Clay Higgins Endorses Julia Letlow After Fleming's Disgusting Attack on Letlow Family
- Staff @ LPR
- 6 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Congressman Clay Higgins made his position clear on Louisiana radio yesterday, offering a rebuke of the kind of politics Fleming represents. Speaking with evident frustration about the attack on Letlow's family, Higgins announced his support for the congresswoman and called out Fleming for conduct he said has no place in Republican politics. "There's a certain line that should not be crossed," Higgins said, "even within those politically driven attack campaigns. You don't address the widow of a young American and insinuate that she found it convenient that her beloved husband had passed away so that she could be elected to Congress."
The comment reflected something larger happening in Louisiana politics this week: Republican leaders drawing a clear line between themselves and the kind of politics Fleming represents. It was a visceral reminder that even in an era of increasingly digital and deceptive political warfare, there are still boundaries most believe shouldn't be crossed.
On June 11, Fleming shared what he called a "parody video" to social media, stating he "didn't make this parody video but it's getting passed around for Louisiana for a reason." The video, generated through artificial intelligence, depicted a deepfake version of Letlow making several claims about her political positions, including support for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and carbon capture projects. But the real damage came in a single line. The AI-generated Letlow said she was aiming to become a University of Louisiana president when "my poor husband died and I was appointed to his Congressional seat."
What made it worse was what came at the end. As the deepfake video concluded, the sound of a car crash played in the background—a subtle but deliberate dig at Julia's brother, Jeremy, who died in a car accident when she was a junior in college. For anyone familiar with Letlow's personal history, the inclusion was unmistakably cruel. She had built a career around grief counseling and had written her doctoral dissertation on coping with sudden family loss, dedicating the work to Jeremy's memory. To invoke that loss in a political attack was not incidental; it was calculated.
Letlow responded the next day with a video of her own. "Yesterday, John Fleming crossed the line," she said, her tone controlled but tense. "He posted an AI parody video attacking my family members, including my late husband, Luke. Posting this video is disgraceful and indefensible. Family is off limits, period. I am running against John, no one else. To include my late husband Luke in your video is unconscionable. You didn't just mention his death, you made a spectacle of it like it was entertainment."
Governor Jeff Landry, who has backed Letlow in the runoff, offered his own rebuke. "There are lines that simply shouldn't be crossed, and invoking the loss of a spouse for political purposes is one of them," Landry wrote on social media. "Luke and I were friends up until the day he passed. John Fleming should be ashamed." In a broader statement about campaign conduct, the governor reflected on what character means in politics. "We know that sometimes our political seasons turn ugly," Landry said, "but I want you to know that the fitness of a person that you vote for is told by not only the people who support them, but in the way that he or she carries themselves. John Fleming has absolutely shown his true colors."
U.S. Congressman Steve Scalise, a longtime friend of Luke Letlow's, delivered perhaps the harshest assessment from a sitting federal official. "John Fleming needs to take this fake AI-created video down IMMEDIATELY!" Scalise wrote on X. "Luke Letlow was a dear friend and a true public servant. To falsely attack his legacy for cheap political points is a new low and could also be illegal. This fake video is designed to mislead voters, and John should apologize to the people of Louisiana for attempting to deceive them."
Yet Fleming has shown no sign of backing down. As of Monday afternoon, the video remained on his social media accounts. Instead, Fleming has responded with accusations of his own, claiming that Letlow's campaign produced AI-generated videos attacking him. Fleming says the Letlow team created deepfakes showing him driving a bus of illegal aliens and associating him with Dr. Anthony Fauci in calls for COVID vaccinations. Fleming called these videos "dishonest" and "nasty," and demanded that Letlow's campaign remove them before he would consider taking down his own video.
The mutual accusations point to a larger question facing Louisiana voters as they head toward the June 27 runoff: in an era when AI technology can create convincing videos of anyone saying anything, how do campaigns maintain ethical boundaries? What separates legitimate political satire from something that crosses into personal attacks on family members? And what does it say about a candidate's judgment when they choose to wield a weapon like this, even if they claim they didn't forge it themselves?
It was a moment that revealed the stark difference between how Louisiana Republicans believe campaigns should be conducted and how Fleming has chosen to conduct his. Higgins, Landry, and Scalise all share a view that this kind of attack—one that weaponizes personal tragedy and resurrects family grief for political gain—is out of bounds. It doesn't represent the Republican Party they know, and it doesn't represent the Louisiana they know. "I condemn John Fleming's support of this over-the-top, super-ungentlemanly, completely unnecessary, insanely mean, nasty attack," Higgins said. "She is a lady of Louisiana and there are lines that we should not cross. That line was crossed and John has not apologized."
Whether voters in the final two weeks before June 27 will agree that Fleming has crossed an unacceptable line remains to be seen. But what is already clear is that Fleming's brand of dirty politics, one that exploits personal tragedy and family trauma for electoral advantage, stands apart from what mainstream Louisiana Republicans believe their party should stand for.
The attack on Letlow was not just ungentlemanly. It was un-Louisianan.
