‘You Might Think This Is a Joke but It’s Not’: ‘Tiger King’ Makes 2024 Announcement From Prison

Joseph Maldonado-Passage, also known as “Joe Exotic” or the “Tiger King,” is hoping to make his way to the White House.

Maldonado-Passage posted a message to his campaign website for 2024.

“Thank you for your interest in my Campaign. Yes, I know I am in Federal Prison and you might think this is a joke but it’s not. It is my Constitutional right to do this even from here,” he wrote.

The message claims he has been put in prison “only because of the corruption in the Department of Justice, three felons that were told how to lie under oath to further this agenda, two corrupt Assistant U.S. Attorneys, two corrupt FBI Agents. and one corrupt Federal Wildlife Agent.”

According to Maldonado-Passage, the only thing he did “was put five very old, crippled tigers to sleep in the most humane way possible and it was approved by my USDA Inspector, so it’s time to get over it.”

He added, “PeTA kills thousands of animals a year. Carole has killed over 226 big cats and most of you eat some kind of animal everyday, so it’s time to move past this issue.”

Maldonado-Passage shared he is “here because I have a world platform to make these politicians listen to your and my concerns and give us some answers for once because all they do is lie to all of us, take our hard earned money calling it taxes, and give it away to foreign countries without them giving us anything back.”

He reassured Americans he does not “give a damn what color you are, where you came from, who you sleep with, if you have done drugs in your past, or if you have made a mistake and ended up in jail or put there because someone lied about you, It is time we all put the past in the past and move this campaign forward and scare the hell out of these people because you and I want some answers.”

Additionally, Maldonado-Passage praised Twitter CEO Elon Musk “and the ones that invented the internet, cell phones, and so on.”

The post goes on to argue these things were not “done by your senators or congressmen and women. All they have done is pass laws to take your rights and money away and treat you like you’re something beneath them, while they live high on the hog ripping everyone off and never paying the price for it.”

Toward the end of his message, Maldonado-Passage encouraged voters to “put aside that I am gay, that I am in prison for now, that I used drugs in the past, that I had more then one boyfriend at once and that Carole hates my guts.”

He continued, “This all has not a thing to do with me being able to be your voice. The best thing you have going for supporting me is that I am used to fighting my whole life just to get by. I am broke, they have taken everything I ever worked for away, and it’s time we take this country back.”

In January 2022, Maldonado-Passage was sentenced to 21 years in prison.

A judge reduced his sentence by a year amid pleas from Maldonado-Passage as he began treatment for early-stage cancer.

He was previously convicted of charges in a case involving animal welfare activist Carole Baskin.

They made headlines after being featured in the Netflix documentary titled, “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.”