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While most of us woke up groggy to the news of the United States men’s hockey team winning the gold medal over Canada Sunday morning, Florida Politics publisher Peter Schorsch had his Twitter fingers ready to unleash what was on his brain following the win.
In a now-deleted post on X, Schorsch wrote, “Who’s doing their patriotic duty and blowing this kid on the flight home?”
His post was in response to New York Times investigative reporter Mike Baker’s post about Jack Hughes scoring the winning goal despite losing two of his teeth during the third period when he was on the receiving end of a high-sticking penalty from Sam Bennett. Hughes scored the golden goal less than two minutes into the 3-on-3 overtime to secure the U.S.’ first gold medal in men’s hockey since the 1980 “Miracle on Ice.”
For the less than 20 minutes the post remained online, Schorsch received backlash.
“Good grief, dude,” one user responded.
Another added, “How many mimosas did it take to tweet this?”
Schorsch said he only deleted the post to ensure his algorithm does not get messed up by the sexual content.
Screenshot via X/@PeterSchorschFL
In a phone call with New Times, Schorsch, who initially laughed when asked about the post, maintained that he deleted it to ensure his algorithm was not “impacted.” He characterized the tweet merely as “sexual banter,” not misogyny or anti-female sentiment. To illustrate his point, he explained that he had just watched an episode of the HBO show Industry where two men had oral sex.
“I tweeted like 200 things yesterday in celebration of America’s defeat of its rivals to the north, and that one stuck out to me when I was reviewing it because it was of a sexual nature,” he said. “I usually don’t get into any kind of sexual content because I don’t want my algorithm impacted.”
Schorsch then went on a tangent about condoms and men needing to learn how to date.
“Every Olympics, they end up running out of condoms in the Olympic village where the athletes are. I think it’s awesome that young, peak-performing athletes are engaging in romantic adventures with other performers,” he added. “I absolutely think we would have many less problems if more young men were putting down their phones and not gambling and not tech broing and they were out trying to meet women and be romantic and court somebody that they really liked and embarrassed themselves on first dates.
He continued, “I think anything where we can get people of the opposite sex intermingling with each other would be awesome.”
As Schorsch pointed out during the phone call with New Times, his tweets didn’t end there.
In response to a tweet with an AI video of an eagle firing guns that reads, “Call a doctor because this erection is gonna last more than 4 hours. LET’S TONGUE PUNCH SOME CANADIAN ASS, FELLAS 🫡🇺🇸.”
Schorsch added, “‘Merica!”
Apparently, he was having a rowdy time that morning.
Before posting his sexually-charged tweet, Schorsch posted a GIF of a dirty martini and wrote, “I’m making dirty martinis out of the salty tears of Canadian hockey fans!”
He was evidently plotting his wild morning the night before.
In a response to a tweet that stated, “Tomorrow morning might be the most collectively drunk the continent of North America has ever been at 8 AM,” the Florida Politics publisher added, “All in. Nap time at noon.”
Perhaps, mission accomplished?
Just after noon on Sunday, Scorsch wrote, “Shitfaced before noon. Night, night!”
Schorsch, who is also the publisher of Influence Magazine, is a former political operative who broke the news about the August 2022 FBI raid on President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.
A December 2022 report by journalism cooperative Floodlight and NPR found that Florida Politics was one of a handful of news outlets across Florida and Alabama that received money over the years from consulting firm Matrix LLC, allegedly in exchange for positive coverage of utility companies Alabama Power and Florida Power and Light (FPL).
In an interview with NPR and Floodlight, Schorsch said he practices “combination journalism,” which he described as giving priority coverage to advertisers like FPL without handing over content control.
He later told New Times that he is “just more open about the fact that there is a business side to this operation.”
“It would be naive to think that the people that advertise and that I do financial business with are not going to get preference in terms of the priority of coverage, not necessarily the direction of the coverage, but the priority of coverage,” he added.
Previously, the local Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office investigated the pay-to-play allegations with advertisers after a handful of Florida politicos told the Tampa Bay Times that Schorsch tried to pressure them for “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in exchange for positive articles or the deletion of negative ones.”
