Up until the moment Joe Biden was inaugurated as President of the United States and Donald Trump was officially no longer in office, around noon on January 20th, 2021, Tiger King tabloid fodder Joe Exotic seemed to genuinely believe that a last-moment pardon would be coming through for him. Now he’s running for president himself, and telling the world what he thinks of Trump and his alleged crimes.
Trump’s allies and detractors alike have predicted that he would run for office from prison, but Joseph Maldonado, whose exotic animal park and reality series have him more widely known as Joe Exotic, has beaten him to the punch.
Notably, unlike Trump’s current charges, Maldonado’s conviction (for allegedly trying to hire a hitman to kill a woman whose activism has plagued his park, as well as falsifying wildlife records and violating the endangered species act) was federal, and does fall within presidential pardon power.
If Trump is convicted in New York, his conviction would not fall under those powers.
Now Joe says he’s changing his party affiliation.
Instead of running as a libertarian (aka a right-winger who’s okay with LGB people — the T is absent on purpose, more about that further down) he’s planning to run as a Democrat (or, in layman’s terms, a candidate who won’t be around after primaries, unless he runs as a spoiler), though his policies don’t sound much like the Democratic party.
Aside from a party change that moves him one step further from Trump, he’s also got an opinion to share about the former president’s indictment.
He says after being locked up under Trump’s administration, he has no empathy for the man — in fact, he says this is karma. From Fox News:
“His administration is the one who screwed me over and put me in here for an agenda to stop you from owning a tiger and petting a baby tiger, so all I’ve got to say to him, is karma’s a b—.”
Both-sidesing the issue but still condemning Trump, Maldonado adds, “If the man broke the law, he needs to pay the price,” and that the same should apply to Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden, and former president Barack Obama.
His political positions are a little harder to nail down, though.
Despite recently declaring that his views are on his website, Joe’s stances are only shared in the form of a Q&A page.
He says on gun control that the right and left must “meet in the middle;” that “we can have guns to protect ourselves without needing assault weapons,” and that school shootings are the result of bullying.
On health care, he blames illegal immigration and says there should be a $50 per month tax on living in the country without documentation, and that this would allow the government to offer free healthcare.
He, who is openly gay, also thinks trans people shouldn’t be allowed to use the bathroom matching their gender, and that school libraries shouldn’t contain material about LGBTQ lives:
“All we wanted to do was be accepted , but they have taken it too far with all of this being put in school libraries, in every commercial on tv, and flaunted in public…If you’re born with a penis, you are going to pee in the mens’ room.”
To sum up, he’s got a few ideas that might vibe with some voters on the left, but his overall platform — to the extent he can be said to have one — isn’t putting him in serious competition with Biden or anyone else.
Still, coming forward to tell Trump he deserves whatever he gets in the legal system stands out — it’s more than even some of the folks who went to prison for fighting on Trump’s behalf are willing to say.
Joe Exotic says he is now switching parties and running for president as a Democrat instead of Libertarian. Asked what he thinks about Trump’s indictment: “His Admin is the one who screwed me over and put me in here .. All I got to say to him is ‘karma’s a bitch ain’t it?’” pic.twitter.com/96ZNoSuqRj
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 16, 2023
