Romney Intern Says 2002 Pro-Gay Flyers Were From Official Campaign
Mitt Romney‘s former Communications Director claims to have no idea where pink flyers announcing then-Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s support of equal rights for gays — despite the fact that they include the tag line “Paid for by the Romney for Governor Committee” — came from. The flyers, along with the news that Romney attempted to court the LGBT community in a senatorial race against Ted Kennedy, made news Sunday at a GOP debate. But a former campaign intern has gone on the record to state the flyers were official campaign literature.
“Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney’s chief spokesman, told The Huffington Post that the flyers were not official literature from Romney’s 2002 run,” reports Sam Stein:
“I don’t know where those pink flyers came from. I was the communications director on the 2002 campaign. I don’t know who distributed them … I never saw them and I was the communications director,” Fehrnstrom said in the spin room after Sunday morning’s GOP presidential debate here.
Fehrnstrom said he had no idea who had distributed the flyers. “I never saw them and I never approved them. I’m not quite sure where they came from.”
Romney’s critics have pointed to the flyer, reportedly disseminated during a gay pride parade in 2002, as evidence that he once presented himself to voters as tolerant of gay rights, on some level. It was referenced repeatedly during Romney’s first run for president in 2008 and was again raised on Sunday, when Romney was asked during the debate to clarify his position on same-sex marriage.
But Buzzfeed proves Fehrnstrom wrong, reporting moments ago that “a former Romney campaign volunteer who is now a fiscal policy scholar at a conservative think tank told BuzzFeed the flyer calling for ‘equal rights’ were in fact campaign literature.”
The Manhattan Institute’s Josh Barro told BuzzFeed he was a college intern for Romney’s campaign at the wage of $150 per month and the task of answering mail to Romney’s running mate, Kerry Healey.
“On pride weekend, the campaign sent a contingent of about a half-dozen of us to the post-parade festival on Boston Common to hand out those flyers,” he said in an email.
“The thing was organized by a full-time staffer,” he said, adding that he couldn’t recall her name.
Sunday at the Meet The Press GOP debate, Andy Hiller, political editor for local Massachusetts TV station WHDH said:
“Governor Romney, I’d like to remind you of something you said in Bay Windows, which is a gay newspaper in Massachusetts, in 1994 when you were running against  Senator Kennedy. These are your words: ‘I think the gay community needs more support from the Republican Party and I would be a voice in the Republican party to foster anti-discrimination efforts.’ How have you stood up for gay rights and when have you used your voice to influence Republicans on this issue?â€
Romney side-stepped his support of LGBT rights from decades past at the debate, stating unequivocally that he is against same-sex marriage, while insisting he does not discriminate, suggesting that his discrimination against same-sex marriage actually increased gay rights.
Try squaring that circle.
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President Donald Trump concluded his executive time Friday morning with a statement announcing he would end the U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and laid out his requirements for a deal with Iran, before declaring, “I will be meeting now, in the Situation Room, to make a final determination.”
After a two-hour meeting with his advisors, Trump left without making a decision.
“It was not clear why Mr. Trump did not reach a decision,” The New York Times reports.
“In recent days, the sides have exchanged fire, and Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened a return to full-scale war,” the Times added.
Among Trump’s demands were that the Strait be reopened “immediately,” with no tolls imposed on traffic, and all water mines removed — although he noted, “we have removed, through detonation, numerous such mines with our great underwater mine sweepers.”
“Ships caught in the Strait due to our amazing and unprecedented Naval Blockade, which will now be lifted, may start the process of ‘heading home!’ Say hello to your wives, husbands, parents, and families from me, your favorite President,” he wrote. Trump added: “No money will be exchanged, until further notice.”
READ MORE: Judge: Trump Cannot Rename Kennedy Center
Were an agreement to be reached, the Times noted, “it could give Mr. Trump an off-ramp from a war that has driven up oil prices and grown deeply unpopular at home. It could also eventually allow Iran to regain access to frozen overseas assets and provide a route for Tehran to get billions of dollars of oil revenue flowing again.”
Even if the Strait reopened immediately, experts warn, replacing the lost oil could take months.
“The spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, Esmail Baghaei, said in a telephone interview with Iranian state media on Friday that current negotiations were limited in scope and did not include ‘the nuclear issue,'” the Times reports. Trump did specifically state that “Iran must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb.”
He also mentioned “nuclear dust,” writing that it “is buried deep underground with virtually collapsed mountains, caused by our powerful B2 Bomber attack 11 months ago, sitting on top of it.”
The president said that it “will be unearthed by the United States (which, it is agreed, is the only Country, along with China, with the mechanical capability of doing so!), in close coordination and conjunction with the Islamic Republic of Iran, plus the International Atomic Energy Agency, and destroyed.”
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Image via Reuters
A federal judge has ordered that President Donald Trump cannot rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, nor may he close it for what the Trump administration said were two years of renovations.
“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” the judge wrote, CNBC reports. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
Just weeks after he was sworn into office, Trump removed members of the board of the Kennedy Center and replaced them with allies and administration officials, including Richard Grenell, Pam Bondi, and Susie Wiles. The new board then voted for Trump to become chairman of the Kennedy Center.
In December, after the White House announced that the board of the Kennedy Center — the official, “living memorial” to the late president — had voted to rename the iconic cultural institution the Trump-Kennedy Center, several members of the Kennedy family took the opportunity to denounce the move.
Maria Shriver, the former First Lady of California, wrote: “The Kennedy Center was named after my uncle, President John F Kennedy.”
She called the renaming “beyond comprehension,” “beyond wild,” “downright weird,” and “obsessive in a weird way,” while explaining that the Kennedy Center was named in honor of a man who was interested in the arts, culture, education, language, and history.
“Next thing perhaps he will want to rename JFK Airport, rename the Lincoln Memorial, the Trump Lincoln Memorial,” she said. “The Trump Jefferson Memorial. The Trump Smithsonian. The list goes on.”
May 17 is President John F. Kennedy’s birthday, he was born in 1917.
This article has been updated.
Image via Reuters
The Villages in Florida is deep red Trump country — it’s called the “largest retirement community in the world,” where nearly seven out of 10 county residents voted for Trump in 2024. It’s roughly four hours to President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and resort, and it’s not unusual to see Trump flags on the backs of residents’ golf carts.
Trump visited The Villages just a few weeks ago, where one resident told BBC News, “we’re as red as red gets.”
“The Village are very Republican and very Trumpster,” said another.
“Trump 2028!” declared another, waving his fist.
But the tide appears to be turning in Florida, where several polls spell bad news for Trump. His approval is underwater in one poll from April, and one released on Thursday shows a majority of Florida voters hold a negative view of the president.
Still, some may find a letter to the editor in The Villages local news declaring “MAGA has abandoned core Republican principles” surprising.
The letter declares MAGA is “not conservatism,” but rather a “betrayal” that has “embraced indulgence.”
“The irony is cruel,” says the letter writer, Carl Young. “Those who once railed against ‘big government’ now defend its excesses when it serves their side. The philosophy of restraint has been replaced by the politics of spectacle. Rome is burning, and the arsonists call the flames freedom.”
Young scorches Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that he says “produced the highest deficit spending in history.”
Citing dystopian and totalitarian works by George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, and Ayn Rand, he writes: “This is not renewal but regression. America has been dragged into an alternate 1984, where responsibility collapses and chaos parades as strength. The political temperature has risen to 451. The pigs now rule the farm.”
“These were never meant as prophecies. They were warnings,” he continues. “Atlas has finally shrugged.”
Image via Shutterstock
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