Harvey Fierstein On Russia: Gays ‘Will Not Be The Scapegoat Of The World Any Longer’ (Video)
Last night, MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes invited the iconic Harvey Fierstein and Dan Savage to talk about Russia and their anti-gay laws on his show, “All In.” Both men have been at the forefront of making the general public in America aware of the atrocities of Vladimir Putin‘s war on gays.
Here’s Chris Hayes’ interview with Savage:Â Dan Savage Explains Why Stoli Is A Russian Vodka And Why The Russian Vodka Boycott Is Working
Fierstein had taken issue with Hayes’ previous coverage, and written this scathing rebuke via Facebook on Tuesday:
I watched the Chris Hayes show last night with open mouth. One would swear the entire Russian controversy was about the stupid Olympics. I wondered if there is any way to reach a white male Christian heterosexual and let them know what it’s like to live in fear of your safety. I wonder if he’d be so off-topic if our elected officials threatened to pass a law that would remove his baby from his home. Might that wake these folks up? Because that’s what’s happening to us, Mr Hayes.
Fierstein told Hayes, “What’s going on in Russia is absolutely frightening.”
“The gay community has in our history been attacked in every way you can attack a group,” Fierstein said. “There’s nothing that the human race has thought of to tear down other people that hasn’t been used on us. Thankfully we have over the centuries, over the decades and over the last few years made some great strides where people realize we’re just human beings, we are your family, we’re not a strange group from somewhere else. We belong in your family, we’re teachers, parents, children. Those strides have been made. My feeling is, at this point it is time to stop being scapegoats for the rest of the world. Putin is not doing these laws because he believes this. I don’t know what his real agenda is, but I have to assume it has something to do with money. With Putin, it always does. I assume he’s trying to get his right wing people behind him, and everyone loves to hate a homo. He gets the church behind him, he has his wing behind him. And he can go out and do whatever it is he’s doing and no one’s looking that way.”
“I will fight that injustice here on American soil. I will fight it in russia, I will fight it in Uganda. It’s time for us to put our foot down and say we will not be the scapegoat of the world any longer.”
“Putin says he’s doing this to protect children. Now everyone knows that 25 to 40% of all gay youth attempt suicide. The statistics go up when a law is passed against someone. There’s something official done. You want to protect children, you’re killing children. And then in the united states, I’m not sure about the figures in other countries, 40% of the homeless children are gay and lesbian, either because they’ve been thrown out by their own parents or they have so much self-loathing they feel their parents will never love them and they leave home. If you love your children, have you to be in there.”
Fierstein also talked about all of Putin’s anti-gay laws, including one that reportedly is ready to be passed: removing children from homes of same-sex couples.
“You cannot just ignore evil. When evil shows its face you have to answer. When you don’t answer, look what happened, you were talking about Hitler, so we went to the Olympics in Germany, right? Yes, they took down the anti-Jewish posters for two weeks, what happened? Owens won a gold medal and then 6 million Jews were killed. What if the world had turned their back on Hitler, what if the world had left Germany empty for those Olympics?”
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After the show, Fierstein posted this note of appreciation:
I want to publicly thank Chris Hayes for listening to what we had to say. Let’s keep the doors of communication open. We have the ability to change the world for good. Let’s not waste our chance.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
