That one I don’t believe (the golden showers part). He’s too much of a clean freak.
The Sybian room at MTG’s mansion is an exact replica of a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room.
And I think you are correct for believing it. The source of the rumor was the Steele report. Back in 2015, the report was published on line, and I read it. About 90 percent of it was very dull recounting of numbers about real estate deals in the ex Soviet Union. The introductory section talked about a party at a hotel in Moscow that Trump was present at, and where the hosts of the party, a collection of Russian bankers with KGB ties, hired some women to put on a sex show. That was it.
Trump attended a party where some Russian hookers put on a show. It was never alleged in the Steele report that Trump participated. That was all made up after the fact by comedians.
I certainly don’t like Trump, but I do think the persistant rumors about a pee fetish are unfair.
I’ll certainly buy that he got “involved” with the hookers, though.
Maybe, maybe not. It was not alleged in the Steele report though. Steele did say that since the party was organized by ex KGB officials, if anyone did get involved with the hookers, it was almost certainly recorded.
A cynical speech supposedly aimed at unsophisticated Florida voters was attributed to [George] Smathers in the April 17, 1950, edition of Time magazine:
“Are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law, he has a brother who is a known homo sapiens, and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper, before his marriage, habitually practiced celibacy.”
Smathers won, and served three terms in the Senate
Just for the record, I assume we’re talking about semi-credible, or at least plausible rumors, rather than the ones that go into la-la-land/Conspiracy theory types. Because if the latter, well, little beats the “Politician XYZ is dead, it’s an actor/fake/AI” or “Politician/Royal ABC is a Lizard Person/Alien/etc.”
Because Pizzagate is IMHO pretty close to the latter, and my vote (outside the extremes I mentioned above), but we’re talking a huge spectrum.
Candidate adjacent: Roger Stone’s parents were big fans of the comic strip Zippy the Pinhead, so when he was young, they had him wear a helmet which gave his skull that distinctive shape.
I don’t know if the Harris/Walz campaign advertised on porn sites - I would suspect not - but I did hear an interview on NPR about something like that. Let’s see if I can find it - aha:
https://www.npr.org/2024/11/01/nx-s1-5168877/2024-election-pac-trump-porn-sites
(The article notes that PornHub, in particular, does not accept political advertising.)
So this was a - very - independent PAC that was doing this, not the campaign itself (i.e. you would never have the “I approve this message” verbiage on such ads).
And that one was a dead ringer for Ivanka.
Seems like no one has yet mentioned this famous claim by John Birch Society founder (and candy mogul} Robert Welch:
There have also been surprisingly persistent rumors that Michelle Obama is not a woman, and that even if she is, that Sasha and Malia are not their biological children.
And then there was this. Enough people thought the story might be real that the Onion had to explain themselves.
I’ve seen versions of this attributed to quite a few people.
I understood enough of this to make me really uncomfortable.
It’s the sort of thing that would be. It passed into political lore and even a good reporter like Alastair Cooke said in Pepper’s obituary that it was a real event.
In 1950 Pepper was up for re-election. A textile magnate and some other tycoons decided to mount a campaign to wreck him. They financed and played every dubious and dirty trick in the game but the tactic that had the most conspicuous success was one speech of his opponent, a set speech solemnly intoned before all the gaping rednecks at every rural crossroad in Florida.
The contemporary rendition in Time magazine, repeated in Life in September (Henry Luce was evidently for Pepper), marks the date, though, and also makes clear that nobody was going around saying this, much less Smathers. Nevertheless, the paragraph followed him around for decades.
No paper covering the primary printed anything like this. It may have originated in an obscure magazine named Quote. Testing the Limits: George Armistead Smathers and Cold War America, by Brian Lewis Crispell, 1999, has good coverage on p66.
Pepper, btw, recovered and spent 27 years in the House.
I didn’t see the part where The Onion “explained themselves”. Can you direct me to it? I probably just missed it.
There are a number of stories. This one doesn’t have a paywall.
Sometimes the things you deny are the things you secretly enjoy. Especially weird sex stuff.
The craziest statement I can think about referred to Al Smith in a 1920s election. I read a statement from the KKK about fifteen years ago in a history book. They wrote that if he won, “the bootleggers and prostitutes will dance together on the front steps.”
Perhaps they’re incorrect, but I think unfair is a bit of a stretch, given his penchant for spreading aggressively untrue stories about other people.
Put me down for Birtherism as the most insane and persistent rumor, one which Trump himself spread vociferously. It comes down to a pregnant lady in 1961 secretly taking a multi day flight from Hawaii to Kenya to give birth, then flying back to Hawaii with newborn in tow, and falsifying records that have literally no importance to anything besides her child’s ability to become President (if they even have that impact).