What Do Nicki Minaj, JD Vance, and Grindr Have in Common?

Welcome back to Monday Barf Bag.

If you’re suddenly feeling the desire to cringe so hard your spine pops out your back, look no further than Arizona, where the members and admirers of Turning Point USA just gathered for the group’s annual Americafest Convention.

Nicki Minaj was a particular show-stopper at the weekend convention, where she proclaimed her “love” for Vice President JD Vance and President Donald Trump; lamented about a bygone era of being able to “think out loud”; and took another swipe at Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) by referencing to him as “New-scum,” a nickname recently assigned by Trump. Sunday also seemed to be a final baptism into MAGA World for Minaj, who’s been circling the far-right Republican base for a while, but it seemed to accelerate in November, after she amplified the White House’s contested claims about an ongoing genocide against Christians in Nigeria.

Speaking to Erika Kirk, a militant fanatic of MAGA’s tradwife movement, Minaj said, “This administration is full of people with heart and soul, and they make me proud of them.” Trump and Vance “have a very uncanny ability to be someone that you relate to,” she added. Given her not-so-great taste in men, are we really that surprised?

In one particularly awkward moment, Minaj—still speaking to the widowed Kirk—called Vance an “assassin” while describing his political doggedness. Oops. She started to cover her mouth in dumb shock before Kirk diffused the tension, smiling while she said, “Trust me, there’s nothing new under the sun that I have not heard, so you’re fine.” She added, “You have to laugh about it truly,” adding, “You know what? God is so good, you’ll let it roll right off your back…if the internet wants to clip [this moment], who cares? I love this woman.” This is your final three brain cells on MAGA.

Vance also took center-stage at the shit-show convention, having a(nother) warm embrace with Kirk; refusing to condemn the GOP’s recent antisemitic streak; and bragging that, “by the grace of God we will always be a Christian nation.”

“We have relegated DEI to the dustbin of history, which is exactly where it had belonged,” he continued. “In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.” Translation: the Trump administration’s war on DEI has led to the freezing of necessary family planning services; the vanishing of a mandated yearly reports on indigenous deaths and disappearances; and the State Department’s decision to label any DEI policy abroad as a human rights violation. The only thing here that belongs in the dustbin of history is the current administration.

And because no conservative convention can ever take place without Grindr outages, the app reported a temporary service disruption in just that area in Arizona on Sunday. And considering the latest episode of Heated Rivalry, I don’t blame them!

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More barf:

• The Justice Department finally released thousands of Epstein-related documents. But Trump was pretty much scrubbed from all of them… even in the ones that had already been released. [Axios]
• Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said they’re considering charging Attorney General Pam Bondi with contempt over the released files. (NPR)
• Uh oh. Another shutdown has been threatened. (The Hill)
• Vance told Nick Fuentes, a literal Nazi, and Jen Psaki, the former White House Press Secretary, to “eat shit.” (UnHerd)
• Gov. Jeff Landry (R-La.) got tapped to become a Greenland Special Envoy, where he’ll focus on making the Danish territory American. Which is… not how any of this works. (NBC News)

This has been your Monday Barf Bag, thanks for reading!