Gian Rachtelli and Edgar the Puppet. Image by YouTube Screengrab
MAGA is getting more and more weird, says the Bulwark crew of Tim Miller, Sam Stein and Will Sommer. But MAGA’s talent for blaming others for their personal depravities remains unchanged.
MAGA social media influencer Gian Rachtelli, 54, was charged with lewd, indecent and obscene acts on the National Mall, allegedly while dressed as Uncle Sam during an acrobatic performance at President Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair, according to police documents.
Three separate witnesses reported seeing Rachtelli, known to his thousands of followers as “Manny,” engage in lewd acts, according to U.S. Park Police documents. But earlier this week Rachtelli said in an interview that Antifa was probably behind it.
At the time, of course, he was talking to a puppet.
“Is it just a misunderstanding, or were you set up?” asked Puppet Edgar on his YouTube show earlier this week.
“I've seen Antifa do crazier things than that. So, I’m not saying I was set up, but I would not say that maybe a phone call was made to somebody,” Rachtelli told Edgar.
“This is actually a pretty important job for [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio and [Attorney General] Todd Blanche and [FBI head] Kash Patel,” announced Miller, between laughter. “They've been very concerned about Antifa and cracking down. And to think that they might have someone on the inside [of the park police].”
“I think it goes further than that,” said Stein. “These are the performers that he was watching on stage when he was [committing lewd acts] from a distance. And I think what he's saying is they infiltrated the [stage act] and they were just too tempting.”
“This is a guy named Edgar the Puppet,” said Sommer, who makes a career of monitoring MAGA shows and intra-party battles. “It truly alarms me to learn that this guy has a big audience. I mean he has like 190,000 followers. He's like a conservative puppet.”
“Like a Newsmax Triumph the Insult Comedy Dog,” said Miller.
“You might think this kind of comes off like a Triumph routine, but he's on Manny's side,” said Sommer. “He supports him. And so, Manny says ‘I'm out of jail. I've avoided violating my release conditions by not quite getting back on the mall. And now I'm giving an exclusive interview to a puppet. I'm not a sicko.’”
“I don't know why he didn't come to the Bulwark podcast. I was available,” quipped Miller, praising his talent for laundering flawed personalities in a public forum.
Throughout the show, Rachtelli insisted on his innocence to his lilac-colored host.
“I just went past my pockets to get something out of them,” Rachtelli told Edgar, while calling witness accounts of his behavior “shoddy at best” and “total hearsay.”
“What is up with that tongue,” complained Stein, watching the video and referring to Rachtelli’s disturbing habit of punctuating statements with a flicking tongue.
“Okay, everybody. It's a weird world out there,” concluded Miller.