A producer for Matt Gaetz’s One America Network show has been fired after he sparked turmoil at the MAGA network for sharing a blatantly antisemitic video on social media, prompting at least one anchor to publicly condemn Gaetz and the staffer.
TheWrap was the first to report that Vish Burra, a booker and scriptwriter for The Matt Gaetz Show. The Independent has since confirmed Burra has been terminated, with network executives finding his posts to be offensive and bigoted, according to sources.
“I’m very hurt, disappointed and concerned that someone I work with - chose to post this,” OAN’s Stella Escobedo, who recently scored an exclusive interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, tweeted.
Burra, a longtime MAGA provocateur and George Santos’ former director of operations, has come under fire in recent days after he took to X and shared an AI-generated cartoon of himself barging into a “Scheming Room” – that was emblazoned with the Star of David – and threatening a group of Jews that were depicted as cockroaches.
The Independent has reached out to OAN president Charles Herring and Burra for comment.
The video, which was created on Sora by an extremist social media account, was seemingly posted as part of Burra’s targeting campaign of conservative donor Susan Lebovitz-Edelman, who has been highly critical of Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts’ defense of Tucker Carlson’s chummy interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
“You’re not gonna be able to run and hide for long Susan ‘Suzy’ Lebovitz-Edelman. Your blood money can only buy so much ‘loyalty,’” Burra — a booker and scriptwriter for The Matt Gaetz Show — captioned the video, which has since been deleted.
In the short AI cartoon, the character that represents Burra approaches the “Scheming Room” door and exclaims, “Suzy, James, I know what you’re up to in there. Open up!” After opening the door, he flips on the light only to see a group of cockroaches gathered around a table with large stacks of cash. The bugs, who begin to sizzle and burn from the light, soon scurry off while screaming.
“It’s America First, America only, b******!” Burra declares after the bugs flee.
“I will expose the vermin in the venomous coalition and their transgression against MAGA, America First, and Kevin Roberts at The Heritage Foundation,” Burra wrote in another since-deleted tweet. “It all starts with Susan Lebovitz-Edelman.”
Burra’s inflammatory tweets are an offshoot of the growing fracture within the American conservative movement that’s been exposed by Carlson’s friendly interview with the Holocaust-denying Fuentes, which has threatened to spark a full-blown MAGA “civil war” over the direction of the Republican Party, particularly when it comes to military and diplomatic support of Israel.
The uproar has also resulted in an “open rebellion” at the Heritage Foundation after Roberts blasted the “venomous coalition” and “globalist class” criticizing Carlson for his kid-glove treatment of Fuentes, which included Carlson declaring his hatred for “Christian Zionists.” Roberts has since apologized for his vehement defense of the ex-Fox star, but has struggled to contain the damage as more and more Heritage staffers resign over the brouhaha.
“This woman, Susan Lebovitz-Edelman, is behind the entire campaign to oust Kevin Roberts from The Heritage Foundation by using her leverage as a recent big dollar donor to take control of the organization,” Burra declared in another tweet, sharing a photo of Lebovitz-Edelman.
After a number of conservatives took Burra to task for the wildly antisemitic video and tweets targeting a Jewish donor, Escobedo publicly disavowed her OAN colleague.
“I’m very hurt, disappointed and concerned that someone I work with - chose to post this. Posts like these create violence toward Jews,” she tweeted on Friday amid the backlash. “Dehumanizing a group is the first step on a road we’ve seen before. And that road leads to the mass murder of Jews.”
Noting that she’s a “Jewish woman” in another post, Escobedo added that she “will never accept anyone trying to dehumanize Jews or treat it like something normal.”
After staying silent on the matter Friday and not returning The Independent’s request for comment about his producer’s actions, Gaetz tweeted over the weekend that he stood by Burra despite the growing blowback.
“My producer Vish Burra posted something dumb this week. He knew it was dumb and quickly deleted it. I too have posted dumb things on social media without thinking - some I’ve deleted, some I haven’t. And I’ve had to pay some consequences along the way. Vish will too,” he wrote on X.
“I’m not the internet hall monitor of any of my coworkers (thankfully.),” Gaetz continued. “I can say on the Matt Gaetz Show we do not believe in applying bigotry to any group of people, no matter where they live or how they worship. We stand against such bigotry every weeknight.”
Escobedo would respond to Gaetz’s tweet by pressing the former GOP congressman on a “few things,” pointing out that rather than Burra “quickly” deleting the video, the post had stayed up for a few hours. Additionally, the OAN host flagged several other tweets from Burra that could be seen as antisemitic or inflammatory.
Among the posts Escobedo highlighted were Burra referring to Jewish women as a “stinky yenta,” claiming that giving women the right to vote “was a mistake,” defending a person wearing a Nazi uniform as a Halloween costume, and seemingly referring to the Holocaust as a “nearly century-old postwar consensus fairytale.”
Escobedo also brought up Burra saying that “this idea that Fuentes is not getting tough interviews is why he’s going mainstream is dumb” by pointing to Escobedo’s sitdown with Netanyahu, adding that it took place on “our ‘fifth rate network’ with someone who’s a fan of his.”
Burra has also responded to Jewish critics of his by telling them to collect “a $7k check from Israel to fix your hair,” referencing Israel’s “Esther Project” in which the government is paying social media influencers to sway young audiences. Notably, Gaetz has also responded to pro-Israeli accounts by claiming they were paid $7,000 a post. When pressed about his tweets this weekend, he said they were “very” cool.
OAN insiders tell The Independent that, behind the scenes, Burra’s posts have caused turmoil among staff, with several reporters and hosts pressing management to take action against the producer and Gaetz’s show.
Some of the network’s on-air personalities have also been highly critical of Gaetz, who was hired by One America News late last year after his bid to become Trump’s attorney general crashed and burned amid ongoing allegations of sexual misconduct.
Specifically, sources noted, OAN anchors and hosts have brought up a recent New York Times article that provided more details about the “then-homeless 17-year-old high schooler” who Gaetz allegedly paid for sex. The former Florida lawmaker has repeatedly denied those accusations.
As for Burra, prior to his termination, the MAGA firebrand remained defiant over the weekend amid the uproar, at least on social media.
At the end of Gaetz’s appearance on former Trump strategist Steve Bannon’s War Room broadcast on Friday, Bannon – who is one of the leaders of the “America First, America Only” wing of MAGA – singled out Burra for praise.
“You got one of the best producers in the business, Vish Burra,” Bannon told a smiling Gaetz. (Burra was once part of Bannon’s entourage and helped facilitate the publication of material from Hunter Biden’s laptop.)
Burra would share the clip on X over the weekend, adding: “Thanks for the shoutout Steve!”
Trump gets ‘thank you’ from racist Nick Fuentes after he defends Carlson interview
Trump news live: White House issues list of Democrats with alleged ties to Epstein
98 Palestinians died in Israeli detention in ‘systematic policy of killing’: report
Trump rolls out FIFA ‘PASS’ to give priority visas to 2026 US World Cup visitors
What is asylum metering? Supreme Court to review policy axed in 2021
Charlotte’s Web author’s granddaughter slams DHS use of book in deportation efforts
