
S.E. Cupp, conservative CNN political commentator and host of Off the Cupp with S.E. Cupp, on iHeartRadio, says that MAGA influencers are stooping to new levels in trying to prove their loyalty to President Donald Trump.
Cupp recalls the 2005 "Access Hollywood" bombshell released during Trump's first presidential campaign in which he told host Billy Bush, “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything … You can do anything.”
"It was mayhem after that," Cupp recalls. "Was this the end of Trump’s candidacy? Dozens of Republican lawmakers called for him to drop out."
"As we all know, the revelation that the Republican nominee for president admitted to sexually assaulting women did not derail his candidacy," she adds.
Cupp recalls a visceral reaction when covering this, saying, "for those of us covering this, it was a low point. I remember sitting across from Jake Tapper at CNN, a friend and colleague and someone I admire and respect, and having to talk about this sordid, lewd, crass, gross comments, and the sordid, lewd, crass, gross man who said them."
"I felt embarrassed — I couldn’t believe that this is what we were talking about. Nowhere in my journalism career did I think I’d be discussing a presidential candidate who bragged about grabbing a woman’s genitalia," she adds.
Nine years later, she writes, not much has changed, though things have gotten remarkably worse.
"It feels like we’re in a similar place, having crossed yet another unfortunate Rubicon into the moral abyss," she writes.
Cupp describes MAGA influencers with "massive platforms" trying to inexplicably whitewash, among other things, white supremacy and
Two of the major story lines in politics today involve MAGA influencers with massive platforms, who are inexplicably white-washing white supremacy and sexual crimes committed on children.
"If you haven’t heard, Tucker Carlson has devolved into a conspiracy-theory spouting, despot-defending, neo-Nazi protecting weirdo," she explains.
Cupp says that Carlson's platforming of self-professed neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes "sparked an internecine battle on the right over whether laundering the reputations of white supremacists is a good idea. Believe it or not, many are defending it. Including the president."
In addition to defending Carlson, former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, Cupp writes, has been "white-washing Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, too.
The decision to protect neo-Nazis and child sex traffickers, she writes, "just because it might benefit Trump in some way, is a precipice I never thought I’d see so-called conservatives walk up to. And yet, here they are, giddily leaping off of it."
The bar has been set so low, Cupp says, that she wonders where it can go next.
"Trump ushered in so many ugly elements, from white supremacy to rank misogyny. And the MAGA influencers who hitched their wagons to his star have to out-gross each other to prove their loyalty and keep their subscribers sufficiently radicalized," she says.
"For these unconscionable ghouls and sell-outs, nowhere is too low. Seriously, if they’re able to normalize neo-Nazis and [sexual crimes against children], what else is left?" Cupp wonders.

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