Thomas Roberts Interviews Jimmy LaSalvia: Is GOP Embracing Gay Marriage?
Thomas Roberts today interviewed GOProud co-founder and executive director Jimmy LaSalvia, who tells the MSNBC host, “I don’t think conservatives are any different than anyone else in America.” LaSalvia thinks the GOP is undergoing a transformation, despite most evidence to the contrary.
Roberts had to remind LaSalvia that every GOP candidate (with very few exceptions) does not support same-sex marriage. Roberts should have asked LaSalvia to comment on the recent outpourings of hate from the GOP, like these, which all happened in the past three weeks:
GOP Congressman: ENDA Part Of Obama’s ‘Ongoing War On Religion’
On Our Radar – The Oxymorons Of The North Carolina Republican Party
GOP Lawmaker: Being Gay ‘Cuts About 20 Years Off Your Life’
LaSalvia, who actually missed an opportunity to harshly attack the Left, as his GOProud partner generally does every chance he gets, did claim that President Obama was forced to take a stand for marriage by the left.
“Well, remember that President Obama was dragged kicking and screaming by his grassroots base to that position, and what’s happening in the conservative movement among grassroots conservatives is a shift in opinion and discussion on this,” LaSalvia said.
Perhaps he’s softening. Last year, LaSalvia said:
“That’s where we experience the most intolerance. The gay Left is, by far, the most intolerant toward us,†LaSalvia said on “The Brian Lehrer Show,†echoing his boilerplate rhetoric stump speech. “Us,†meaning, conservative gays.
Right…
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Raw transcript via MSNBC:
>>> welcome back, everybody. the question of whether the legalization of marriage equality should be overturned in washington state is going public. opponents of same-sex marriage now backing initiative 74 as it’s called. gathered nearly 250,000 signatures to qualify it as a referendum on the november ballot. still, there’s a question of just how legit some of those signatures are. election officials say they are investigating approximately 1,000 that appear to be fraudulent. however, over the past year, leading democrats along with president obama have voiced support for marriage equality and other lgbt issues but support on the republican side, that’s also growing. the gop now has its own pro- marriage equality super pac so is this a game changer for the grand old party? timmy is executive director of go proud. as we talk about the new superpac, american unity pac launched by the hedge fund guy paul e. singer, a heavyweight for your party. does it mean conservatives are evolving, distancing themselves from pro-discrimination-type thinking when it comes to the lgbt community rethinking the stance on marriage equality? >> thanks for having me. i don’t think conservatives are any different than anyone else in america. in 2012 every person has a gay person in their life, friends and family. mr. singer has gay people in his family, we all have come to think about these issues in a very personal way, and so everyone in america is having this discussion and thinking about these things in a personal way, and many people, including many conservatives, are coming to the conclusion that supporting same-sex civil marriage is the right thing to do. >> jimmy, when you talk about conservatives not being different from other people in america, the gop contender is not for marriage equality, there are many who came out as well and the president demonstrated he’s pro- marriage equality so how do those two equate that you’re saying conservatives aren’t different when the person that most conservatives would like to elect to be president is against it? >> well, remember that president obama was dragged kicking and screaming by his grassroots base to that position, and what’s happening in the conservative movement among grassroots conservatives is a shift in opinion and discussion on this, and we’re seeing particularly among young conservatives, i don’t talk to any young people when i’m across the country talking to young people, almost all of them either support same-sex marriage or think like i do, that the state should decide it, and so it’s very much a generational thing. we know that politicians don’t always lead on difficult issues like this. so you know, i disagree with mitt romney on this issue. i think the states should decide marriage. i think that marriage is good for people and i think it’s a conservative position, and more and more of my fellow conservatives are joining me and others in that position. >> jimmy, is it an incentive like a superpac like the one singer created is that enough incentive to get the attention of someone like mitt romney and to go back to the way he used to feel about marriage equality when he was trying too beat teddy kennedy in massachusetts when he said he’d be to the left of him when he went back to the far fringes of the right? >> i don’t know, you’ll have to talk to mitt romney about that. it’s evidence of the way paul singer leads his life, he supports republicans because he knows conservative policies are good for the country and he supports gay issues because he knows that it’s good for gay people and his family, and so he loves his country and his family and that’s just evidence in that superpac, you know, what governor romney thinks about it, i don’t know, but it’s certainly good sign of progress that the conservative movement and republican party is having this same discussion that the rest of america is having. >> we’ll continue to watch it. go proud executive director jimmy lasalvia, thank you for your time.
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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
