I'm not afraid of [Trump]. I'm not afraid of his goons, and if they want to throw us all into jail because we're saying things against them, that's fine by me,” Bergman told Raw Story.
“My parents would be really proud of me, and they'd bail me out if they were still around. Actually, they'd be right there with me in jail.”
Jennifer Bergman (provided photo)
Bergman closed her store, West Side Kids, in July after she realized she wasn’t going to be able to pay her rent or make payroll.
”I’d never had that before, ever, ever,” she said.
Over the years, Bergman’s staff shrunk from 12 employees to four. Those four people lost their jobs when the store closed and struggled to find new ones, with one even becoming unhoused, Bergman said.
When Trump added a 145 percent tariff on China last year, Bergman said a $10 toy she’d typically sell for $20 would need to be marked up to $45 to cover the extra costs since she couldn't “afford to eat any of it.”
The price of a scooter she’d typically sell for $150 shot up to $180 when her supplier called to say they needed to reroute shipping containers to Canada and raise prices after Trump announced tariffs last May.
“Prices were going up, and you only have a finite amount of money to spend,” Bergman said.
“The product was getting so much more expensive that I was spending more money for less.”
Bergman also blamed Trump’s tariffs for preventing her from closing on a deal to sell her store as she was in conversation with two potential buyers in early 2025.
“When the tariffs hit, they were both like, ‘We can't do this right now … we just need to deal with this,’ and so I lost the opportunity to sell my store, too.” Bergman said.
‘Never in my wildest dreams’
After deciding to expand to a second location in 2024, Gabe Hagen, co-founder and owner of Brick Road Coffee in Arizona, said starting construction in early 2025 was “rough” timing due to tariffs.
“Once we learned the results of the election and what the new administration was planning on doing with tariffs, we had to really think on our feet,” Hagen told Raw Story.
“We had to kind of re-pivot what we were doing, so we cut back a lot up front.”
Hagen, who is also featured in the Small Businesses Against Tariffs campaign, said the business decided to change equipment purchases and pre-purchased a year’s worth of cups and disposables to “weather the impacts of tariffs.”
Hagen’s projections for stocking the second location, which is both a roastery and a coffee shop, ended up being about a third of what he actually spent.
“The strain of that on a new small business — especially one that's just expanded — we're already so tight on our cash, it's just rough,” Hagen said.
At the end of 2024, raw coffee beans cost Hagen about $4 a pound. At one point, prices spiked to just under $7 a pound, Hagen said. Now prices for speciality coffee are still $5 to $6 per pound, he said.
When Hagen started, roasted coffee cost around $10 per pound. Now prices range between $12 to $14 on the wholesale side, he said.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think we'd be paying 50 percent tariffs on a Brazil coffee, which is our number one coffee that we use,” Hagen said.
The Trump administration backed down its tariffs on coffee at the end of last year, but small businesses like Hagen's are still feeling the effects.
“Every new business, we expect some bleed, but this bleed is taking a lot longer than we expected,” he said.
Hagen took out another working capital loan and put his house up for collateral, he said.
Gabe Hagen at Brick Road Coffee's second location and roaster, Prism Coffee Lab (Photo provided by Brick Road Coffee)
“We don't really have many more levers left on a small business side, so that's why tariffs were so important for me to speak out against because I can't just grow my coffee,” Hagen said.
The unpredictability of Trump’s tariffs make it hard to know “when we'll feel relief," Hagen said.
“I don’t know if it'll change back, so I think the hardest part for me is I don't know how to do a 12 month forecast," he said.
‘Who truly pays’
Small Businesses Against Tariffs previously launched a $5 million ad campaign in February, including the story of a Republican farmer turned Democrat over tariffs’ impact on his business.
From a trucking company to a DIY flower shop and an eco-friendly dinnerware company, small businesses have struggled to stay afloat due to tariffs, Raw Story reported.
"We felt it was important to run this campaign in light of spiking prices and confusion around the tariff refund policy,” a Small Businesses Against Tariffs spokesperson said.
“Our hope is that it will help to educate Americans about who truly pays the costs of tariffs and trade wars: American small businesses and consumers. The goal here is to keep engaging those people who show an active interest in the tariff issue, to emphasize who ends up paying the costs of tariffs and to de-bunk widespread lies.”
Trump and 'gang of thugs' slammed as congresswoman joins outrage over teen snatched by ICE
When federal agents unexpectedly detained a Chicago teen and his mother last month, outraged community members rallied to support them while they were separated, traversed across the country and subjected to alleged harsh treatment while in detention, Raw Story first reported.
Community advocates called the arrest of Ricardo Hernandez-Navarrete, 18, and his mother, Martha Liliana Navarrete-Capazan, 46, at a check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) a “trap” and reached out to their congresswoman, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) for help.
In response to Raw Story’s investigation, Schakowsky said in a statement:
“Ricardo, a now 18-year-old high school senior, and his mother Martha came to this country three years ago seeking a better life. They represent what all Americans should strive for, and the way the Trump administration has treated them is horrific, unacceptable and un-American,” she said.
“Donald Trump and this gang of thugs think that cruelty and bigotry make America strong. They are mistaken. Immigrants are and always have been what makes our country great. My office is in communication with the family’s attorney, and we will do everything possible to bring them home and secure justice for them.”
Ricardo Hernandez-Navarrete and his mother\u00a0Martha Liliana Navarrete-Capaza (Photo provided by Steven P.,Hernandez-Navarrete's brother)
One of the family’s lawyers, Kelli Fennell, said Hernandez-Navarrete and Navarrete-Capazan had accepted pending asylum applications as they faced fear of harm or persecution in their home country of Colombia. Neither the mother nor son has a criminal record, she said.
Raw Story’s investigation also prompted a response from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois.
“We’ve seen many asylum-seekers like them get detained for no reason, after being in the United States lawfully for many years,” said Samuel B. Cole, senior supervising attorney and chief immigration litigation counsel at the ACLU of Illinois.
“To make matters worse, the facilities where ICE is detaining them frequently do not comply with ICE’s own standards or even pass minimal constitutional muster.”
When Hernandez-Navarette spoke with Raw Story via a phone interview from the Kenton County Detention Center in Kentucky on Tuesday, he said he had been searched without clothes, required to sleep on the floor without blankets and unable to use the restroom due to too many people in one room.
The 18-year-old said he spent two days in solitary confinement and was unable to shower during that time.
His advocates said he’d been transferred at least eight times over the course of the month, traveling to Kansas, Oklahoma, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana and Kentucky after leaving the Broadview ICE facility outside of Chicago.
In response to a series of questions from Raw Story, a spokesperson for ICE said U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended the mother and son, "both illegal aliens from Colombia, for illegally entering the United States in 2022,"
“ICE Chicago took custody of Hernandez-Navarrete and Navarrete-Capazan [in] March 2026 for being unlawfully present in the United States. They remain in ICE custody pending further proceedings and will receive full due process," the spokesperson said.
ICE is encouraging immigrants to use the CBP Home App, "offering illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport now," the spokesperson said.
“Being in detention is a choice," the spokesperson said.
“We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.”
