Perhaps, if you reach deep into the recesses of your memory palace, you’ll recall Carlos Gavida: Donald Trump’s No. 1 fan, a Florida man so engorged with feelings for the president he wrapped his boat, which he christened Trump, in $7,000 worth of Trump-branded vinyl and hosted a Trump-themed boat parade he called, naturally, “Trumptilla.”
Since the man made news for sailing Trump the boat from Jupiter, Florida, to Mar-a-Lago—and for claiming to have cured his coronavirus with hydroxychloroquine—he’s appeared semi-regularly on the margins of the president’s fan club, posing with Trump family members in Instagram photos, sitting for an interview with Sean Hannity, and most recently attending the campaign rally on the White House Lawn.
Gavida’s past, as one might imagine, has not held up particularly well to scrutiny—in 2009, two investors involved with his credit card processing business sued him, claiming he was running a “racketeering enterprise,” though they never ended up in court. But Gavida has had a particularly tense relationship with the residents of Admiral’s Cove, the property association where he docks Trump the boat.
Residents have reportedly been unhappy with Gavida’s political antics, and in May, the boat enthusiast reportedly crashed his Porshe into a palm tree and abandoned the vehicle, an incident he’s since said stemmed from one of his flip-flops getting stuck under the accelerator.
Gavida’s disagreements with his neighbors have now become of interest to the long arm of the law: On Tuesday, he surrendered himself to authorities after being charged with issuing a written threat to kill or do bodily injury, a felony that could land him in prison for up to 15 years. At issue are two incidents at Admiral’s Cove: one in which a resident asked him to wear a mask while dining, and another, a few nights later, when Gavida allegedly accosted the same man, calling him a “little Jew” and telling him he’d “fucked with the wrong guy.”
Prior to being arrested, Gavida took to Facebook to contest the charges, calling them “bogus.” The post was accompanied by a photo of Gavida and Roger Stone.
Less than 24 hours after Donald Trump held a press briefing and sat for an interview with Fox’s Laura Ingraham, his statements have circulated widely, but it’s worth recapping what the president said over the course of a few hours.
The president declined to condemn Kyle Rittenhouse and claimed without evidence the 17-year-old who is being charged with six criminal counts was acting in self-defense. The president, apparently seizing on a months-old conspiracy theory, said “thugs” had boarded an airplane to seed unrest, “wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms, with gear and this and that.” The president said cops who shoot people are like golfers who “choke,” and that Joe Biden is being controlled by unnamed people in “dark shadows,” “people that you’ve never heard of.”
When Twitter removed a post the president had retweeted from a QAnon-affiliated account claiming, among other things, that the coronavirus death toll was only 6 percent of what had been reported by the CDC, the president’s press secretary said “he was highlighting new CDC information that came out that was worth noting.”
- Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to voters: Hello fellow youth. [The Verge]
- Vice President Pence will be visiting Gateway Women’s Care, a health clinic that says abortions cause breast cancer. [CNN]
- Breonna Taylor’s ex was reportedly offered a plea deal to confess she was part of a “crime syndicate.” [Washington Post]
- Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, tells Tucker Carlson the feds are “working on” charging BLM protestors. [Daily Beast]
- The U.S. will not be joining the WHO-linked effort to develop and distribute coronavirus vaccines. [Washington Post]
- Government food aid boxes will contain a letter from, who else, Donald Trump. [ProPublica]
- In Kenosha Donald Trump called protests “domestic terror” and said “this ended within an hour, as soon as we announced we were coming.” [Washington Post]