French President Macron, wife sue podcaster over claims first lady born a man
July 23 (UPI) -- French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, on Wednesday filed a defamation suit in the United States against right-wing podcast host Candace Owens, who claims the first lady was born a man.
The 22-count complaint, which was filed in Delaware Superior Court, seeks unspecified damages. The 219-page lawsuit also named her company, Candace Owens LLC, and the operator of her website, GeorgeTom, Inc.
During an eight-part series, called "Becoming Brigitte," she alleged Brigitt Macron had assumed another person's identity and transitioned to a woman.
Emmanuel Macron is 47 and his wife is 72.
"These claims are demonstrably false, and Owens knew they were false when she published them," the lawsuit said. "Yet, she published them anyway. And the reason is clear: it is not the pursuit of truth, but the pursuit of fame."
The lawsuit said a retraction was sought three times, including a final one on July 1.
The lawsuit said she continued to push "outlandish, defamatory, and far-fetched fictions" against the couple.
"Ms. Owens' campaign of defamation was plainly designed to harass and cause pain to us and our families and to garner attention and notoriety," they said. "We gave her every opportunity to back away from these claims, but she refused. It is our earnest hope that this lawsuit will set the record straight and end this campaign of defamation once and for all."
A spokesperson for Owens said to CBS and CNBC: "Candace Owens is not shutting up. This is a foreign government attacking the First Amendment rights of an American independent journalist. Candace repeatedly requested an interview with Brigitte Macron.
"Instead of offering a comment, Brigitte is resorting to trying to bully a reporter into submission. In France, politicians can bully journalists, but this is not France. It's America."
Owens also responded to the suit live on YouTube, calling it public relations strategy.
"This is why you're here," she said. "This is how I feel right now. My receiving my papers today."
She has 4.48 million subscribers on her YouTube channel.
The Macrons have been married since 2007, 10 years before he became president.
"People end up believing them, and it disrupts your life, even in your most private moments," Macron said at an event in Paris in 2024.
Owens began making the allegations in March 2024 when she was working for The Daily Wire, a conservative media outlet, after the rumors first surfaced in 2021.
After she was terminated by The Daily Wire, she launched her podcast in June 2024.
In December, the Marons sent their first retraction demand. Then, she launched the podcast series.
On July 2, she published a letter from the Macrons' attorney Clare Locke to her lawyer demanding the retraction.
"If ever there was a clear-cut case of defamation, this is it," attorney Tom Clare told CNBC.
In 2022, Brigitte Macron sued two French women for spreading similar claims. Macrons won the original case but this year the women were victories on appeal with the lawsuit going to a higher court.
Owens said in June that she was wrong to campaign for Donald Trump in the 2024 election after the U.S. became involved in the Israel-Iran conflict.
"He's been a chronic disappointment," Owens said during an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored. "And I feel embarrassed that I told people to go vote for him because this wasn't going to happen, and it is happening."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Atlantic
23 minutes ago
- Atlantic
The Death of Democracy Promotion
On April 29, 1999, precision-guided NATO bombs tore through the brick facades of two defense-ministry buildings in Belgrade, the capital of the rump state of Yugoslavia. The targets were chosen more for symbolic reasons than operational ones: The American-led coalition wanted to send the country's authoritarian government, at that time engaged in a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, a clear message that human rights weren't just words. They were backed by weapons. For decades, the ruins of the buildings, on either side of a major artery through central Belgrade, were left largely untouched. Tangled concrete and twisted rebar stuck out of pancaked floors. Serbian architects fought to preserve the destroyed buildings; the government has treated them as a war memorial. At the time of the 1999 NATO bombings, Aleksandar Vučić, Serbia's minister of information, was tasked with denouncing the West and backing his country's despot, Slobodan Milošević. Today, Vučić has risen in the ranks to become Serbia's president—an apologist for Russia who attacks the press, has been accused of nurturing close ties to organized crime, and is rapidly dragging his country toward authoritarianism. Vučić is not Milošević—he has not led his country into genocidal wars or faced judgment for war crimes at The Hague—but until recently, he might have expected that his authoritarian style would make relations with Washington rocky. That time is past. Instead of harshly condemning Serbia's abuses, America's president, Donald Trump, will build a Trump Tower Belgrade on top of the defense buildings' ruins. 'Belgrade welcomes a Global Icon,' the slick website for Trump Belgrade proclaims. 