Breaking down Craigslist ad seeking seat fillers on day of Trump's DC parade
The purported ad read, in part:
T-Mellon Events is looking for seat fillers and extras to provide their time for space maximization and attendance perception for an event taking place in Washington DC on June 14th. Extras and Seat fillers will check in on the morning of June 14th at 9:00 a.m.
Extras are required to wear Red, White and Blue clothing and will be provided a RED hat to wear. GOLD accessories are acceptable as well. The team will advise the extras where to stand or sit according to the line of sight from a VIP viewing platform area.
Extras and Seat fillers will be paid a flat daily fee and will be provided a lunch of fast food and soda.We encourage people of color and ethnic groups to sign up for maximum perception control and these individuals will be prominently displayed on the televised broadcast and local viewing screens to be seen by the VIP platform.
It also listed compensation as a "flat fee of $1,000 paid in cryptocurrency - Provided by FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT LLC."
One X post (archived) that shared the alleged advertisement garnered more than 1 million views and 28,000 likes as of this writing:
Posts about the Craigslist ad seeking seat fillers also gained traction on TikTok (archived) and Facebook (archived). Dozens of Snopes readers emailed us and searched our website to ask if the Craigslist ad was real.
The ad itself was real and was posted on Craigslist (archived) on June 10, 2025. Snopes was unable to definitively confirm whether the ad was a prank or posted by someone from Trump's camp, which is why we've left this claim unrated. However, several elements of the ad suggest it may have been intended as a joke.
First, the company mentioned in the advertisement was listed as T-Mellon Events. Searches for "T-Mellon Events" on Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and Yahoo did not return any results directing us to the supposed company. Instead, they showed news articles and social media posts about the Craigslist ad.
The alleged company name could be a reference to billionaire and Trump megadonor Timothy Mellon, heir to Pittsburgh's Mellon banking family.
Snopes also looked into the photo in the ad and found it wasn't taken in the United States. Using RevEye, a reverse image search tool, we found the original image shared by The Associated Press on May 9, 2025, captioned, "Russian servicemen attend the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, Russia, Friday, May 9, 2025, during celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany during the World War II."
The ad also said participants would receive a flat fee of $1,000 paid in cryptocurrency, which could be poking fun at Trump's crypto-related ventures.
Fight Fight Fight LLC, the company listed in the ad as providing payment to seat fillers, administers Trump's meme coin. A customer support representative for the meme coin's website, gettrumpmemes.com, told Snopes via an emailed statement: "It's fake, we have nothing to do with it."
Snopes reached out to the White House and Craigslist for comment on the ad's authenticity, and will update this story if we receive a response. We also emailed an address associated with the ad and await a response.
Social media posts that call out supposed Craigslist ads soliciting paid actors frequently pop up before events connected to Trump. Snopes investigated a Craigslist ad that offered to pay "minority actors" to hold signs at a Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June 2020, and another soliciting actors to play Trump supporters in Phoenix in November 2019.
For further reading, Snopes also looked into claims that a Craigslist ad proves the 2025 anti-ICE demonstrations in Los Angeles were orchestrated.
"Seat Fillers Needed - June 14th - Constitution Avenue - DC - Talent Gigs - Craigslist." Craigslist, 10 June 2025, washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/tlg/d/washington-seat-fillers-needed-june/7857143452.html. Accessed 12 June 2025.
Debusmann Jr, Bernd. "Who Is Donald Trump's Reclusive New Mega-Donor, Timothy Mellon?" Www.bbc.com, 21 June 2024, www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9eed9g3vlyo. Accessed 12 June 2025.
"AP PHOTOS: Russia's Victory Day Parade Begins." AP News, 9 May 2025, apnews.com/article/russia-victory-day-photos-fe4bb13744424a1a7c1f7b77f66c0759. Accessed 12 June 2025.
Weissert, Will, and Alan Suderman. "Trump Hosts Dinner for $TRUMP Meme Coin Investors, Raising Ethical Concerns." AP News, 22 May 2025, apnews.com/article/trump-crypto-projects-industry-scam-memecoin-0e2d7ca5170bf594d44a391884ec52b3. Accessed 12 June 2025.