'Bogus': Chicago community outraged as teen spends time in solitary while in ICE detention
When Ricardo Hernandez-Navarrete arrived in Chicago with his family after escaping domestic violence in Colombia, the then-15-year-old walked to a soccer facility he found on Facebook five miles away.
Hernandez-Navarrete arrived “frozen” — traversing across the city on that cold January day not just because of his love of soccer but because he recognized an opportunity to meet people who could teach him about living and succeeding in the United States, Costel Serban, his coach at iProSkills Academy, told Raw Story.
“It's incredibly brave of this kid to do this sacrifice, to walk for so long on such a cold day because he was the hope for his family,” Serban said.
Within 24 hours of meeting Hernandez-Navarrete, the soccer club rallied to gather clothes and pay for food and a motel for a month for him, his mother and his brother while they searched for an apartment and sought asylum in the United States, Serban said.
Now, three years later, Hernandez-Navarrete’s community is rallying around the family again after he and his mother, Martha Liliana Navarrete-Capazan, were detained on March 16 at a check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Chicago.
Kristy Morrow, a community organizer, teacher and parent whose son played soccer with Hernandez-Navarrete, called the request from ICE “bogus" and coordinated a GoFundMe that raised more than $36,000 to help the family with hiring lawyers and paying for living expenses while detained.
Kelli Fennell, one of the family's lawyers, confirmed they had a pending asylum application accepted by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), received within one year of the family's arrival in the U.S.
The family faces fear of harm or persecution in Colombia, and neither the mother nor son has a criminal record, Fennell said.
"They were told their parole was being canceled but weren't told why," Fennell said.
In response to questions from Raw Story, a spokesperson for ICE said:
"An illegal alien may have a final order of removal but can remain in ICE custody while a travel document is obtained for their lawful removal to their home country.”
‘Unbelievable’
Hernandez-Navarrete, now an 18-year-old high school senior, told Raw Story via a phone interview from the Kenton County Detention Center in Kentucky that his mom received an email from ICE requesting their appearance last month. They both showed up with their paperwork — and were unexpectedly detained.
Ricardo Hernandez-Navarrete and his mother Martha Liliana Navarrete-Capazan (Photo provided by Steven P., Hernandez-Navarrete's brother)
Fennell said the mother and son were asked "if they wanted to leave voluntarily. They said no, because they haven't seen the judge. They advised them that they had an asylum application pending and were afraid of returning their home country."
Under the second Trump administration, some immigration lawyers said they’re seeing clients get called in for more ICE check-ins — with more people detained at them with “very little rhyme or reason to it,” said Nicole Whitaker, an immigration lawyer from Towson, Maryland.
Whitaker, who is not representing the family, recalled a client at a recent check-in shaking and experiencing a panic attack “because nobody knows what's going to happen” at an ICE check-in these days.
Fennell said she's heard of detentions at ICE check-ins "happening more often during this administration, anecdotally," which has led to "very real fear" and "a lot of anxiety."
“It's so awful,” Morrow said. “[Ricardo's] here to be here and to work and to get educated, and it's the kind of person we want here, him and his family. It's unbelievable.”
‘Quite shocking’
Hernandez-Navarrete has been transported to eight different detention facilities since March 16, Morrow said. He was separated from his mother and at times their locations have been unknown to their lawyers and advocates.
“I never be alone too much time,” Hernandez-Navarrete said on Tuesday. “I never be separate too much time with my mom.”
After being detained in Chicago and sent to the Broadview ICE facility outside of the city, Hernandez-Navarrete was sent to Kansas, then to Oklahoma and back to Kansas. He was then sent to facilities in Indiana, Louisiana and Ohio — back to Indiana — and he is now in Kentucky, Morrow and Serban said.
The constant movement of the mother and son has become “legally significant,” with Hernandez-Navarrete moved four times just since Thursday, Morrow said.
“It is preventing anything from happening for these people,” she said.
Each transfer to a new state requires finding a new lawyer licensed to practice there.
“When they move me it’s like a new start,” Hernandez-Navarrete said.
Hernandez-Navarrete said he saw his mom briefly when they were two of three detainees on a plane from Louisiana to Ohio. He expressed concern about being unable to use airplane safety equipment like life jackets if there was an emergency.
Other times, Hernandez-Navarrete said he was transported to facilities alone by van.
“It's quite shocking, actually, what they did to him, considering he's a 18-year-old kid,” Serban said.
‘Scare tactic’
While in various detention centers, Hernandez-Navarrete said he’s been searched naked, slept on the floor without blankets and at times has been unable to use the restroom due to too many people in one room.
When he called Raw Story on Tuesday, Hernandez-Navarrete said he was in a room with 42 people.
“I have to be strong, but it's hard,” he said on Monday evening.
“I'm hungry.”
While in Louisiana, Hernandez-Navarrete and Navarrete-Capazan were told they were being deported and taken to the airport, only to then be told the planes were full or going to the wrong place, Morrow and Fennell said.
“This is happening continuously as I guess some sort of a scare tactic to be like, ‘I can't endure this anymore,’” Morrow said.
After that, Hernandez-Navarrete said he spent two days in solitary confinement and was not given a reason. He said he could not take a shower for those two days while in solitary confinement.
“Too much alone [time], and it's going to be more crazy for me,” he said.
Hernandez-Navarrete said a teacher is working to make sure he still gets his high school diploma, and he has plans to attend Harry S. Truman College, a community college in Chicago.
"He's not my first client to be put in solitary confinement while in detention, and I'm certain he won't be the last. It's happened before without reason," Fennell said.
"The fact that an 18 year old was separated from his mother — he is two months away from graduating high school and was committed to play soccer at a junior college — and then to have an innocent kid who's never been arrested or had any contact with law enforcement be taken without notice, stripped from his community, bounced around to a bunch of different detention centers ... being forced to live in these conditions is just appalling."
A spokesperson for ICE said regular inspections of facilities are conducted to ensure compliance with "federal detention standards for safety, sanitation and humane treatment ... in fact, ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens."
When White House "border czar" Tom Homan made a similar statement last summer, scholars called the statement misleading, noting that ICE facilities face less consistent oversight, PolitiFact reported.
The ICE spokesperson added, "ICE facilities are bound by the National Detention Standards and Family Residential Standards — rigorous, federally enforced guidelines that prioritize safety, medical care and detainee rights. These standards are not optional — they are mandatory and strictly monitored.
"ICE has maintained its high-quality care, including medical, mental and dental care for illegal aliens. This is the best healthcare many aliens have received in their entire lives."
The spokesperson said ICE has a "longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody," which includes medical, dental and mental health services and 24-hour emergency care.
Hernandez-Navarrete said he holds out hope that “God can help us, with me and my mom, to release.”
“With the people that is in charge, they see us like we are criminals or something like that, and we are not,” he said.
‘So incredibly rigged’
While coordinating communication with the attorneys and family members, Morrow said she's learned “this system is so incredibly rigged, and it is next to impossible to figure out what to do," especially for someone without access to funds or being a native English speaker.
“It's infuriating how slow all of this moves for people that are literally being treated so inhumanely,” she said.