'TRUMP. Unrivaled Luxury.' The contract for the project has been signed with Affinity Partners, Jared Kushner's investment firm, which is largely funded with billions of dollars in cash from Saudi Arabia. This story is the material expression of the second Trump administration's turn against a long-standing tradition of Western democracy promotion—and of an embrace of conflicts of interest from which the world's despots can only take inspiration. The authoritarians who govern small countries such as Serbia no longer need to fear the condemnation, much less the bombs, of the American president when they crack down on their opponents, enrich themselves, or tighten their grip on power. On the contrary—the American flirtation with similar practices emboldens them. With Trump's unapologetic foreign policy in his second term, American democracy promotion is effectively dead. Prior to the Soviet Union's collapse, Western diplomats cared far more about whether a dictator was an ally or adversary to the Soviets than about the quality of a country's elections or its respect for human rights. If diplomats from Washington or London pushed too hard for democracy, there was a credible risk that a Western ally could defect and become a friend to Moscow. Once the Soviet Union ceased to exist, the world's despots no longer had so much cover; Western diplomats could now push harder. New norms developed, which led to a rapid surge in the number of competitive, multiparty elections. Human rights were no longer just an aspirational buzzword. Some countries lost foreign aid or were shunned by the international community if their government committed atrocities. This pressure to adopt democracy and protect human rights was never applied equally. Powerful countries, such as a rising China, became largely immune to Western cajoling. And strategically important countries, such as Saudi Arabia, in many cases got a free pass, facing little more than rhetorical condemnation while presidents and prime ministers continued to shake hands and ink major arms deals. Meanwhile, in smaller countries, such as Togo, Madagascar, or the former Yugoslavia, the post–Cold War push for democracy and human rights often came not just with lip service, but also with teeth. After all, the White House could afford to lose the goodwill of Madagascar in a dispute over values; its geopolitical priorities would suffer little downside. Moreover, weak countries such as Madagascar depended on foreign aid, such that Western governments wielded far more leverage in them than they did in larger, more self-sufficient countries. For a while, then, small-time despots faced a credible threat: Go too far, rights defenders could hope to warn strongmen, and a Western ambassador could soon be knocking on the palace door. None of this is to say that Western powers were always on the side of the angels. During the Cold War, Western governments made lofty speeches about democracy and human rights while funding coups and arming politically convenient rebels. The CIA played a role in overthrowing popularly legitimate governments, such as those of Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, and Salvador Allende in Chile. Even after the Cold War, Western governments have cozied up to plenty of friendly dictatorships, in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Equatorial Guinea. And yet, particularly in the last 30 years, Western pressure and foreign aid have been significant forces for global democratization. Dictators and despots knew that the world was paying attention, which gave them pause before they turned their guns on their own people. Foreign aid became tied to the verdicts of election monitors, which drastically expanded operations after the end of the Cold War. With funding from the United States and other Western governments, opposition parties, journalists, and civil-society organizations received training on how to bolster democracy. And when political transitions toward democracy took place, as in Tunisia after the Arab Spring, billions of dollars in support flowed in. Partly because of these shifting international norms, the expansion of political freedom was so abrupt after the end of the Cold War that many believed democracy, having won the ideological battle against rival models of governance such as fascism and communism, had become an inexorable force. But the democracy boom under Bill Clinton gave way to failed wars under George W. Bush and inaction under Barack Obama. Bush, who justified wars in Afghanistan and Iraq partly under the guise of a democracy-and-freedom agenda, inadvertently discredited the notion of values-based 'nation building.' A widespread perception among American adversaries took root that democracy promotion was just a code word for 'regime change carried out by American troops.' This gave dictators political cover to boot out international NGOs hoping to bolster democracy and human rights, branding them as mere precursors for a heavy-handed invasion. Obama, picking up the pieces of that failed foreign policy, downplayed the grand vision of a more democratic world as a guiding principle of American diplomacy, even as countries across the globe began to pivot toward authoritarian rule. Now the world is steadily becoming less democratic. According to data from Freedom House, the world has become more authoritarian every year since 2006. Trump's second term may provide the most potent autocratic accelerant yet. In his first term, Trump routinely praised dictators, including in a memorable moment when he boasted about exchanging 'beautiful letters' with North Korea's tyrant. President Joe Biden, with his much-touted Summit for Democracy, tried to recenter democracy as a core principle of the State Department, but that effort was overtaken by successive geopolitical emergencies in Ukraine and Gaza. Now, with his return to power, Trump has gone further than before to fully uproot democracy promotion from American foreign policy. The list of dismantled initiatives is long. In the first months of the second Trump administration, Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency not only slashed America's foreign-aid machinery, effectively destroying USAID, but also targeted the National Endowment for Democracy: a bipartisan grant-making organization established under Ronald Reagan to strengthen democratic values abroad. The Trump administration has effectively kneecapped Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, outlets that have aimed to provide news and information to those living under oppressive regimes. Once viewed as bulwarks against authoritarian censorship, these platforms are now overseen by Trump acolyte Kari Lake. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently announced an overhaul of the State Department that effectively eliminates programs that work toward peace building and democracy. As an extra gift to the world's despots, on July 16, Rubio signaled that America will no longer stand in the way of election rigging: Washington will condemn autocrats who use sham election-style events to stay in power only if a major American foreign-policy interest is at stake, the secretary made clear, and from now on, American comments on foreign elections will be 'brief, focused on congratulating the winning candidate and, when appropriate, noting shared foreign policy interests.' The world's worst dictators can rest assured that the next American diplomat to come knocking on their palace doors is more likely to be looking for property rights than human rights. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, which always have had a free pass, might not notice the difference. But brutal regimes in less-noticed parts of the world have now gotten the memo that the Trump White House is indifferent to democracy and human rights, and they are acting accordingly. Cambodia has cracked down on journalists while courting American military officials. Tanzania's leader recently arrested his main rival and charged him with treason. Indonesia's president has begun changing laws, militarizing the country, and undermining the principle of civilian rule. Nigeria's president made a power grab that critics say was blatantly illegal. And El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, who had faced international criticisms for egregious human-rights abuses, isn't just absolved from American pressure—he's become a much-celebrated friend of the White House, lauded because of his gulags. Already, in regions such as Southeast Asia, brave pro-democracy reformers find themselves newly vulnerable and isolated. In Myanmar, pro-democracy forces fighting the country's military dictatorship long benefitted from American aid. The DOGE cuts put an end to that—and gave the repressive junta an enormous boost. In Thailand, a human-rights organization that once sheltered dissidents fleeing Cambodia and Laos has been forced to close its safehouses, allowing those regimes to more easily hunt down and even kill their opponents. These funding streams had accounted for a tiny proportion of the U.S. government's budget, but their elimination sends a strong signal to the world's autocrats: that virtually no one will now interfere with their designs. Admittedly, the United States is less powerful than it once was, and other countries have always had their own domestic agendas, regardless of what Washington has said or done. But that a growing number of the world's despots no longer have to weigh economic costs or diplomatic consequences for crushing their opponents has already made a difference. Thomas Carothers and Oliver Stuenkel of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace highlighted the fact that shortly after Musk referred to USAID as a 'criminal organization,' autocrats in Hungary, Serbia, and Slovakia began targeting pro-democracy NGOs that had received money from the agency. President Reagan once celebrated the United States as a 'shining city on a hill,' a 'beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.' That is apparently no longer the aspiration of the American government, which now sends its foreign pilgrims to a dehumanizing prison in El Salvador, arrests judges, and suggests that following the country's Constitution may be optional. For democracy to flourish, citizens must yearn for it—and demand it of their governments. At the moment, few can be looking with admiration to the United States as a model. Already in 2024, according to a 34-country survey conducted by Pew Research, the most common perception of American democracy was that the United States 'used to be a good example, but has not been in recent years.' The first months of the second Trump administration can hardly have improved that impression. Nonetheless, democracy—which provides citizens with a meaningful say over how their lives are governed—still has mass appeal across the globe. Brave, principled activists continue to stand up to despots, even though they do so at much greater peril today than even just a few months ago. In Serbia, for example, pro-democracy, anti-corruption protests have persisted for months. Students and workers are demanding immediate reforms and calling on Vučić to resign. In years past, precisely this kind of movement would have provoked White House press releases, diplomatic visits, and barbed statements from the Oval Office. In April, at long last, came a high-profile visit to Serbia from someone closely linked to the Trump administration. But instead of offering support for the pro-democracy demonstrators, this American emissary condemned the protests and implied that they were the sinister work of American left-wingers and USAID. That visitor was none other than Donald Trump Jr., who had arrived in Belgrade to fawn over Vučić in an exclusive interview for his Triggered with Don Jr. podcast, in the months before the newest Trump Tower opens for presales.
