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The category is: Republican drag queen realness.

As the centuries-old art form of drag has taken a surprisingly central role in the modern-day American culture war, one drag-loving couple decided to take a creative approach to their activism: A parody Instagram account dedicated to artificial intelligence-generated portraits of Republican leaders in drag.

Were huge fans of drag, and we were bearing witness to the GOPs anti-drag rhetoric and action, and we wanted to do something about it, so we said, Lets put the GOP in drag, said Craig, who created the RuPublicans Instagram account with his husband, Stephen. The men asked that their last names not be published due to concerns for their personal safety and security.

The name of the account, which launched March 30 and now has over 95,000 followers, is a nod to RuPauls Drag Race, the popular drag competition show. The RuPublicans account has posted portraits of 11 conservative heavy hitters so far, each given his own distinctive style and, of course, drag name. And while it might appear that these men each had their own glam team on hand, the images were purely created by Craig, Stephen and an AI text-to-image program called Midjourney.

Its all generated without a photo that we input, Craig said. I provide prompts on what I want to see in the photo whats in the background, what is the person wearing, how are they feeling, like it gets into that level of specificity and then it spits out images, and you dont always get what you want, and sometimes the AI generator gives you something that you could have never even imagined that blows you away, and you like run with it.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who made national headlines last year by signing his states so-called Dont Say Gay bill and engaging in a faceoff with the CEO of the Walt Disney Co. is among the Republicans given an AI drag makeover. His drag alter ego, Rhonda Santy, is shown in a trio of images, including one portraying her as an evil stepmother-type villain with Disneys Magic Kingdom in the background.

Rhonda Santy Category is: Book Banning Princess Eleganza. Shes on a mission to turn that Magic Kingdom into a Tragic Kingdom and isnt afraid to give Mickey the finger(s), the caption on the DeSantis parody images reads.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is portrayed as Cruzella Deville in five portraits, which all include the conservative lawmaker in a full face of makeup, a blond or pink wig and bedazzled gowns.

Cruzella Deville Serving homophobic realness, she struts her stuff in fur coats lined with family values and defends every fetus and every gun, the caption says of the reimagination of Cruz, who recently said the Supreme Court was clearly wrong in its 2015 decision to legalize same-sex marriage.

Neither DeSantis nor Cruz immediately responded to requests for comment.

Rudy Giuliani (Rudy Garland), Lindsey Graham (Lady Graham Cracker) and Mike Pence (Mother Pence) are among the other political figures who have been reimagined as drag queens by the RuPublicans account.

While Craig and Stephen called their RuPublicans project pure fantasy, they said they hope it can also serve as a platform for activism.

We want it to serve as a platform for a message and show that drag really isnt that scary, Stephen said. It makes you laugh, and it makes you think, and this isnt just for us and gay people. I hope that a lot of Republicans see this and can have a laugh at themselves, too.

So far this year, Republican lawmakers in more than a dozen states have proposed bills to restrict drag performances, according to an NBC News analysis. Tennessee is the only state to sign such a bill into law.

While the photos have sparked thousands of responses since the account first launched, one in particular made a big impact on Craig and Stephen, they said. The message was from a woman whose child attends The Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville, where just a few weeks ago a mass shooting left three children and three adults dead. The mother said she had her first laugh in weeks upon seeing the RuPublicans account.

She had this beautiful message about how important it is, what were doing, and how much it helped her, Craig said. So those are the types of things that are like fueling this, and keeping it going.

You know, theres a lot of dark times that were living through right now, and we just want to spread brightness and laughter and levity, but also be really smart and poignant with it, Stephen said.

Jay Valle, an NBCU Academy embed, writes and produces digital content for NBC Out.

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Meet the 'RuPublicans': GOP lawmakers are reimagined as AI-generated drag queens - NBC News

A group of congressional leaders has been granted access to classified documents found at the residences of former President Trump, President Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence.

Why it matters: Lawmakers with oversight over the intelligence community have spent months fighting for access to the documents, railing against the administration's briefings on the matter as insufficient.

Driving the news: The "Gang of Eight" the party leaders in each chamber and the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees have begun accessing the documents, three sources familiar with the matter told Axios.

The backdrop: The FBI's search last summer to recover classified documents at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort kicked off a series of document discoveries.

What they're saying: Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told NBC News, "It should have never taken six months for us to start being able to do our duty."