Khalili, Joel. "Trumpworld Is Fighting over 'Official' Crypto Wallet." WIRED, 4 June 2025, www.wired.com/story/trumpworld-is-fighting-over-official-crypto-wallet/. Accessed 12 June 2025.
Ibrahim, Nur. "Did a Craigslist Ad Seek 'Minority Actors' for Trump's Tulsa Rally?" Snopes, Snopes.com, 15 June 2020, www.snopes.com/fact-check/craigslist-minority-actors-trump-tulsa/. Accessed 12 June 2025.
Huberman, Bond. "Did a CraigsList Ad Seek Actors to Play Trump Supporters in Phoenix?" Snopes, Snopes.com, 22 Nov. 2019, www.snopes.com/fact-check/craigslist-ad-seeks-trump-actors/. Accessed 12 June 2025.
June 12, 2025: This story was updated to include comment from Fight Fight Fight LLC.
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CNN
4 minutes ago
- CNN
White House tries to assuage industry worries over migrant workers amid aggressive deportation campaign
As the Trump administration has doubled down on its hardline immigration agenda, behind the scenes senior Trump officials and the president himself have grappled with the consequences of that crackdown against a key portion of the workforce: migrant workers. President Donald Trump has wavered repeatedly on the topic: At times he has suggested farms and other industries employing migrants should be protected, even as he and some top aides have pushed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to intensify its immigration sweeps. 'We're working on it right now,' Trump said Tuesday. 'We have a lot of cases where ICE would go into a farm and these are guys that have been there 10 or 15 years, and the farmers know them – it's called farmer responsibility. Or owner responsibility. But they're going to be largely responsible for these people. And they know these people. They've worked at the farms for 15 years.' Senior administration officials have had discussions with stakeholders as they quietly try to find a durable compromise on the fate of migrant workers, floating various new ways of granting them legal status, multiple sources told CNN. But it's unclear what, if any, solution they can reach without Congress, according to experts. 'President Trump is a tireless advocate for American farmers – they keep our families fed and our country prosperous. He trusts farmers and is committed to ensuring they have the workforce needed to remain successful,' said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson in a statement, maintaining that deporting 'dangerous criminals and targeting the sanctuary cities that provide them safe harbor is a top priority for the President.' The focus on migrant workers reveals the delicate balance the Trump administration is wrestling with as it tries to carry out a historic number of deportations and avoid agitating key industries or unsettling a fragile economy. Similarly, the president faces headwinds from immigration hardliners who view additional protections for migrant workers as an unnecessary form of relief. The ambiguity in Trump's approach has kept both sides of the debate off balance. CNN reached out to the White House for comment. 'They are working at a breakneck speed to better understand employers' issues with current guest worker visa programs and cut down on paperwork processing delays. Effective reform is a complex undertaking, and initial attempts may not get it entirely right from the start,' said Kip Eideberg, senior vice president of government and industry relations at the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, describing the message he's received from the administration. 'The Administration recognizes this and have been clear that they will make adjustments based on feedback from industry to strike the right balance between border security and immigration reform,' he added. Undocumented immigrants account for 4% to 5% of the total US workforce and between 15% to 20% in industries like crop production, food processing, and construction, according to Goldman Sachs, which warned in a recent report that losing a 'significant share' of those workers could result in temporary bottlenecks, shortages, and price increase. Multiple industry representatives have raised alarm over indiscriminate immigration sweeps where undocumented immigrants without criminal records have been picked up for deportation, including in sectors that are critical to the president's broader agenda. 'It will make it damn near impossible to lean into the administration's effort to strengthen manufacturing,' Eideberg said, despite overwhelming support within the industry for that effort. 'We're stuck between a rock and a hard place,' he said, noting that mass deportations will shrink the labor force. One of the primary concerns for customers is that they won't have enough workers to harvest crops, which will likely have a trickle-down effect on equipment manufacturers and reduce demand, according to Eideberg. But tilting toward helping manufacturers and other employers could cause political problems for the president. 'The more he panders to employers of illegal workers, the more he's going to anger his base of voters who expected – and voted for – tough immigration enforcement across the board without exemptions for politically connected people,' said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for limited immigration. Representatives from various industries have taken their worries directly to the administration, including the departments of Labor and Agriculture. 