Was a controversial June 2025 Craigslist ad seeking the "toughest badasses" in Los Angeles traced to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries? No, that's not true: The story originated on a Facebook page that describes its content as satirical. The ad appears to have been a prank, but prompted suspicions that its authors were recruiting paid anti-ICE protesters.
The claim appeared in a June 10, 2025, post on Facebook (archived here), which consisted of four memes including the following text:
The Craigslist ads looking for "The toughest bad@sses in LA" has been traced back to Hakeem Jeffries' office.
Jeffries and his donors are paying up to $12,500 a week for people willing to "get down and dirty with police and the National Guard."
The LLC paying the bills is a shell company owned by George and Alex Soros.
Stay informed, America, and hit that follow button!
This is what it looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot)
The rumor was false. The page that published the memes, "America - Love It or Leave It", is part of a network of pages and websites which describe their output as satirical.
"America - Love it or Leave It" features the following disclaimer:
A subsidiary of the America's Last Line of Defense network of trollery and propaganda for cash. Nothing on this page is real.
The website associated with the page, Dunning-Kruger Times, contains the following disclaimer:
Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined.
The June 5, 2025 Craigslist ad sought the "toughest badasses" in Los Angeles, and prompted claims it was an example of the recruitment of paid anti-ICE protesters. However, it did not contain the phrase "get down and dirty with police and the National Guard", as the "America - Love It or Leave It" post claimed. YouTube pranksters Goofcon later claimed responsibility for the ad.