What we're watching: Some lawmakers have introduced legislation to crack down on the mishandling of classified documents amid calls for reform.

Continue reading here:
Congressional leaders given access to Trump, Biden and Pence classified docs - Axios

If youre a superstitious person, then maybe youre familiar with the notion that bad things happen in threes.For example, you might get a flat tire, then spill coffee all over yourself, and then sprain your ankle all on the same day.

Or, if youre former President Donald Trump, you might get arrested on state-level charges, then grapple with amajor setback in a federal investigation, and then be forced to face the specter of an ongoing fraud investigation, all in the same week.

We learned Wednesday afternoon that former Vice President Mike Pence will, in fact, testify before the special counsels grand jury.

Trumps Bad Thing No. 1 is federal.We learned Wednesday afternoon that former Vice President Mike Pence will, in fact, testify before the special counsels grand jury investigating Jan. 6.(Trump and Pence himself had tried and failed to block that testimony.But in a statement, an aide said Pence will comply with a subpoena.)We already know a lot about what Pence was doing in the Senate that day: evacuating the building, fielding urgent phone calls from a loading dock and presumably trying to ignore the chants outside of Hang Mike Pence.But the fact that his conversations with Trump are now fair game, legally speaking, is a huge deal here.

Trumps Bad Thing No. 2 involves the Mar-a-Lago documents case.Its already clear that Trump considers Jack Smiths special counsel probe a pretty bad thing. A week ago, at his post-arraignment rally, Trump was fixated on that investigation.He called Smith a radical-left lunatic and a bomb thrower.And he made a public spectacle of wrestling with his potential guilt. We were negotiating in very good faith, he proclaimed, to return some or all of the documents that I openly, and in very plain sight, brought with me to Mar-a-Lago from our beautiful White House just as virtually every other president has done in the past.

Subtle!

Compounding this,we now know from reporting last week that theJustice Department is focusing in on Trumps alleged obstructiondown at Mar-a-Lago, and that unnamed Secret Service agents connected to Trump mayhave to testify. New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman claimedTrump is particularly spookedthat his attorney, Evan Corcoran, was also recently ordered to testify.Corcoran is someone who, like Pence, was in the room where it happened. Multiple times. And hehas now said what he knows, under oath.

And then there is Trumps Bad Thing No. 3. This oneinvolves Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Braggs indictment.There is something laid out in the DAs statement of facts the document accompanying the indictment that has left me with more questions than answers.It concerns former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg who will very soon be released from Rikers Island after pleading guilty to a decadelong tax fraud scheme.

By way of a recap: In exchange for a lighter prison sentence in the tax fraud trial of the Trump Organization last year, Weisselberg testified, pleaded guiltyand helped Manhattan prosecutors secure a guilty verdict against the Trump Organization. Which is all to say, Weisselberg is a very important character in Trump World.He also worked for the Trump Organization for nearly 50 years.

The previous Manhattan DA, Cy Vance, was scrutinizing Weisselberg in connection withfraud claims levied at Trump and his organization by Michael Cohen.And that vast criminal probe appears to still be open.TheNew York Times reported in Februarythat prosecutors were dangling more charges against Weisselberg in an effort to get him to cooperate in Braggs hush money payments case.

This larger fraud investigation is arguably amuch broader and more consequential investigationthan the hush money payments case.It involves allegations that Trump and his business inflated and deflated assets in order to get more favorable insurance and mortgage rates. And Weisselbergs potential criminal exposure here remains a key concern.Asreported on Alex Wagner Tonightvia WNBC, Weisselberg has parted ways with the lawyers who represented him during the Trump Organization investigation.He reportedly has a new lawyer, someone who is probably not being paid for by the Trump Organization.

But if Weisselberg is getting out of prison in two weeks, why does he need a new lawyer?

That news stuck out to me because in thefederalprobe into the hush money payments, Weisselberg was granted immunity in exchange for his grand jury testimony. (This is the case that resulted in Michael Cohen going to prison, not the Manhattan case kicking off now.)

As part of Braggs case against Trump, we learned the deeper extent of Weisselbergs alleged role in that hush money scheme.

But as part of Braggs case against Trump, we learned thedeeperextent of Weisselbergs alleged role in that hush money scheme.The DA lays out in detail that Weisselberg was involved in discussions about how muchmoneyto pay Stormy Daniels andhowto pay her.Prosecutors allege that Cohen spoke to Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up,and that Weisselberg played an integral role in figuring out how to reimburse Cohen. Remember, Weisselberg may have secured immunity on the federal case, but he has no immunity with Manhattan prosecutors.

