‘Sick Irony’: Anderson Cooper Grills Florida AG Pam Bondi Over Her History of Anti-Gay Attacks (Video)
GOP Attorney General Confronted With Horribly Anti-Gay Record in Wake of Orlando Terror Attack
For more than five minutes CNN’s Anderson Cooper grilled Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi over her anti-gay record live on-air Tuesday afternoon. Bondi was confronted with her horrible anti-gay attacks just days after the nation’s deadliest mass shooting, and worst terror attack since 9/11, which had targeted the LGBT community.
Cooper first challenged Bondi for positioning herself as a champion of the LGBT community on Sunday, when she said, “Anyone who attacks our LGBT community, anyone who attacks anyone in our state, will be gone after to the fullest extent of the law.”
The CNN journalist directly told Bondi that he has talked with LGBT people in Florida “who are not fans of yours and they thought you were being a hypocrite.” He then reminded her that “for years” she has “gone after gay people,” and “said in court that gay people simply by fighting for marriage equality, were trying to do harm to the people of Florida, to ‘induce public harm,’ I believe is the term you used in court. Do you really think that you’re a champion of the gay community?,” he asked a seemingly stunned Bondi.
The Republican attorney general responded by saying she was sworn to uphold the constitution of the State of Florida, and defending the marriage amendment was part of her job. It should be noted that when he was the US Attorney General, Eric Holder specifically told state AGs they were under no obligation to defend marriage bans if they believe them to be unconstitutional.
“I’ve never said I don’t like gay people, that’s ridiculous,” Bondi charged.
“Do you worry about using language accusing gay people of ‘doing harm’ to the people of Florida when doesn’t that send a message to people who might have bad ideas in mind?,” Cooper pressed.
“Anderson, I don’t believe gay people could do harm to the state of Florida,” Bondi responded. Cooper interjected, “But you argued that in court.”
“My lawyer argued a case defending what the Supreme Court allowed the voters to put in our state constitution,” Bondi said.
Bondi also insisted she never said same-sex marriage would do harm to Florida. “Of course not, of course not,” she told Cooper. “I never said that. Those words never came out of my mouth.”
“That’s what you were arguing in court,” Cooper insisted.
“You know, no. No,” Bondi responded. “What we argued was it was in the constitution of the state of Florida.”
Cooper continued to drill and grill the Republican AG, noting that on television she has been telling Floridians of a hotline they can call to learn the status of their loved ones.
“Had there been no gay marriage, no same-sex marriage, you do realize that spouses, there would be no spouses, that boyfriends and girlfriends of the dead would not be able to get information and would not be able to call or visit in the hospital here. Isn’t there a sick irony in that?” Cooper asked.
“Let me take it a step further. People aren’t right now who are partners and aren’t married, officially aren’t able to get information so we’re trying to assist them in getting information. Because early on –“
Cooper interrupted, “But isn’t there a sick irony that you for years were fighting that very idea?”
“I was defending the constitution of what over 69 percent of the voters put in the constitution,” Bondi said.
“But the courts, the federal courts said that’s not the constitution and you continued to fight it,” Cooper said, noting she took it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and that he “continued to fight it after the federal judge ruled and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting it.”
RELATED:Â Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Battle Against Same-Sex Marriage Will Cost Florida Taxpayers $500,000
Bondi challenged Cooper, saying “we rushed to get it to the Supreme Court.”
Moving to change topics, Bondi said, “You know what today is about? Human beings. Today’s about victims.”
“It’s about gay and lesbian victims,” Cooper retorted.
“It sure is,” Bondi replied. “LGBT victims.”
“Is it hypocritical to portray yourself as a champion of the gay community when – I’m just reflecting what gay people told me they don’t see you as this.”
“Anderson,” Bondi, exasperated, said, “I’m not portraying myself as anything but trying to help human beings who have lost their lives, who are behind us right now in hospital beds, who have family members who aren’t getting the services they need.”
“This morning,” she continued, “you know what I’ve been doing? Trying to fight with a funeral home for overcharging family members to bury the loved ones. I’m not championing anything other than Floridians. That’s what this is about. We are about human beings.”
“I will say,” Cooper, unrelenting, continued, “I have never really seen you talk about gays and lesbians and transgender people in a positive way until now. I read your Twitter history for the last year and you were tweeting about, you know, National Dog Month and National Shelter Dog Appreciation Day, or Adopt a Shelter Dog Day. It is Gay Pride Month. You never even tweeted about Gay Pride Month.”
“Well actually, if you look at my website now,” Bondi urged, “we have hands clasped together, all different-colored, rainbow-hands people,” Bondi said.
An examination of Bondi’s official government website, campaign website, Twitter page, and Facebook pages here and here, show nothing that appears like what she mentioned. Â
“Moving forward, do you see yourself as being a vocal champion for gay and lesbian citizens in the state?,” Cooper asked.
“They are citizens just like anyone else. Of course. My goodness, Anderson, we’ve had 49 people murdered, simply because they were in a bar at the wrong time. It’s horrible. I’m a career prosecutor. Those family members are devastated. These surviving victims are devastated. That’s what this is about.”
“I know a lot of gay and lesbian people in the state want to feel that the people that represent them, represent everybody in the state.”
“We’re human beings, and that’s what this is about,” Bondi said. “That’s what this is about.”
In 2014 Bondi filed court documents which claimed that recognizing out-of-state legal civil same-sex marriages would “impose significant public harm†and play havoc with existing marriage laws in the Sunshine State. She also implied that same-sex couples do not create “stable and enduring family units.”
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Thanks to Politico for much of the transcript
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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