The community response to supporting the family has been "everything," Morrow said, and Hernandez-Navarrete's peers at Mather High School have been spreading the word to get people to show up in support at a soccer practice on Thursday where Telemundo is expected to film a segment.
Flyer for community event (provided by Kristy Morrow)
“Everything legally says that they should be released the minute they're somewhere long enough that we can file, but I also know the reality that there's thousands of Ricardos and Lilianas sitting in detention who have the exact same paperwork in place, who have the exact same story and have done literally nothing wrong and are documented," she said.
“That's when I get so nervous because I know reality and what is happening under this administration.”
Serban said Hernandez-Navarrete was determined to stay in the United States to continue fighting for asylum.
“I saw the grit and the desire to do well, and the desire to help his family. I believe the United States system is going to understand that and is going to release him, is going to let him continue his dream,” Serban said.
“I'm just hopeful, because knowing the kid, if somebody deserves to stay in this country, this is the kid.”
MAGA exodus support group soars as Trump devotees walk away: 'One lie too many'
The Epstein files.
Tariffs.
Deaths at the hands of federal immigration enforcement agents.
Skyrocketing gas prices.
The slashing of federal jobs.
A “war of choice in Iran.”
Former loyal supporters of President Donald Trump and adherents to his Make America Great Again movement recently chose to hang up their red hats for these exact reasons, said Rich Logis, whose Leaving MAGA nonprofit and support community is growing, bringing in “record-high” fundraising and seeing “more who are having doubts than ever before.”
“Right now, in MAGA, one of the reasons I think there are more people who are having doubts and are confused and are questioning their belief system is because the president has very clearly not kept a lot of his promises,” Logis told Raw Story.
“There's still a lot of fealty to Trump within the MAGA community, but I think most people in MAGA have a red line, and when that line of demarcation is reached, when there's one lie too many, when there's one betrayal too many, it makes them start to wonder if Trump is lying about one issue, is he lying about other issues?”
“One Betrayal Too Many: Why I Left MAGA” is the title of Logis’s new memoir that details his journey from a MAGA podcaster, fundraiser and pundit to the founder of the nonprofit who was featured at the 2024 Democratic National Convention voicing his support of Trump’s opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Rich Logis promoting his book (provided photo)
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Il), who became a vocal critic of Trump and also endorsed Harris at the DNC, wrote the foreword to the book.
At the convention, Logis shared the message that “Trump's toxic superpower is lying,” which Logis said holds true today.
After Trump campaigned on lowering costs, gas prices now average more than $4 per gallon and are expected to stay high into 2027. Americans are lamenting an affordability crisis, with as many as seven in 10 blaming Trump’s tariffs policies for high prices in a recent poll.
Trump pledged to not fight "endless wars” but since taking office has engaged in military conflicts across the world — from Venezuela to Iran.
“Many in MAGA, deep down, know that Trump is a dishonest person, and I think deep down, they know that something is amiss in the country,” Logis said.
“Many in MAGA are looking around, and they might be telling themselves that everything is OK, but I think that that's more of a denial response.”
'Long haul'
Logis wrote the book to “humanize the odyssey and the journey that I went on, and show people in MAGA that it is, in fact, possible to leave and that we don't have to keep living this life based on lies and falsehoods and conspiracy theories.”
Leaving MAGA’s most recent outreach effort is in the form of billboards. The group is investing about $20,000 to display signs targeted at those facing doubts about MAGA with messages such as:
“Find your new community”
“You are not alone.”
“Welcome home.”
Billboard image from Leaving MAGA
The first billboard will go up in Austin on April 15. Others will appear in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Des Moines, Iowa; and Palm Beach, Florida, the setting of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home where Democrats sent the president a “powerful message” when the state-level House seat in the district flipped blue last month.
“Our visibility and our footprint continues to grow, and we are committed for the long haul in doing this,” Logis said.
After Leaving MAGA became a tax-exempt nonprofit in August 2024, it reported raising about $34,000 that year.
Last year, the group raised about $110,000 and has brought in $100,000 year-to-date for 2026, Logis said.
‘Addicted to rage’
In his book, Logis shared stories of his time in MAGA, from attending a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago to writing call scripts for the Trump campaign and reveling in compliments for his work writing for and speaking on pro-MAGA media platforms.
“It was intoxicating to be in a community of like-minded people where in that community you feel very seen and heard,” Logis said.
“MAGA was exhilarating and enthralling, until it wasn't, and when I left, I came to realize that I had essentially been addicted to rage.”
Logis compared his journey out of MAGA to pulling “a brick out of the wall,” with the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead, being the "final straw.”
“You pull enough bricks out, and then eventually the wall falls down and collapses,” he said.
Video of Rich Logis at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago (C-SPAN)
Leaving MAGA has collected more than two dozen testimonials from others who have stopped supporting Trump — some of whom were featured in the book.
Members of the Leaving MAGA community include people who have embraced Christian nationalism, became swept up in conspiracies, lost friends and marriages and committed crimes in Trump’s name.
But Logis said there are so many more who have "quietly left" with "a lot of quiet quitting happening.”
“There are many in the MAGA community who are privately having doubts, and they're wondering if this is a movement that they can continue to support,” he said.
Some MAGA community members are experiencing “cognitive dissonance” when their beliefs conflict with the “rhetoric of the president,” Logis said.
While Logis said MAGA will continue even after Trump leaves office, the MAGA movement continues to weaken and presents an opportunity to reach people before they gravitate toward “the next iteration of right-wing politics.”
After spending years supporting Trump, Logis has come to view MAGA as “an extremist group because adherents are encouraged to dehumanize, vilify and demonize those with whom we disagree.”
Each day Logis now posts on social media “‘today's a stellar day to leave MAGA’ because it is possible to walk away from the extremism and walk away from an identity that's shaped by lies.”
Ruby red seat primed to flip as fed-up Republican ditches MAGA — and GOP distracted: Dem
After former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene turned on MAGA Republicans and President Donald Trump, resigning from her seat in Georgia’s 14th congressional district, a Democrat captured the most votes in a special election to replace her — fueling hopes of a long-shot blue flip in the solidly red district.
Democrat Shawn Harris, a retired Army brigadier general and cattle farmer, earned more than 43,000 votes, but it wasn’t enough to win the seat with a majority of the vote on March 10.
Still, Harris told Raw Story in the days prior to his runoff race on April 7 that he was “feeling real good” about his chances to win Greene’s former seat, particularly as the district’s MAGA base is “not as strong as it used to be."
Shawn Harris on his cattle farm in Rockmart, Ga. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
Harris, who took 37.3 percent of the vote last month, faces Republican Clay Fuller, a district attorney and Air Force veteran endorsed by President Donald Trump as an “America First Patriot,” who received 34.9 percent of the vote in a crowded Republican field that grew to more than 20 candidates at one point.
“With Marjorie Taylor Greene coming out there basically every day and saying that everything about MAGA was a lie, or everything that Donald Trump told you what he was going to do was a lie, and then Clay is, in turn, anything that President Trump said he's doing, Clay says, ‘Yes, I agree with it,’ including this war of choice [in Iran], including putting ICE everywhere, those things are the reason why people are actually saying 'I'm voting for Shawn,'” Harris said.