The Hill
25 minutes ago
- The Hill
Darren Walker's new book is still hopeful despite growing inequality as he leaves Ford Foundation
NEW YORK (AP) — Darren Walker needed to be convinced of his new book's relevance. The outgoing Ford Foundation president feared that 'The Idea of America,' set to publish in September just before he leaves the nonprofit, risked feeling disjointed. In more than eight dozen selected texts dating back to 2013, he reflects on everything from his path as a Black, gay child from rural Texas into the halls of premiere American philanthropies to his solutions for reversing the deepening inequality of our 'new Gilded Age.' 'To be clear, not everything I said and wrote over the last 12 years is worthy of publication,' Walker said. A point of great regret, he said, is that he finds American democracy weaker now than when he started. Younger generations lack access to the same 'mobility escalator' that he rode from poverty. And he described President Donald Trump's administration's first six months as 'disorienting' for a sector he successfully pushed to adopt more ambitious and just funding practices. Despite that bleak picture, Walker embraces the characterization of his upcoming collection as patriotic. 'My own journey in America leaves me no option but to be hopeful because I have lived in a country that believed in me,' he said. Walker recently discussed his tenure and the book's call for shared values with the Associated Press inside his Ford Foundation office — where an enlarged picture of a Black child taken by Malian portrait photographer Seydou Keïta still hangs, one of many underrepresented artists' works that populated the headquarters under his leadership. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Q: Upon becoming Ford Foundation's president, you suggested that 'our most important job is to work ourselves out of a job' — a 2013 statement you include in the book. How would you grade your efforts? A: The past 12 years have been both exhilarating and exhausting. Exhilarating because there's never been a more exciting time to be in philanthropy. And exhausting because the political, socioeconomic dynamics of the last 12 years are very worrisome for our future. Philanthropy can play a role in helping to strengthen our democracy. But philanthropy can't save America. I would probably give myself a B or a B-. I don't think where we are as a nation after 12 years is where any country would want to be that had its eye on the future and the strength of our democracy. Q: Is there anything you would do differently? A: In 2013 and those early speeches, I identified growing inequality as a challenge to the strength of our democracy. And a part of that manifestation of growing inequality was a growing sense of disaffection — from our politics, our institutions, our economy. For the first time, a decade or so ago, we had clear evidence that working class white households were increasingly downwardly mobile economically. And the implications for that are deep and profound for our politics and our democracy. We started a program on increasing our investments in rural America, acknowledging some of the challenges, for example, of the trends around the impacts of the opioid epidemic on those communities. I underestimated the depth and the collective sense of being left behind. Even though I think I was correct in diagnosing the problem, I think the strategy to respond was not focused enough on this population. Q: Many people credit you for using Ford Foundation's endowment to increase grantmaking during the pandemic. Is that sort of creativity needed now with the new strains faced by the philanthropic sector? A: One of the disappointments I have with philanthropy is that we don't take enough risk. We don't innovate given the potential to use our capital to provide solutions. I do think that, in the coming years, foundations are going to be challenged to step up and lean in in ways that we haven't since the pandemic. The 5% payout is treated as a ceiling by a lot of foundations and, in fact, it's a floor. During these times when there's so much accumulated wealth sitting in our endowments, the public rightly is asking questions about just how much of that we are using and towards what end. Q: Where do you derive this sense of 'radical hope' at the end of your book? A: As a poor kid in rural Texas, I was given the license to dream. In fact, I was encouraged to dream and to believe that it will be possible for me to overcome the circumstances into which I was born. I've lived on both sides of the line of inequality. And I feel incredibly fortunate. But I'm also sobered by the gap between the privileged and the poor and the working-class people in America. It has widened during my lifetime and that is something I worry a lot about. But I'm hopeful because I think about my ancestors who were Black, enslaved, poor. African Americans, Black people, Black Americans have been hopeful for 400 years and have been patriots in believing in the possibility that this country would realize its aspirations for