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The right-wing information sphere on social media is shaped by large, often anonymous influencer accounts that are then amplified to even wider audiences by prominent conservatives. Two such accounts are Defiant L’s and Resist the Mainstream, both offering takes on American politics, often alleging corruption and election fraud by Democrats, to a combined over 2 million followers. Republican lawmakers like Mike Lee, Nancy Mace, Andy Biggs, Eli Crane, and Dan Crenshaw, along with major political figures like Elon Musk, share the accounts’ posts on X, some claiming that “illegals” or undocumented immigrants are fraudulently voting in American elections.
The owner and operator of both accounts, however, is not only a man who has by his own admission never stepped foot in the United States but has donated over $3,000 in an American election. Donating to American political campaigns as a foreign national is a federal crime, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Rumen Naumovski donated to Ron Watkins’ congressional campaign in Arizona in 2022 while living in Macedonia as a Macedonian national, according to FEC documents listing his name and a Florida media company that he owns, along with a review of his own statements detailing his attempts to immigrate to America. He runs Defiant L’s and Resist the Mainstream via that same Florida company, according to court documents and his statements, and someone with knowledge of his company.
Watkins later returned the donations, and Naumovski has said he was unaware he was prohibited from donating.
Defiant L’s and Resist the Mainstream are two major players in the right-wing influencer space on X and cover American politics almost exclusively. Defiant L’s in particular enjoys a major reach on the platform thanks to elected officials and Musk, who called Defiant L’s “one of the best accounts on X” last year.
South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace has shared multiple posts from the account, and even replied to Defiant L’s last month, on a post about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar that asked, “What’s the first thought that comes to mind when you see Ilhan Omar?” “Censure,” Mace replied. Utah Sen. Mike Lee often shares Defiant L’s posts, and in March tagged FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino in one reshare. Lee also interacts with Resist the Mainstream, at least five times this year based on a review by Rolling Stone.
Naumovski has been managing Defiant L’s via a Florida company since 2023, according to a source with knowledge of the account. Naumovski wrote this year that “Defiant L’s” is “one of our accounts” in an opinion piece for The Daily Wire. He uses that same Florida company to run Resist the Mainstream’s website and accounts, according to court documents. The two accounts are listed as “affiliates” of each other on X, a paid feature that allows a business to link more than one account with verified affiliate badges.
A year before obtaining Defiant L’s, Naumovski donated $3,127 in two donations to so-called “QAnon candidate” Ron Watkins’ congressional primary race in Arizona. Naumovski was reported at the time as being Watkins’ largest single donor that quarter —but that was years before it became known that Naumovski wasn’t just of Macedonian origin, but has never had residential status in the U.S., or even been to the U.S., according to his Daily Wire op-ed.
“I run a growing media company with 11 American employees. I’ve invested over $145,000 in the U.S. economy. I pay American corporate taxes. Yet I’ve never set foot in the United States — and government bureaucrats seem determined to keep it that way,” Naumovski wrote in February.
He explained that he attempted to get a tourist visa in 2018 but was rejected, and then his reapplication was approved in 2021. But Naumovski said he refused to show proof of Covid vaccination as required in 2021: “As a healthy young person, I hesitated. Friends here offered an easy solution — fake vaccination cards cost less than $50 in Macedonia. But I refused to begin my American journey with a lie. How long could waiting honestly really take?” He then tried for an E-2 business visa, but was rejected after repeated interviews by embassy staff, he claims in the piece, and to this day has never even been to the U.S.
In a podcast interview in October 2022, a few months after he donated to Watkins, he explained he was currently running his media company that he started in his bedroom in his parents’ home from “my own apartment in Macedonia.”
“Foreign nationals are categorically barred from spending money in our elections, whether it’s directly, via PACs or even SuperPACs,” Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center and former counsel at the FEC, tells Rolling Stone. Ghosh says that foreign donation schemes often happen via straw donors, or fake names, which are also prohibited, and that a foreign national donating under their own name is rare.
