This morning we learned the utterly unsurprising news that the loon who’s—allegedly—been mailing crude bombs to every Democratic politician and TV talking head he could think of is—allegedly—a gentleman named Cesar Sayoc, who seems to be devoted to Donald Trump. And since then a few ordinarily chatty folks on Twitter have gone inexplicably radio silent.

Some talking heads in Trumpworld, you see, had backed themselves into a bit of a corner over the last few days, making increasingly bombastic pronouncements and speculations—they were just asking questions!—that the perpetrator was not a mentally imbalanced Republican, but a crooked, calculating libtard looking to drum up sympathy for the Democratic party before the midterms. Jim Swift compiled a list of these speculators on Thursday. Now seems like a good time to check in and see how they’re doing.

Dinesh D’Souza

Over the past few days, D’Souza has taken some time away from his ordinary “Democrats are the real racists” schtick to offer his expert opinion on what WEEKLY STANDARD fact checker Holmes Lybrand dubbed the “cancelled stamp” conspiracy—the notion that a lack of a USPS cancellation on some of the packages indicated that they hadn’t gone through the mail at all and instead, had been self-delivered by the bombees. (The bombs are coming from inside the house!)



Fake sexual assault victims. Fake refugees. Now fake mail bombs. We are all learning how the media left are masters of distortion, deflection & deception — Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) October 25, 2018

Remarkable to see the Post Office now delivering mail without marking off the stamps. Wait! They don’t do this. So how did this package get to its destination? https://t.co/JTWiPMnUin — Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) October 26, 2018

When humor kicks in you know the political tactic has completely backfired pic.twitter.com/2seouICZdR — Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) October 26, 2018



D’Souza also spent part of Friday morning retweeting fans of his recent movie Death of a Nation, one of whom gushed that the ostensible exposé of liberal chicanery “explains the pipe bombs, the Mexican caravan, all the Democrat craziness!” As news of Sayoc’s arrest broke roughly an hour later, however, D’Souza descended into silence.

Bill Mitchell

Dinesh may have gone underground, but not Mitchell, the North Carolina radio pundit who built a national Twitter brand by shouting pro-Trump platitudes louder than just about anyone else online. (This is even harder than it sounds.) Prior to learning Sayoc’s identity, Mitchell was waxing conspiratorial that the packages had “Soros astro-turfing written all over it so the media can paint the GOP as ‘the dangerous mob.’” And after Sayoc's arrest, Mitchell did what he does best: He doubled down.



This guy Cesar is looking like a "sleeper" implanted by the Democrats just for such an occasion as this. I mean, c'mon, that van is ridiculous. — Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) October 26, 2018

Does this bomb hoax piss you off Republicans? Are you SICK of the Democrats' silly games?



Go vote.



Bring a friend.



Bring 5 friends. — Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) October 26, 2018

Wait let's see. "Bombs" sent in envelopes creating maximum suspicion (because they look and feel like bombs). You send them from the same district you are actually in. Your van is covered in Trump stickers to point of being ridiculous.



This guy WANTED to be caught. — Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) October 26, 2018



Say what you want about Mitchell, but the guy knows what his audience wants. And Baghdad Bob's gotta Baghdad Bob.

Candace Owens

You’d think the communications director of a major activist group would be leery about popping off with conspiratorial muttering. You’d think that, until you ran across Candace Owens, who heads up comms for Charlie Kirk’s Trumpist organ Turning Point USA. In a now-deleted Thursday tweet, Owens announced to no one in particular that “there is a 0% chance that these ‘suspicious packages’ were sent out by conservatives.”

“The only thing ‘suspicious’ about these packages is their timing,” Owens continued. “Caravans, fake bomb threats—these leftists are going ALL OUT for midterms.”

Despite deleting the tweet, Owens repeated the claim during a Thursday appearance on Hill TV: “It is my belief, when you take a look at the conversation, the things that have gone on and the increasing violence that’s gone on, it has purely been a leftist tactic to stall things, delay the administration, and to fearmonger. So as a matter of opinion, I do believe that when we get to the resolution, the bottom of this, and we do have facts, we’re going to see that this was orchestrated by the left.”

Owens, too, has been silent on Twitter since the Sayoc arrest. Fortunately, fellow TPUSA flack Richard Armande Mills has been there to pick up the slack, suggesting that the pro-Trump stickers festooning the suspect’s van all look suspiciously new!

Rush Limbaugh

Speaking of sticker conspirators, Rush Limbaugh spent part of his Friday broadcast speculating on the same subject. Limbaugh, who speculated Wednesday that a Democrat may have sent the bombs because “things are not working out the way they thought” in the upcoming midterms, had this to say after Friday’s news broke:

“This van, every window has stickers, decals, bumper stickers. There’s so many of ’em you can’t see out of these windows . . . How in the world does a van like that in South Florida not get defaced? There’s a lot of Democrats down in South Florida. There are a lot of people that hate Donald Trump down here. This guy driving that van, that van would have tomatoes all over it and rotten eggs, swastikas would have been painted on it—any number of things would have been done to deface it. There is no way that you could hide in that van.”

Limbaugh continued: “None of the stuff on that van, the stickers and the decals, very little of it looks faded. Meaning it doesn’t look like it’s been there very long. Certainly this guy’s van is parked outside, he’s been driving around in this thing. We have inclement weather here in South Florida, there’s been some rain, but it’s a hot baking wet sun, and even if these stickers are plastered on the inside of the windows, there’d be some fading of the stuff.”

It’s a little sad when the kingpin of radio has to ape a discount talker from North Carolina.

Lou Dobbs

President Trump’s favorite Fox Business pundit, Lou Dobbs, also climbed aboard the #FalseFlag train on Thursday. “Fake News—Fake Bombs,” he tweeted. “Who could possibly benefit by so much fakery?” He followed that up with another doozy: “Fake News had just successfully changed the narrative from the onslaught of illegal immigrants and broken border security to ‘suspicious packages.’”

Dobbs has since deleted both tweets. Tragically for him, the Internet is forever.

Ann Coulter

OG right-wing rabble-rouser Coulter hasn’t devoted too much time to tweeting about the mail bombs—after all, she’s what you might call a single-issue thinker, and there’s a migrant caravan to keep tabs on. She did, however, manage one tweet on the subject on Wednesday:



From the Haymarket riot to the Unibomber, bombs are a liberal tactic. https://t.co/P3YvUorxwL — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) October 24, 2018



Coulter has not tweeted since news broke of the Sayoc arrest.

Donald Trump

Hey, don’t act so surprised! President Trump can never resist a good Twitter conspiracy, and he let rip with his own spin on the formula Friday morning:



Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this “Bomb” stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows - news not talking politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans, go out and vote! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 26, 2018



Trump was about to go on stage to speak at TPUSA’s Young Black Leadership Summit Friday when the news of the arrest broke. In his remarks, he applauded law enforcement and called for Americans to unify and end politically motivated violence.

He didn’t mention the van.