equality and justice. That has been our North Star. Q: Heather Gerken, the dean of Yale's law school, was recently named as your successor. Why is it important to have a leader with a legal background and an expertise in democracy? A: She is the perfect leader for Ford because she understands that at the center of our work must be a belief in democracy and democratic institutions and processes. She is also a bridge builder. She is a coalition builder. She's bold and courageous. I'm just thrilled about her taking the helm of the Ford Foundation. It is a signal from the Ford Foundation Board of Trustees that we are going to double down on our investment and our commitment to strengthening, protecting and promoting democracy. Q: Youtold AP last year that, when you exited this building for the last time, you'd only be looking forward. What does 'forward' mean to you now? A: I have resolved that I don't want to be a president or a CEO. I don't need to be a president of CEO. I think leaders can become nostalgic and hold onto their own history. Now there's no doubt, I know, that my obituary is going to say, 'Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation.' That's the most important job I'll ever have. But hopefully I'll be able to add some more important work to that. ___
The Hill
25 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump CIA chief: Brennan, Comey and Hillary Clinton could face indictment
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said he made referrals to the Justice Department for former Obama administration officials following the release of intelligence information about the 2016 election. Ratcliffe said that former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper, and former FBI Director James Comey could all face charges relating to what he called a 'hoax' about the election. Tulsi Gabbard, who now leads DNI in the Trump administration, last week released two sets of documents about the 2016 election. The files reveal little new information about Russia's much-studied efforts to influence the 2016 election, but Republicans have nonetheless claimed the intelligence reviews were designed to cast doubt on Trump's victory. The documents do not undercut a central conclusion: that Russia lunched a massive campaign with the hopes of influencing the contest. 'That's why I've made the referrals that I have, DNI Gabbard has made referrals, and why we're gonna continue to share the intelligence that would support the ability of our Department of Justice to make fair and just, bring fair and justice claims against those who have perpetrated this hoax against the American people and this stain on our country,' Ratcliffe said during an appearance on Fox's Sunday Morning Futures. The releases from Gabbard came amid ongoing pressure on the Trump administration to release files related to the controversy surrounding Jeffrey Epstein. They also followed a period in which Gabbard seemed to have lost some clout within the administration. While Gabbard has claimed the documents she has released show a 'treasonous conspiracy,' they largely show intelligence leaders discussing how the Russians were never able to alter vote tabulations — something that was never in dispute and that aligns with what Obama officials said publicly at the time. What intelligence did find, and which several reviews have since backed, was that Russia embarked on a massive social media campaign in the hopes of sowing division in the U.S. Last week, Gabbard released another report, this time a classified review led by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee. That report cast doubt on whether Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed to aid Trump as opposed to sowing discord within the U.S. In the process of releasing that report, Gabbard infuriated Democrats, who argued she exposed sources and methods for gathering intelligence. At the time the classified report was conducted, a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report, a panel led at the time by now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio, blacked the conclusion Russia favored Trump. Nonetheless, the Justice Department has since established a so-called Strike Force to review the information. Ratcliffe said there would also be additional information released. 'John Brennan testified to John Durham in August of 2020. He also testified to the House Oversight Committee in 2022. Hillary Clinton testified before John Durham under oath in 2022. James Comey testified before the Senate committee in September, 2020. All of that's within the last five years. And much of that testimony is frankly, completely inconsistent with what our underlying intelligence that is about to be declassified in the Durham Annex — what that reflects,' he said. 'And so, you know, [Attorney General] Pam Bondi does have a strike force. It is a different Department of Justice, a different FBI, and an opportunity to look at how these people really did conspire to run a hoax, a fraud on the American people and against Donald Trump's presidency.'