During a visit to the district from Trump in February, Fuller called himself a “MAGA warrior.”
Fuller declined an interview with Raw Story.
'Sold his soul'
While MAGA is “the loudest part of the party, and it's Donald Trump's base,” the 14th congressional district saw little benefit from Greene while she was loudly backing Trump during her five years in Congress, Harris said.
“Too many times under Marjorie Taylor Greene, she voted with the party and left northwest Georgia out to dry … we didn't actually get any benefits for anything that Marjorie was doing, and if we send Clay, we're going to get even worse.”
If elected to Congress, Harris said he “will be a person with a backbone that will fight for Northwest Georgia” and “nobody can buy me.”
Harris’ fundraising receipts totaled $6.4 million, dwarfing the $1.2 million raised by Fuller as of March 18, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Harris emphasized receiving small dollar donations averaging around $25 and said he’s “not taking any money from any organizations that when I get there, they're going to be telling me how to vote.”
Harris also said he wouldn’t just vote along party lines if elected to Congress.
“If President Trump and his administration is doing something right, and it makes sense for Northwest Georgia, I'm going to support it 100 percent — that's what leaders do, and that's what I want to do as a representative for all of northwest Georgia,” Harris said.
“However, if President Trump’s leadership, his team, in itself, is not doing something that's benefiting northwest Georgia, I will be in a position to push back, and the reason why I've been in a position to push back is because, yes, I'm a Democrat, but I'm not tied to the party.
“Clay has sold his soul to President Trump. That means Clay's vote is already in the bag.”
Blue wave
Another reason why Harris hopes he can defy the odds and win the seat in the runoff is because Republican candidates in the district are still competing against Fuller in a primary election on May 19 for the November general election, distracting them from this race and making them less likely to endorse him, he said.
The runoff race is to immediately fill the vacancy left in Congress after Greene resigned in January.
“The Republicans are not collapsing around Clay,” Harris said.
Republican Clay Fuller speaks at an event in Lookout Mountain, Georgia on March 10. REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
Harris previously cut into Republican domination in the district when he ran against Greene in 2024, capturing nearly 135,000 votes and more than 35 percent of ballots cast.
Prior to that, Democrat Marcus Flowers cut Greene’s share of votes by nearly 10 percent, capturing more than 88,000 of his own in 2022, when she previously won with 75 percent of the vote in her first election in 2020.
Democrats are hoping to overtake Republicans’ slim majority in the House and even possibly flip the Senate, despite massive amounts of dark money funneling into Senate Republican races, Raw Story exclusively reported.
The Democratic party is also looking to state-level races as a bellwether for a blue wave as Democrats have flipped at least 30 seats, including the state House seat where Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, is located.
'Left behind'
Harris said he’s been able to appeal to voters across party lines because of economic issues under the Trump administration, such record-high gas-prices, reaching over $4 on average for the first time since 2022.
“It’s killing us to go to the gas pump or to the diesel pump, especially our farmers, because right now diesel prices are high and fertilizer prices are high,” Harris said.
“As a farmer, I can feel it myself, just like all the rest of them.”
If elected to Congress, Harris said one of his top priorities would be helping pass the Farm Bill as the farmers in his district are “tired of all of these subsidies,” which end up being passed through to farmers to pay the vendors they owe.
“We're in a situation where farmers need help today, and the administration is just moving too slow to actually help us,” Harris said.
Some former Republican farmers have broken with Trump over his fluctuating tariffs, which led to higher prices on essentials like lumber, fertilizer and farming equipment.
Harris said he’s working to earn the votes of Democrats, Independents and Republicans alike — even distributing "Republicans for Shawn" signs.
If he wins, Harris said, “Democrats would be happy, but at the end of the day, I'm not doing this for Democrats. I'm not doing this for independents, and I'm not doing this for Republicans”.
“I'm doing this for the hardworking people here in northwest Georgia. Period … Because too many times northwest Georgia has been left behind.”
Facing credible threats, Harris has continued wearing a bulletproof vest at advertised public appearances, he told Raw Story, but that hasn't deterred him from engaging with the community, especially as the race will come down to turnout during a short voting period around the Good Friday and Easter holidays.
"We're not going to let those threats cause us not to continue to running this campaign," Harris said.
"Something I always tell my supporters is, courage is contagious, and when they see me out and about, I hope that motivates them to continue to go out and knock on doors, call people, because this race is going to come down to strictly turnout."
Devout MAGA Navy veteran dumps Trump — and sees 'pain points' convincing others to flee
As disabled U.S. Navy veteran Steven Francisci built his mental health advocacy community, he connected with veterans who, like him, started questioning their support of President Donald Trump.
Since Trump returned to the White House, some MAGA supporters have found “vulnerable pain points” that are tipping them away from backing the president, Francisci told Raw Story. Whether it's the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, federal immigration enforcement agents’ aggressive and fatal tactics or the country's intensifying conflict with Iran as 2,500 Marines head to the region and senior military officials consider sending in airborne Army troops.
Breaking with Trump increasingly happens when “people start to really feel the effects of what this administration is doing, including the rising gas prices right now that are happening before our eyes, and the tariffs and the cost that we're bearing because of these insane, ridiculous approaches to trying to raise money in this country,” Francisci, a 50-year-old mental health influencer from Chesapeake, Virginia, said.
Francisci’s own transformation from a MAGA-hat-wearing Trump supporter to a member of his local Democratic committee was part of a “deconstruction journey” that took place over years of trauma-informed therapy starting in 2022.
He is now a part of Leaving MAGA, an online community and nonprofit for former Trump supporters who found themselves embracing Christian nationalism, lost in conspiracies, losing friends and committing crimes in Trump’s name.
“That version of me that I lived for so long was crumbling before my eyes, and then I had to also deconstruct my politics,” Francisci said.
“I was starting to understand why I was so attracted to Trump because I was previously highly narcissistic, and I previously thought that being that alpha male, masculine guy is what we needed for the country.”
Steven Francisci (provided photo)
While his third marriage “literally was falling apart,” Francisci said he began to focus on his mental health and reevaluate his religious beliefs having become “really, really deep into evangelical Christianity, really supportive of Trump.”
“It's very important to understand religion and how it ties into politics today,” he said.
While less supportive than they were a year ago, white evangelicals remain among Trump’s strongest supporters, with 69 percent approving of how Trump has handled his presidency, according to a February report from Pew Research.
Francisci said his break from MAGA and evangelical Christianity was “more of a slow, gradual process and a slow awakening.”
But, by the time of the 2024 presidential election, he said, “there's no way in good conscience that I can vote for Trump a third time, and so I didn't.”
“I voted for Kamala Harris … it just helped me to continue to move in the path of the person I want to be today.”
‘Damaging’
Francisci wasn’t interested in politics when he joined the U.S. Navy shortly after his 18th birthday and spent about seven years in the military.
Not long after he left the Navy, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks happened. Growing up in New York City, he had family there he couldn’t reach for a time to let him know they were safe.
“Everything was just bananas, and it was incredibly terrifying,” Francisci said.
“After that, I really started to watch Fox News. It became really a main source of my media diet, and I also noticed that I started to become, I would probably say, Islamophobic.”
