Despite the late hour in Scotland, President Donald Trump took to social media early Sunday morning with a fiery barrage of posts targeting Vice President Kamala Harris, Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey, and major U.S. news networks—accusing them of campaign finance violations and threatening legal consequences.
Writing on Truth Social around 7:45 p.m. ET (12:45 a.m. BST), Trump claimed he was reviewing what he called “probably illegal” spending by Democrats during the 2024 election cycle.
Among his accusations: that Beyoncé was paid $11 million to endorse Kamala Harris but “never sang, not one note, and left the stage to a booing and angry audience!” He further alleged that Oprah Winfrey was paid $3 million in “expenses,” and civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton received $600,000 — all allegedly tied to political endorsements.
“There is NO allowance for paying for endorsements — that is completely illegal,” Trump wrote. “Can you imagine the outcry if Republicans started doing that? Kamala and all who took endorsement money BROKE THE LAW. They should be prosecuted!”
The Harris campaign has strongly denied paying for any endorsements. According to Federal Election Commission records, Harris’s campaign paid Beyoncé’s Parkwood Production Media LLC $165,000 to cover event production costs. Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, called Trump’s claims a “lie,” adding that Beyoncé paid for her own travel. Oprah, too, previously clarified that she “was not paid a dime” and that the $1 million in production expenses were strictly to cover staffing and logistics.
Still, Trump doubled down, writing: “Kamala, Oprah, Beyoncé — they all knew what they were doing. It was illegal. That’s where the DOJ should be looking!”
This isn’t the first time Trump has targeted celebrities in the middle of the night. On May 19, he railed against Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen, and Bono in another early morning Truth Social post, accusing them of participating in “illegal campaign donations.”
The president also turned his focus to mainstream media, singling out ABC and NBC, and again floated the idea of revoking their broadcast licenses.
“It has become so outrageous that, in my opinion, their licenses could, and should, be revoked! MAGA,” he posted.
Trump has frequently used legal threats to confront media coverage he considers hostile. His campaign previously reached major financial settlements with CBS and ABC over coverage he claimed was defamatory or misleading. Most recently, he filed a $10 billion lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch, The Wall Street Journal, and two journalists over the publication of what he says was a forged birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein.
That lawsuit came just days after Trump reached a $16 million settlement with Paramount over its airing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, which his legal team argued had been unfairly edited to harm his 2024 reelection campaign.
