A regional field director for former President Donald Trump’s grassroots get-out-the-vote effort in Pennsylvania was fired for secretly promoting white nationalist views, according to multiple reports. Luke Meyer, a 24-year-old regional field director for Trump Force 47 in western Pennsylvania, pseudonymously hosted a podcast with notorious neo-Nazi Richard Spencer while in the role, Politico reported. In episodes of the podcast, Meyer expressed a desire to return America to being “80 percent, 90 percent white” and posted photos of himself wearing a ring bearing the sonnenrad—a symbol used by the Nazis.
Trump Force 47 is the campaign’s grassroots organizing effort which is described as a “joint effort” by the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign. Meyer was reportedly fired from the role by the Pennsylvania Republican Party last Friday, and admitted the reporting was accurate to both Politico and The Washington Post . The Pennsylvania GOP did not immediately return a request for comment from the Daily Beast, but told Politico that Meyer was background checked.
“If we’d had any inkling about his hidden and despicable activity he would never have been hired, and the instant we learned of it he was fired,” the local party said in a statement to Politico. “We have no place in our Party or nation for people with such shameful, hateful views.” Dick Van Dyke, 98, endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Monday in a messag.