Francisci said he saw himself continue to “gravitate more and more right-leaning.”
Fast forward to the time Trump first ran for president in the 2016 election, Francisci said he “had a ton of anger and rage, and then I continued to watch Fox News.”
At the time, Francisci said he had a “close call with suicide” that brought him to a Veterans Affairs hospital. He experienced marriage troubles and was still recovering from a nearly fatal motorcycle crash the year before that left him with a traumatic brain injury and every bone in his face broken.
Politics “became way more emotional to me than thoughtful,” he said.
“I just started to listen and believe everything you heard on Fox News, and I didn't really realize how damaging that was at the time.”
By the end of Trump’s first term when he lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden, Francisci said he was confused by the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 but felt “that's what we need to do if this election was stolen … we need to take back our country.”
‘Move the dial’
It wasn’t until he began his trauma-informed therapy work in 2022 that everything changed. He started a mental health advocacy social media platform called Healing Roots On Up and became a court-appointed special advocate working with abused and neglected children.
Francisci recently applied to a masters in counseling program to become a trauma-informed therapist and was appointed to the Chesapeake Integrated Behavioral Healthcare Board of Directors. He self-published a book in January, “From A**Hole To Alright: A Life Rewritten Through Self-Reflection, Therapy, and Conscious Change.”
Steven Francisci at Chesapeake City Hall (provided photo)
With other former Trump supporters, Francisci has identified a common experience of “a lack of empathy and compassion, a lack of being in touch with their emotions.”
Francisci said it’s important for him to share his “growth and journey” with others and has been particularly upset by the “lack of kindness and the cruelty” exercised by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
For instance, ICE has detained a breastfeeding mother, proposed a plan to deport unaccompanied immigrant children, physically assaulted bystanders and deported young adults with pending immigration cases, just in cases reported by Raw Story.
“I think we are starting to move the dial on helping people become more aware of what's happening and what Trump is doing,” Francisci said.
Battle in Mar-a-Lago's backyard threatens brutal wake-up call for Trump
Mar-a-Lago — President Donald Trump’s luxury “winter White House” private club and residence — sits in a narrowly drawn Florida state house district hugging the Palm Beach coast.
That strip represents one of the target districts where Democrats are hoping to send their latest message to Republicans and Trump, who faces a tanked approval rating, through a small business owner they hope can flip the seat in Florida House District 87.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) boasts 28 state-level flips so far – and none for Republicans — since Trump was elected.
“This is a stark reminder that Democrats are not just winning in blue states or even in competitive districts. We are winning in red communities, and we're putting up a fight right in the president's backyard,” Heather Williams, DLCC president, told Raw Story.
“There's some groundswell opportunity there. This is also in the kind of district that we've been winning. We have been marching into Republican territory. We've been flipping seats, and we're leaving no stone unturned when it comes to that.”
The March 24 special election squares off Democrat Emily Gregory, a public health expert and Fit4Mom Palm Beach owner, against Jon Maples, a financial adviser and former All-American college athlete endorsed by Trump.
Emily Gregory (Photo courtesy of Emily Gregory for Florida)
“When people are given the option of a very extreme, far right-wing option or a pragmatic Democrat, I think they will choose the pragmatic Democrat,” Gregory told Raw Story.
“When we will win, it will send an incredibly powerful message to Democrats statewide and nationally.”
Maples and the Republican State Leadership Committee did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.
'Outcry and outrage'
After Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Mike Caruso, the incumbent Republican state representative for the district, to serve as Palm Beach County Clerk in August 2025, he failed to call a special election for months until after Gregory filed a lawsuit alleging the governor did not follow state law.
Without representation for an entire legislative session, “people are really understandably outraged,” Gregory said.
Gregory said she’s campaigning on “pragmatic solutions” to address the affordability crisis and state housing issues.
When she knocks on doors, Gregory said voters talk about skyrocketing property insurance rates, access to affordable health care and funding public schools.
“More recently, we've really been hearing this outcry and outrage at democracy in peril,” Gregory said.
Residents in the district are concerned about the Trump administration’s aggressive handling of immigration enforcement that left protesters dead when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent thousands of federal agents to Minnesota.
“No one is okay with armed thugs being out in the streets, shooting American citizens,” Gregory said.
“No one is okay with the unregulated militia that is ICE.”
Emily Gregory (Photo courtesy of Emily Gregory for Florida)
State legislators are in charge of the drawing of congressional maps, and at least one-third of states have proposed redrawing maps since Republicans started a mid-decade gerrymandering war at the urging of Trump.
The winner of the Florida House District 87 race will participate in Florida’s April special session on congressional redistricting, said Gregory, who is against mid-decade redistricting.
“There's a lot to be fearful of in this power grab,” Gregory said.
“We have to maintain our civic duty and our decade pattern, and I think trying to do it halfway through the decade just shows how desperate the current administration is, and the implications of losing those congressional seats would be profound.”
Democrats hope their successes at the state-level are a bellwether for the November midterm elections when they look to take back control of the U.S. House of Representatives and even possibly the U.S. Senate.
The major super PAC for Senate Republicans skyrocketed their dark money contributions in order to protect their GOP majority, Raw Story first reported.
“If I were Republicans, I'd be deeply concerned about this. They benefited from this kind of environment in 2010, and we're knocking on the same door, only in the opposite direction this time, where we've got this incredible opportunity and we are ready to show up and meet the needs of voters across the country,” Williams said.
“Regardless of what the national narrative is like, Democrats can win elections, and we can win elections when we meet voters where they are and with a D behind our name.
“I think that's incredibly important as we think about officially now, transitioning into primary season, and how we think about winning up and down the ballot.”
GOP NY gov pick runs from link to J6ers and Trump ‘secretary of retribution’
The Republican candidate for governor of New York was scheduled to speak at an event headlined by far-right extremists and rioters convicted over the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a Raw Story investigation.
Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive running against incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, was featured on promotional materials for a January event associated with retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser.
The Stay Awake America event took place at the Trump-themed America First Warehouse in Ronkonkoma on Long Island from Jan. 10-11, though ultimately Blakeman did not attend, said Teresa Helfrich, director of operations for the America First Warehouse.
“He didn't end up showing up,” Helfrich said.
“Apparently, he was really busy, but unfortunately, he did not come, and people were a bit disappointed, but we tried our best.”
Helfrich said she was under the impression Blakeman was unable to attend because he was preparing for his inauguration the following day, for his second term as county executive.
In a statement to Raw Story, Blakeman attempted to distance himself from the event.
“Kathy Hochul told 5.4 million Republicans to leave New York,” Blakeman said through a campaign spokesperson, referring to 2022 remarks in which the governor named GOP figures including Trump, rather than every Republican in the state.
“Now she’s inventing distractions about events I never attended and people I’ve never spoken to because she can’t defend her tax hikes and soaring utility bills. She’s so bothered by her record she’s becoming delusional. I’m trying to make New York affordable.”
A poster for the event circulated by the America First Warehouse and Stay Awake America organizer prominently featured Blakeman as a speaker.
Flynn shared an X post promoting the event, which referenced Blakeman.