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'Under President Trump's leadership, I'm working closely with Secretary Rollins, Secretary Noem, and our federal partners on fulfilling this Administration's mission to cut red tape, support agricultural employers, and ensure they have the legal workforce needed to keep our food supply secure,' Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement. According to an agriculture industry source, a similar idea had been discussed in a meeting with Rollins earlier this year that would include setting up a program for farmers to ensure they had enough laborers. It's unclear how that program would be different from existing temporary farm visas known as H-2A. The source said Trump has also raised the idea to Rollins of creating a mechanism that would allow farmers to sign a document or affidavit for undocumented workers, who would self-deport and then be allowed to return legally. But that kind of proposal would draw objections from hardliners. 'It ends up being who's going to win this tug of war,' said Chris Chmielenski, president of the Immigration Accountability Project, which advocates for limited immigration, describing a form of relief for undocumented migrant workers akin to 'amnesty.' 'I have no idea which way it's going to go,' he said. There are 2.4 million farmworkers in the United States, according to the Economic Policy Institute, 40% of whom the Agriculture Department estimates lack legal status. United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero previously told CNN that she's been getting calls from concerned farmworkers across California about ICE crackdowns in the state. Separate from the existing undocumented population, the administration has also made a series of moves to strip temporary protections from migrants who had been given permission to legally work and live in the country – suddenly depriving some employers of workers. 'We might keep losing legal workers from the system,' said Jennie Murray, president and chief executive officer of the National Immigration Forum. 'All of them (industries) are extremely worried. They're worried they don't have future flows of workers coming into the country. They're extremely worried to lose these temporary workers they've become dependent on.' An immigration raid at an Omaha meat production plant on June 10 that resulted in dozens of workers being taken away sparked fresh concerns about the administration's priorities – culminating in a phone call between Rollins and Trump the following day over the issue. Two days later, Trump posted on his Truth Social: 'Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace… This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!' Immigration and Customs Enforcement quickly issued guidance to agents limiting immigration raids at farms, hotels, and restaurants. Just a few days later, Trump posted on his Truth Social account telling ICE officials 'to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.' ICE soon announced worksite enforcement would continue. ICE has conducted sweeps at construction sites, popular vacation destinations like Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, as well as local Home Depots, which are a common spot for contractors and homeowners to approach and hire laborers. Rosanna Maietta, president and CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, told CNN in a statement that the organization has also held meetings with administration officials 'to convey our acute workforce shortage challenges and underscore the importance of a strong hospitality and tourism sector.' Trump seemed to shift course again in the last week, saying the administration is working on a temporary pass for migrant workers, particularly those working on farms and in the hospitality industry, arguing he's on 'both sides.' 'I'm the strongest immigration guy that there's ever been, but I'm also the strongest farmer guy that there's ever been,' Trump said in an interview on Fox News' 'Sunday Morning Futures.' The whiplash has been indicative of the two factions within the administration – one focused on the impact on labor, and another intent on arresting and deporting as many people as possible. The latter has been led by White House deputy chief of staff and architect of Trump's hardline immigration policies Stephen Miller. Miller has argued on CNN that the administration's immigration crackdown wouldn't disrupt the agriculture industry and result in higher prices, saying that migrants who recently arrived to the US 'aren't doing farmwork.' Rollins sees the issue differently. 'The labor question is a significant one. It is one that is perhaps not the very top of the list, but for some they would say the very top of the list,' the agriculture secretary told lawmakers at a congressional hearing in mid-June. In a CNBC interview Wednesday, Rollins said Trump's 'goal, that he has tasked me with effectuating, is making sure that we have a 100% legal workforce. That anyone that is here illegally must pay the consequences, return to the country, and then eventually, as he's talked about in different ways, come back. So, we are working on all of that right now.' She cited reforms to temporary worker visas, arguing: 'There will be zero amnesty. We will ensure all laws are followed.' Sources familiar with the dynamic between Rollins and Miller told CNN the relationship between the two is professional and despite the different viewpoints on immigration policy, it hasn't devolved. 'There's a respect between the two, and also a very clear understanding that Trump likes and is deeply reliant on both,' one administration official said. 'This is an area where their equities overlap and are quite different. They both understand that – or at least have up to this point. But POTUS cares deeply about farmers and ranchers and beyond his personal affinity for the Secretary, really values hearing directly from her about what the industry is saying,' the official said. 'And they're freaking out right now – and have been for months.'
