15 lesser-known candidates running for president in 2024
6. Joe Exotic
Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joe Allen Maldonado, is an openly gay man who rose to national prominence as the star of the Netflix documentary “Tiger King” that aired in 2020 when people were forced to stay home at the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdowns. He is serving time in federal prison for animal abuse against his adult tigers and attempted murder for hire to kill his nemesis, Carole Baskin.
He claims that what he did was put “five very old, crippled tigers to sleep in the most humane way possible” and denies trying to hire hit men to murder Baskin. He is seeking the Democratic nomination for president. Exotic’s personal website states that he was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison on “17 federal charges of paperwork violations and two bogus counts of attempted murder for hire.”
Exotic, also known as the “Tiger King,” operated the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma for two decades until 2018. His platform calls for the elimination of the Internal Revenue Service and changing the U.S. Constitution to impose four-year term limits on federal judges, U.S. senators and representatives, and U.S. attorneys. Members of Congress would only be allowed to serve two terms.
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Additionally, Exotic expressed a desire to make federal judges and U.S. attorneys “elected by the people and not appointed by a friend in the White House for life.” His desire for term limits is part of a broader vision for criminal justice reform that includes ending complete immunity for federal agents and employees of the court as well as making public defenders “a private lawyer on rotation” as opposed to “a public lawyer that don’t give a rat’s a-- if you lose or win because the government keeps them employed whether your life depends on it or not.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