Also featured were Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers militia leader whose 18-year sentence for sedition was commuted by President Trump; Treniss Jewell Evans III, who pleaded guilty to entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; and Ivan Raiklin, a Flynn associate who campaigns to punish Trump’s enemies.
The event was advertised as a tribute to Tina Peters, a Colorado county clerk sentenced to nine years in prison for her role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election. Trump is pressuring Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to grant Peters clemency.
Blakeman did recently speak at the Queens Village Republican Club’s Lincoln Dinner, on March 1. That event honored John Eastman, a now-disbarred attorney who advised Trump and played a central role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, Politico reported.
Lara Logan, a journalist who has spread far-right conspiracy theories, accepted an award and spoke at that event.
In a statement, Blakeman denied knowing “who John Eastman is or what he stands for.”
Jacob Neiheisel, an associate professor of political science at the University of Buffalo, told Raw Story “association means a lot in politics,” and candidates make calculations about the costs and benefits of being linked with individuals or groups.
“You can distance yourself quite a bit. Trump's been effective at it,” Neiheisel said.
“It works for Trump. It can work for other people.”
Amy Young, director and organizer of Stay Awake America, did not respond to requests for comment.
‘Threat of Islam’
Blakeman’s biography appears on the Stay Awake America website’s “past and present speaker list.”
The January event at which he was advertised to speak promised more than 17 “nationally known expert speakers in health, civics, faith, education, threat of Islam in America and child sex trafficking.”
Being associated with far-right figures doesn’t help Blakeman’s chances of winning in the blue state, Neiheisel said, adding that Republican gubernatorial candidates in New York “have to at least outwardly appear centrist to the bulk of voters, but that's not where the energy in the party is. The energy is typically on the far right.”
But such associations do “make you viable for other positions elsewhere, and put you on the radar of other people in the party, particularly if MAGA is able to continue beyond Trump,” Neiheisel said.
“I think that this also might be a play [by Blakeman] to stay relevant and stay in some of those circles even after he loses.”
Trump endorsed Blakeman in December after Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), dropped out of the Republican primary.
Larry Levy, a former political journalist and associate vice president and executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, said “at some point, Blakeman will have to pivot to the middle — there just aren’t enough Republican voters in the state for him to win without a goodly number of moderate independents and soft Democrats — and Gen. Flynn certainly wouldn’t help him build bridges to them."
Flynn was briefly national security adviser to Trump in his first term before being fired for lying about contacts with Russian officials.
The Stay Awake America Tour is inspired and endorsed by Flynn and grew out of an earlier roadshow, the ReAwaken America Tour, that prominently featured his work as a far-right campaigner and promoted conspiracy theories and Christian nationalism.
On a recent podcast, Young said the tour came about as a result of a conversation between Flynn and Caspar McCloud, an English musician who performs at the events, about the need to mobilize support for Trump.
‘Secretary of Retribution’
Rhodes, whose name was originally listed at the bottom of the January event poster but whose photo is the first featured for a Stay Awake America event on March 20, founded the Oath Keepers, an anti-government group that recruited military veterans and retired law enforcement during the Obama administration.
The Oath Keepers, alongside the Proud Boys, provided the engine for the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Rhodes was freed from prison after Trump’s second inauguration but did not receive a pardon.
Raiklin, then an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel, promoted the so-called “Pence Card” argument, holding that Vice President Mike Pence possessed the authority to set aside the results of the 2020 election.
The expectation that Pence would comply inflamed Trump’s supporters and helped fuel the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, when the former vice president refused to bend to pressure.
As Trump mounted his 2024 election bid, Raiklin launched a campaign as self-appointed “secretary of retribution,” featuring veiled threats of violence against perceived enemies.
Retired Lt. Col. Ivan Raiklin and self-styled "secretary of retribution" Ivan Raiklin at the Republican National Convention (Jordan Green/Raw Story)
Evans pleaded guilty to entering the Capitol and drinking Fireball whisky in a congressional conference room.
During the 2024 campaign, he joined Raiklin for a press conference, calling for “live-streamed swatting raids” against Trump’s enemies.
Raiklin met with law enforcement officials in Texas to detail his plans for recruiting sheriffs to arrest Trump’s enemies, Raw Story reported.
As Nassau county executive, Blakeman has hired armed citizens as special deputy sheriffs — what critics have called an unlawful personal militia, the New York Times reported.
In January, Rhodes and Raiklin held a press conference at the White House calling on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to stop Democrats winning the 2026 midterm elections and retaking Congress.
Raiklin has worked closely with Flynn, serving on the board of America’s Future, an organization led by Flynn and his sister. Raiklin took part in a 2024 tour to promote a documentary about Flynn.
Trump supporters storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times/TNS
Helfrich told Raw Story the America First Warehouse supports those who participated in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and she said she believes “the real insurrection happened on November 3 of 2020 when the deep state and the powers that be tried to overthrow a US presidential election.”
“We are 100 percent behind our fellow Patriot brothers and sisters who took a First Amendment stand that day to let Congress know that they didn't want a stolen election to be certified,” she said.
“We are extremely supportive advocates of the J6 community, and we do not see them as felons. We see them as politically persecuted patriots.”
Conspiracy theories
Stay Awake America’s “sizzle reel” to promote upcoming events features Cathy O’Brien, a conspiracy theorist who claims to be the victim of government mind control, and Judy Mikovits, a controversial virologist who equates vaccination with "extermination and sterilization.”
Mikovits was billed on the event where Blakeman was scheduled to appear.
Flynn appeared in the promotional video encouraging people to participate in the Stay Awake America movement.
Helfrich told Raw Story, “We love the people at the Stay Awake American tour,” and the warehouse has “the same mission.”
“The reason why we love their work is because we do believe that there's a lot that America is facing right now,” Helfrich said.
“Obviously, all of us are big President Trump supporters, and we love what he's doing, but he's only in office for another three years, and we do believe, a lot of us, that the country needs to stay awake and keep fighting beyond this term.”
Young’s X posts promoting the Stay Awake America tour frequently include the phrase “blitz 2026 midterms.”
Young frequently reshares posts from X accounts that promote the QAnon conspiracy theory, including one that in January revived the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which falsely claimed that Democrats ran a child sex trafficking operation in the basement of a DC pizzeria.
Young shares QAnon beliefs with staff at the America First Warehouse, the Trump-themed event space in Ronkonkoma.
Speaking in January on the podcast she co-hosts at the America First Warehouse, Helfrich said she decided to go to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 after a friend admonished her: “Where we go one, we go all.” Helfrich said she and her co-host, “Angie the Patriette,” have that QAnon slogan “tattooed on our bodies.”
Young has also re-shared posts on X that promote election denialism, celebrate Russian President Vladimir Putin, and push Islamophobia and antisemitism.
One post from QAnon promoter Liz Crokin that Young re-shared less than a week before the Ronkonkoma event insinuates that illegal tunnels discovered underneath the Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters in Brooklyn link Jews to child exploitation.
The tunnels were reportedly built by a radical offshoot of the Hasidic Jewish movement seeking to expand the site. There is no evidence of human trafficking at the site.
