MAGA supporters are ditching the movement in record numbers because of President Donald Trump’s most “toxic” trait: lying.
Rich Logis, founder of the nonprofit Leaving MAGA, said his organization is experiencing “record-high” fundraising and seeing “more who are having doubts than ever before.”
He rattled off the reasons defectors give, saying: “The Epstein files. Tariffs. Deaths at the hands of federal immigration enforcement agents. Skyrocketing gas prices. The slashing of federal jobs. A ‘war of choice’ in Iran.”
Since becoming a tax-exempt nonprofit in August 2024, Leaving MAGA has raised roughly $34,000 in its first year, approximately $110,000 the following year, and has already pulled in $100,000 in 2026.
The numbers aren’t as good for Trump. The Consumer Price Index for March showed that prices were up 3.3 percent from a year ago, as the inflation rate shot up to 0.9 percent last month, up from 0.3 percent in February. These economic burdens, caused by his war, have helped to edge everyday Americans away from the movement.
“Right now, in MAGA, one of the reasons I think there are more people who are having doubts and are confused and are questioning their belief system,” Logis told Raw Story, “is because the president has very clearly not kept a lot of his promises.”
Logis knows the feeling firsthand. A former MAGA podcaster, fundraiser, and pundit, he eventually broke with the movement—writing a memoir titled One Betrayal Too Many: Why I Left MAGA—and spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in support of then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
On the convention stage, Logis declared that “Trump’s toxic superpower is lying.”
He’s now betting others are reaching the same conclusion. To find them, Leaving MAGA is launching a billboard campaign costing around $20,000, with messages including “Find your new community,” “You are not alone,” and “Welcome home.” The first billboard goes up in Texas on April 15, with others to follow in Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Florida.
The grievances Logis hears are both ideological and practical. Trump campaigned on lowering costs, but gas prices now average more than $4 a gallon. A recent poll found that as many as seven in 10 Americans blame Trump’s tariff policies for high prices. His pledge to avoid “endless wars” has collided with military conflict in Iran.
“There’s still a lot of fealty to Trump within the MAGA community,” Logis said, “but I think most people in MAGA have a red line… when there’s one lie too many, when there’s one betrayal too many.”
He described his own time inside the movement as a kind of addiction.
“It was exhilarating and enthralling, until it wasn’t,” he said. “When I left, I came to realize that I had essentially been addicted to rage.”
The 2022 Uvalde school shooting, he said, was his “final straw.”
Once powerful backers are turning their backs on Trump, too. The president hit out at Tucker Carlson and his fellow Fox News alum Megyn Kelly as well as conspiracy theorist podcasters Candace Owens and Alex Jones, in a wild 485-word Truth Social meltdown on Thursday, after they spoke out against him and his war. He is also in an ongoing war of words with former Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene for the same reasons.