So could Bragg use Weisselbergs alleged involvement in the hush money scheme as leverage to get him to cooperate in the other, broader and(we think) ongoingcriminal investigation into Trump World?Because that would be very problematic for Donald Trump.

Problematic on the level of his vice president and his lawyer testifying about him under oath.

As they say: Bad things happen in threes.

This is an adapted excerpt fromthe April 5 episode of Alex Wagner Tonight.

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For Trump, bad things come in threes - MSNBC

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Former President Donald Trump has appealed a judge's order requiring his former vice president, Mike Pence, to testify in the special counsel probe into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday.

Trump's lawyers filed the appeal after a ruling related to the Justice Department investigation of efforts to undermine the 2020 presidential election that Trump, a Republican, lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

The case remains under seal. But on Monday, a new sealed case appeared on the federal appeals court docket in Washington, D.C., that referred to a grand jury matter before U.S. District Chief Judge James Boasberg.

Final briefs in the appeal are due by May 25, according to an initial schedule set by the court, which does not name the parties to the case.

Pence last week disclosed that he would not appeal a judge's ruling that requires him to testify to a federal grand jury about conversations he had with Trump leading up to the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In a March ruling, the judge also said Pence could still decline to answer questions related to Jan. 6.

Several of Trump's attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November to handle the two Trump investigations, is presenting evidence to grand juries in two separate investigations.

The first investigation is looking into attempts to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power following Trump's November 2020 loss to Biden. The second is looking at Trump's retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after leaving office in January 2021, and whether he tried to obstruct the Justice Department's investigation.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Jacqueline Thomsen; additional reporting by Kat Jackson and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Tim Ahmann, Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler)

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Trump appeals order requiring Pence to testify in Jan. 6 probe -source - Yahoo News

President Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence hold a news conference, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Washington D.C., March 22, 2020.

Yuri Gripas | Reuters

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump are trying to block ex-Vice President Mike Pence from testifying in a special counsel investigation of Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, NBC News reported Monday.

The latest move in the sealed court proceedings came less than a week after Pence said he would not fight a judge's order for his testimony before the federal grand jury involved in the probe.

Trump's legal team has appealed that order from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., NBC reported, citing a source familiar with the litigation. The notice to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is currently under seal.

The reported appeal also followed Trump's historic indictment and arrest in a separate case being prosecuted by the Manhattan district attorney's office. Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records during his arraignment in Manhattan on Tuesday.

As Pence prepares to comply with the subpoena in the investigation targeting his former boss, he is considering launching a 2024 presidential campaign that would put him in direct competition with Trump, the current Republican front-runner.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, in a statement to CNBC accused the Department of Justice of "attempting to destroy the long accepted, long held, Constitutionally based standards of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege."

The spokesman, who also derided special counsel Jack Smith's probe as a "witch hunt," said those standards "protect a President's ability to confer with his Vice President on matters of the security of the United States." He also asserted that the probe was intended to influence Trump's standing in the 2024 election.

Attorneys for Trump and spokespeople for Pence and the special counsel did not immediately respond to CNBC's requests for comment.

Pence previously said he planned to challenge Smith's subpoena for his testimony, arguing that his former role as vice president which also made him president of the Senate granted him constitutional cover against being compelled to testify about key pieces of the probe.

Boasberg ordered Pence to comply with the grand jury subpoena late last month, NBC reported. The judge reportedly ruled that Pence has some protections against testifying about his role on Jan. 6, 2021, when he presided over Congress' efforts to confirm President Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory.

Read more of CNBC's politics coverage:

But Pence was not totally immune from testifying, Boasberg ruled. The judge also rejected arguments put forward by Trump's attorneys against the subpoena on the grounds of executive privilege

Last week, an advisor to Pence said that their legal claim "prevailed" as Boasberg's ruling "affirmed for the first time in history that the Speech or Debate Clause extends to the Vice President of the United States."

"Having vindicated that principle of the Constitution, Vice President Pence will not appeal the Judge's ruling and will comply with the subpoena as required by law," the advisor's statement said.

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Trump appeals order for Pence to testify in special counsel Jan. 6 probe - CNBC