Exclusive: Republicans get staggering boost from mystery donors as 'arms race' heats up
The main super PAC supporting Senate Republicans saw a “huge spike” in dark money contributions in 2025, a sign of the massive arsenal the GOP is building to protect its hold on Congress in November’s midterm elections, according to a new report from political reform group Issue One first reported by Raw Story.
As Democrats aim to capitalize on the growing unpopularity of President Donald Trump and his Republican party and regain control of Congress, the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund skyrocketed dark money contributions by 581 percent in 2025 compared to 2023.
Michael Beckel, money in politics reform director at Issue One, said: “When you see an infusion of money like this, that usually means that these big money groups want to make sure that they have all of the resources they can muster to defend seats, to defend candidates, to defend their majority.”
At the same time, Senate Democrats saw a drop in dark money donations, Issue One said.
‘Arms race’
Dark money is money donated to political groups without disclosure of the source, as enabled by Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a controversial Supreme Court decision from 2010.
According to Issue One's analysis of campaign finance reports, in 2025 the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund super PAC brought in $35 million from its affiliated dark money group, One Nation, representing $1 out of every $3 raised.
In 2023, that number was $5.18 million, Beckel said.
Four major super PACs increased 2025 dark money contributions by 65 percent, according to a new report. Graphic: Issue One)
This indicates “just a surge of dark money coming into the main super PAC supporting Senate Republicans at a time when, clearly, there's a lot of political winds blowing that say Democrats have a fighting chance to win the U.S. House of Representatives and maybe even pick up seats in the Senate,” Beckel said.
The four main super PACs focused on electing Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate raised a combined $71 million from dark money sources in 2025: up 65 percent on the same point in the 2022 and 2024 election cycles, Issue One said.
“Both sides see this as an arms race where they don't want to put down any weapon, and when you see just huge sums of money coming in to influence elections from unknown donors, that raises serious questions about who's trying to buy access and influence in Washington,” Beckel said.
Republican and Democratic super PACs focused on the House maintained steady growth in dark money contributions, while the Senate Majority PAC, benefitting Democrats, received fewer dark money contributions in 2025, according to the report.
For every $4 raised for the Republican-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund, nearly $1 came from dark money group American Action Network, which totaled $17 million in 2025, according to Issue One.
On the Democratic side, about $1 of every $6 raised by the House Majority PAC and about $1 out of every $7 raised for Senate Majority PAC came from dark money group Majority Forward, totaling $11 million and $8 million in 2025.
“We continue to see this escalating arms race, and it's deeply concerning when you've got so much money from unknown donors coming in on both sides of the aisle,” Beckel said.
All four super PACs did not respond to Raw Story’s interview requests or declined to comment.
‘Massive war chest’
Beckel said he anticipates seeing significant amounts of dark money continuing to flow into these super PACs, especially around Senate races.
“There's going to be a huge battle over control of not just the House but the Senate, and wealthy donors who are evading the spotlight are helping Senate Republicans raise a massive war chest through their super PAC to defend those seats,” Beckel said.
Super PACs received massive dark money contributions ahead of 2024 election. Graphic: Issue One.
Among Senate seats not up for re-election this year, Democrats hold 34 and Republicans 31.
Two Democratic seats, held by Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia and in Michigan by retiring Sen. Gary Peters, and two Republican seats, held by Sen. Susan Collins in Maine and the North Carolina seat held by retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, are true toss-ups, according to the Cook Political Report.
Democrats’ narrow path to regain the Senate majority would require picking up seats in Alaska, North Carolina, Ohio and Maine, according to Cook.
During the 2023-24 election cycle, the four super PACs raised about $1 of every $5 from dark money groups. Dark money accounted for 21 percent of contributions to both parties’ Senate-focused PACs for the 2024 election, according to Issue One.
Issue One supports the DISCLOSE Act, legislation focused on increasing transparency and curbing the influence of dark money, which House and Senate Democrats reintroduced on Wednesday.
But with such a deeply divided Congress, Beckel said Issue One is focused on state-level reforms to reel in unlimited spending on elections by corporations and outside groups enabled by Citizens United.
“The warning here is that money from anonymous sources continues to play a major role in our elections, and I think voters all across the political spectrum are … deeply concerned and fed up about the amount of dark money that they're seeing in elections,” Beckel said.
'MAGA lost its luster': MTG’s old seat may flip as Trump and GOP 'made a lot of enemies'
When Republican firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned from Congress in January, as many as 22 candidates lined up to vie for her U.S. House seat in Georgia’s 14th District.
The vast majority were Republican. As of Monday, 12 remained in the March 10 special election race, giving Democrats hope that a split Republican vote might mean the seat can actually be flipped — despite its solid red rating and Greene’s definitive victories since 2020, when the high-profile, hard-right, conspiracy-theory-espousing politician was first elected.
Raw Story spoke with the three Democrats competing for the seat. With poor Republican polling under President Donald Trump and recent wins for Democrats in other red states, they presented different paths to victory.
Shawn Harris, a retired brigadier general and cattle producer, lost to Greene in 2024 and declared his 2026 candidacy prior to Greene’s surprise resignation announcement in November.
A Democratic win “is 100 percent realistic because this race here is completely switched,” Harris told Raw Story.
“Gotta keep in mind, whoever wins this race has never served in Congress before. Period.
“So now it goes back to people are actually looking at our résumés and looking at our background. They [are] looking at what we did before, and if I put my background up against anybody … people understand that, ‘Hey, this is the right guy.’”
Shawn Harris on his cattle farm in Rockmart, Ga. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
Democrats have been chipping away at Greene’s domination in GA-14 since 2020, when she won with 75 percent of the vote.
In 2022, after two years of Greene’s far-right antics on Capitol Hill, Democrat Marcus Flowers cut her share of votes by nearly 10 percent, capturing more than 88,000 of his own.
While Greene won about 64 percent of the vote against Harris in 2024, nearly 135,000 voters, a record, picked the Democrat.
“We're taking everything that we learned from the last race and brought it to this race,” Harris said.
“I just want to make sure that everybody in northwest Georgia understands that Shawn Harris is going to go to Washington, D.C., and the people that I'm working for, the hardworking people here in northwest Georgia … I don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican, my focus is you.”
Harris is far-and-away the biggest fundraiser in the race, having raised more than $2.2 million through the end of 2025, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings.
He has brought in more than $2.4 million in 2026, Renee Schaeffer, his campaign manager, told Raw Story.
The next closest fundraiser is Republican Clay Fuller, endorsed by President Trump, who raised more than $786,000 as of Feb. 18, according to FEC filings.
‘Anything can happen’
Clarence Blalock, a Democratic consultant running for Georgia commissioner of labor, faced Harris in a runoff in the 2024 primary.
Withdrawing his 2026 candidacy, Blalock endorsed Harris.
“Shawn has a chance to clear,” Blalock told Raw Story.
“At some point all that spending matters. He's going to be able to reach more people, reach low propensity voters.
“If he can resonate with some Republicans, or just basically get out every Democrat — because it's a special election, because it's going to be low turnout — if you turn out a higher percentage of your people, you can close that gap.”
