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Watch: Club Q Owner Testifies Before Congress About ‘Hundreds’ of Messages of Hate He Received After Anti-LGBTQ Attack
The hate crime mass shooting during a drag show at Club Q, a Colorado Springs nightclub that catered to LGBTQ people and their friends and families, left five people dead, 25 people injured, and a suspect with 305 criminal charges. Club Q co-owner Matthew Haynes testified before Congress Wednesday, telling lawmakers that LGBTQ people are being “slaughtered and dehumanized,” as he read a few excerpts from what he says are the “hundreds” of messages of hate he received in the wake of the attack.
On December 1, the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security published its latest terrorism threat report, and for the first time LGBTQI+ people were listed as “targets of potential violence,” which DHS warned could be “lethal.”
Haynes warned the House Oversight Committee during its hearing on “The Rise of Anti-LGBTQI+ Extremism and Violence in the United States,” that “thoughts and prayers alone are not saving lives. They are not changing the rhetoric of hate. None of us ever imagined that our little bar in Colorado Springs would be the target of the next hate crime. And again, repeat, we were targeted for the next hate crime.”
“We need safe places like Club Q now more than ever, and we need you, our leaders, to support and protect us,” he said, and went on to read from some of the messages he received.
(Warning: graphic and triggering language below and in the videos.)
Reading from one message, Haynes said: “I woke up to the wonderful news that five mentally unstable f*****s and lesbians and 18 injured.”
“The only thing I’m mad about is that the f*****s had courage to subdue the wonderful killer. I hope more shootings happen. Have a blessed day,” he continued, from the same message.
“The shooter was doing God’s work. Five less f*****s. Not enough. Those that stopped him are the devil,”Haynes said, reading from another message.
“All gays should die,” said another message.
Club Q co-owner Matthew Haynes reads hate messages after shooting at his LGBTQ+ club:
“I woke up to the wonderful news that five mentally unstable fa**ots and lesbians and 18 injured. The only thing I’m mad about is that the fa**ots had courage to subdue the wonderful killer.” pic.twitter.com/PUNC7OVQ4H
— The Recount (@therecount) December 14, 2022
“This is hate,” Haynes told Congress.
“It is not just us that is experiencing this. Our hero, Army Veteran Rich Fierro,” one of the people credited with taking down the shooter, “and his wife Jessica told me that they and their daughter have also been receiving similar hate messages.”
Haynes also took the opportunity to blast the 169 House Republicans who voted against the Respect for Marriage Act.
“Finally,” he told the Committee, “my husband and I had the honor to attend the White House ceremony for the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act yesterday. It was honestly the first joy and pride I have felt since these horrific events at Club Q, and while the protections for marriage, like my own, were signed into federal law, I could not help but reflect that 169 Members of Congress voted against that bill.”
“169 of your colleagues hiding behind excuses and schematics and other reasons sent a message to me and it was a clear message that the entire community – I’m sorry, to me and the entire community – that you do not respect my marriage. And through your inaction and your vote you as a leader send a clear message it is okay not to respect the basic human rights of loving who you love. And it is okay to disrespect and not support our marriages.”
“We are being slaughtered and dehumanized across this country in communities you took oaths to protect. LGBTQ issues are not political issues. They are not ‘lifestyles,’ they are not beliefs. They are not choices. They are basic human rights. And so I ask you today, not simply, what are you doing to safeguard LGBTQ Americans but rather, what are you or other leaders doing to make America unsafe for LGBTQ people?”
“Club Q is grieving. We are rebuilding we are fighting. Let’s stop this from happening again. Thank you.”
Watch Haynes’ full opening statement below, his reading from hate messages above, or both at this link.
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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