Politico
8 minutes ago
- Politico
Power struggle
Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Canada Playbook | Follow Politico Canada Thanks for reading Canada Playbook. Let's get into it. In today's edition: → The PM is under pressure to pull the plug on EV mandates. → MARC GOLD moves on from the Senate. Trade war CHARGED DEBATE — With talks with Trump back on, Prime Minister MARK CARNEY met with the Big Three automakers in Ottawa on Wednesday — a pitstop in the pursuit of that elusive economic and security partnership with the United States. — In the room: The CEOs of Ford Canada, Stellantis Canada and GM Canada. CBC News reports the confab was requested by the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association. — On the agenda: 'The need to build up a made-in-Canada supply chain as well as diversify our trading partners,' according to a statement from the PM's office. They covered trade war fallout. 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Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Social Security Retirees Just Got Good News About President Trump's Big Beautiful Bill
President Trump said he would eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits, but the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) stops short of fulfilling that promise. The Senate version of the OBBB would help 33.9 million seniors, with an average increase in after-tax income of $670 per person, according to the White House. The White House says 88% of seniors on Social Security would pay no taxes on benefits under the Senate bill, an increase from 64% under current law. The $23,760 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook › President Trump on several occasions during his recent campaign vowed to end taxes on Social Security benefits. Legislation currently working its way through Congress (i.e., the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act) is built around his policy priorities, but it stops short of fulfilling that specific promise. Nevertheless, there is good news for retirees on Social Security. The version of the One, Big, Beautiful Bill (OBBB) that recently passed the Senate includes provisions that would increase after-tax income for millions of seniors. Read on to learn more. The OBBB passed the House of Representatives by a single vote on May 22, and an amended version slipped through the Senate by an equally narrow margin on July 1. The bill now returns the House, where lawmakers can either approve it or make changes that would require another Senate vote. Importantly, while budget reconciliation bills are not permitted to change Social Security, both versions of the OBBB include deductions that would help millions of seniors on Social Security. The recently passed Senate bill includes the following: Single seniors (aged 65 and older) can deduct $6,000 from taxable income, and married seniors filing jointly can deduct $12,000 as a couple. The full $6,000 per-person deduction is available to single filers with income up to $75,000 and joint filers with income up to $150,000. Beyond those levels, deductions are phased out. Importantly, the new senior deductions would be additive with other tax breaks, including the standard deduction and existing senior deductions, as detailed below: Under current law, the standard deduction is $15,000 for single filers and $30,000 for joint filers. The Senate bill raises the standard deduction to $15,750 for single filers and $31,500 for joint filers. Under current law, seniors get an additional standard deduction of $2,000 for single filers and $3,200 for joint filers. The Senate bill leaves those existing deductions in place. Here's the bottom line: The Senate bill would bring the total deductions available to seniors to $23,750 for single filers and $46,700 for married couples filing jointly. Those tax breaks are more expansive than the ones approved in the House bill earlier this year, which capped the new senior deduction at $4,000 per person. The One Big Beautiful Bill does not eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits, but it does include tax breaks for seniors with modest incomes. The White House estimates the new $6,000 deduction will provide some measure of financial relief to 33.9 million seniors, with an average increase in after-tax income of $670 per person. Importantly, legislation that entirely eliminated Social Security taxes would have resulted in twice as much savings for seniors, according to The Wall Street Journal. However, 88% of seniors on Social Security will pay no taxes on benefits under the Senate bill, up from 64% under current law, according to the White House. Put differently, 14.2 million seniors that currently owe taxes on Social Security would be exempted from those taxes if the bill becomes law. All things considered, the Senate bill is a win for seniors on Social Security. It does not completely eliminate taxes on retirement benefits, but doing so would actually hurt the Social Security Trust Fund and potentially expedite benefit cuts by two years. Instead, the Senate bill provides financial relief for millions of seniors, but it targets individuals with modest incomes rather than doling out across-the-board tax breaks. That's good news. If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. One easy trick could pay you as much as $23,760 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after. Join Stock Advisor to learn more about these Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Social Security Retirees Just Got Good News About President Trump's Big Beautiful Bill was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