Clarence Blalock in front of a restaurant in Rockmart, Ga. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
That happened in Georgia last year when Democrat Eric Gisler flipped a state House seat in a special election.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) counts Gisler’s victory in a Trump 12-point advantage seat as one of its biggest wins among the 26 seats the party has flipped since Trump’s re-election, said Sam Paisley, a spokesperson for the DLCC.
In Texas in February, Democrat Taylor Rehmet flipped a Republican state Senate district that favored Trump by 17 points — the DLCC’s first flip of 2026, a startling success that made national headlines.
“There actually probably are enough votes to win in these types of things, and in these specials, there's always a high level of chaoticness where anything can happen, too,” Blalock said.
In another state-level race, Blalock worked with Peter Hubbard, one of two Democrats to upset incumbent Republicans to win seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission, the first non-federal statewide wins for Democrats in Georgia in 19 years.
Even Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) celebrated the victories, calling them “a rejection of Trump-era policies.”
Towards the end of her time in Congress, Greene did the same — turning particularly fiercely against Trump over his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Now, Democrats in GA-14 are hopeful that frustration with Trump and his party, particularly around hardline federal immigration enforcement and the Epstein files, will result in more switched votes.
“MAGA’s lost a lot of luster,” Blalock said.
“Who wants to be associated with pedophilia? I don't. I just think people are getting tired of it.”
Harris said 5 percent of GA-14 voters who backed Trump in 2024 also voted for him.
He is distributing “Republicans for Shawn” signs and said he expects many more to back him this time.
“We're very confident that we're going to be able to get our Democrats out, the independents out and those Republicans that feel that the Republican Party has left them,” Harris said.
“They [are] still Republicans, but the current Republican Party has left them with MAGA, and they're going to come out and vote for me.”
‘Times change’
Harris said he has resonated with some conservatives who consider themselves Ronald Reagan or Bush-era Republicans, focused on the economy.
Another Democratic candidate, patent lawyer Jonathan Hobbs, said the working-class district leaned Democratic in the 1970s and 1980s, so voters fed up with the GOP could flip back.
Jonathan Hobbs (provided photo)
“History tells us the future,” Hobbs said.
“Times change, and Trump [and] Republicans have made a lot of enemies … Everything changes, and especially with the handling of the immigration issue, where people are getting shot, that's not good. This is totally mishandled.”
Jim Davis, an author and political scientist who worked on Ross Perot’s independent 1992 presidential campaign, is also running as a Democrat — and is less confident of success.
Jim Davis (provided photo)
He created a computer model that showed a path to victory if only two Democrats were in the race and Republicans split their votes.
But Davis said Democrats were “very, very unfriendly toward my candidacy,” and with three candidates, “I don't think there's as much hope for any of us as there once was.”
While all three Democrats agreed affordability is one of the largest issues in GA-14, Davis said Democrats have lacked “winning issues” and clear messaging about “What do you stand for?”
“Welfare is very hard for people to accept down here in our district, because their backs are already to the wall,” he said. “They feel like they don't want to contribute to anybody else.
“They're hard people because they've had a hard time, and until Democrats get something in front of that, they're not going anywhere. They've lost all the people. They've lost their voting base.”
To win, Democrats need to demonstrate their stances in a concrete way, such as proposing subsidized daycare, Davis said.
“You've got to do something to break out,” he said.
'It's chaos — we are in limbo': Supreme Court rebuke can’t stop Trump hurting heartland
President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs policy brought Ohio farmer Chris Gibbs into the national spotlight in Trump's first term, when he sent a message asking Trump to consider how his global trade war hurt American agriculture.
After Trump returned to the White House last year and enacted a stream of even more aggressive — if fluctuating — tariffs on global trade, Gibbs felt the need to speak out again.
“It’s such a déjà vu moment,” Gibbs said, “because we're right back in the same situation, right back there, right now, the same doggone thing as 2018.”
Gibbs was then a Republican but told Raw Story he came out “swinging pretty hard” in Trump’s first term when retaliatory tariffs caused the value of his soybeans to plummet 20 percent overnight.
“The party didn't want to stand behind that. They wanted to stand behind the president. I said, ‘No, I gotta protect my business,’ so I ended up leaving the party,” Gibbs said.
Chris Gibbs (provided photo)
Last Friday, after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision striking down Trump’s attempt to justify his tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Trump proceeded to announce a new global tariff of 10 percent, then 15 percent, under different legislation.
After blasting the Supreme Court justices who ruled against him in virulent terms, Trump seems certain to focus on the issue again in his State of the Union address, to Congress at the Capitol on Tuesday night.
Gibbs said: “The one thing I agree with Trump, and that is the Supreme Court got it all wrong, and what I mean by that is it should have been 9-0, not 6-3 because the president … never had that authority, and why there were still three Supreme Court justices that couldn't see that is disconcerting to me.”
‘I’m not going back’
Now chair of the Ohio Democratic Party Rural Caucus, Gibbs is continuing to speak out against tariffs, featuring in a new $5 million ad campaign from the Small Businesses Against Tariffs, a project from Defending Democracy Together Institute, an advocacy group formed by anti-Trump conservatives.
“I'm justified,” Gibbs said. “I'm not going back. I am where I'm going to be. I'm in the Democratic Party. I can make a difference here.
“I'm a Democrat because I want to be part of a party that looks for solutions for people, not retribution or revenge against individuals. It's just that simple.”
Gibbs has farmed in Maplewood, Ohio, for nearly 50 years, growing soybeans, corn and wheat and raising cattle. He said tariffs raise the prices of steel, lumber, machinery and other materials used on his farm.
Uncertainty fostered by Trump’s tariffs also strains relations with overseas trading partners, which in turn hurts the grains and agriculture industry in the U.S., Gibbs said.
“We’re on the verge of not becoming the first choice for agricultural supplies. We're now in an agricultural deficit, a trade deficit, which is very odd,” he said.
“The whole time that I've been in farming we were always proud of the trade surplus that agriculture had, and now we’ve moved that back to a trade deficit, so when we have adverse relationships with trading partners, that's how that backs up to me.”
Undeterred by the Supreme Court’s decision, on Monday, Trump said countries who “play games” over U.S. trade deals will face even higher tariffs under different laws.
“This has thrown the whole supply chain, trading sector, trading partners into absolute chaos,” Gibbs said.
Small businesses especially suffer under “ad hoc” and “unpredictable” trade policies, he added.
For the past four years, Gibbs said, his farm’s cost of production has been higher than his income.
“We don't know where we're at, as a farmer, number one for things that we use that come from overseas, but what about the crops that we want to sell into these other countries based on these handshake deals?” Gibbs said.
“It's chaos, and we are in limbo.”
‘Worst thing you can do’
Even as an established farmer with other sources of income such as a federal retirement account from working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Gibbs said he is struggling to pay his monthly bills.
Thinking about farmers with less cash flow who might need to rely on government assistance “makes me wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat,” he said.
“That's the worst thing you can do for an independent rancher is to put the government in a place where it's their only choice to seek relief is the taxpayer.
“There is nothing more demeaning, nothing more heart-wrenching. I call it the silent killer of the soul. That's what's happened before our eyes, to our nation's farmers.”