Filings from a 2024 copyright lawsuit brought by a photojournalist who alleged Resist the Mainstream repeatedly stole his work show that Naumovski claims 100 percent ownership of the Florida company that operates the two X accounts, Raww Digital LLC. The two Watkins donations both list the St. Petersburg, Florida, registered agent’s office where Raww Digital Inc. is located and Raww Digital LLC as Naumovski’s employer. The company was first registered in 2021, with Naumovski as sole owner with an address in Veles, North Macedonia. A month later, an amendment with a new principal address was filed, at the registered agent’s office in St. Petersburg.
Watkins is often speculated to be a source for the writings of “Q” — the mysterious figure fueling QAnon conspiracies for years. Watkins has long denied being “Q.” Watkins lost the Arizona Republican primary to Eli Crane, who has himself since amplified Naumovski’s content at least seven times. After Naumovski donated to Watkins, Watkins boosted Resist the Mainstream’s Telegram channel a week later, according to a screenshot obtained by Media Matters.
There is no indication of wrongdoing by Watkins or that he was aware of Naumovski’s location at the time. Watkins refunded Naumovski’s two donations in April 2022, as campaign finance law requires if a candidate unknowingly receives a donation from a foreign national. The FEC sent Watkins a letter in March 2022, a month after Naumovski’s donations, asking for more information about donors, after the campaign submitted a report with incomplete donor information.
Naumovski told Rolling Stone he was unaware that it was illegal to donate to an American campaign without a green card. He posted a statement in April 2022 on his Telegram channel about the incident: “Yesterday I learned I made a mistake. I gave an online contribution to a U.S. political campaign, not realizing that was forbidden to me as someone who had a U.S. visa, but not a green card. Within minutes of learning that I contacted the campaign, which is immediately refunding my payment. I love America and would never intentionally violate any measure. Live and learn!”
Watkins told Rolling Stone in an email that he does not recall Naumovski’s donations. “My 2022 Arizona campaign was very busy and ended more than three years ago. According to the FEC guidelines, federal campaign records have a three year retention period. It has been more than three years since the campaign ended, the three year retention period for campaign records has passed, and I do not personally remember details about specific donations. As far as I know there was no FEC investigation into this specific issue that you are alleging.”
The Media Matters 2023 review found that Watkins was only one of several QAnon-linked influencers to share Resist the Mainstream’s content, and the content appeared nearly identical. Some X users have alleged that they were approached by Naumovski to post his content for payment.
Naumovski did not respond to follow-up questions from Rolling Stone about whether he offered Watkins or other influencers payments to promote his company’s content, nor did he respond to questions about how he learned his donations were illegal.
A major booster of Naumovski’s career is former Fox News executive Ken LaCorte. LaCorte admitted to The New York Times in 2019 that he hired Macedonian teenagers from Veles, Naumovski’s Macedonian hometown, to write for several conservative content sites he ran beginning in 2017. Veles is known as the “home to a collection of writers who churned out disinformation during the 2016 presidential election in the United States,” the Times reported.
LaCorte has also written about Naumovski’s struggles to emigrate. ”I met Rumen when I was running a startup, and I needed help with social media. When we first spoke on Zoom, I was surprised to learn he was still a teenager, living in Macedonia, a country I couldn’t find without a good map, working out of a bedroom covered in L.A. Lakers posters. Since then, I’ve been both a friend and an adviser, helping him build his business and encouraging him through the U.S. immigration system,” he wrote on his Substack in February, a few days after Naumovski himself admitted he’s never been to the U.S.
“If he had simply walked across the border illegally, he would have received a work permit within months. He could have easily gamed the system — faked paperwork, overstayed a tourist visa, or ‘lost’ his passport. But because he played by the rules, he’s been stuck in limbo for years,” LaCorte wrote.
Naumovski has enjoyed connections with other Republican activists, such as Roger Stone, who endorsed him in 2023 on X: “I highly recommend that you follow @RumenNaumovski, the founder of Resist the Mainstream on Twitter. He’s a great guy! He was born outside the US but he loves America and he’s working hard to bring trusted news to everyday people.”
Before this year’s revelations, Naumovski himself repeated a similarly vague biography: “I was born overseas but have devoted my life to spreading the virtues of American freedom,” he wrote on X.
The issue of foreign interests influencing American politics through anonymous X influencer accounts is an ongoing one. Last year, federal prosecutors alleged that the conservative media company Tenet, which pays a network of major right-wing influencers like Benny Johnson and Tim Pool, was secretly being paid by Russian state operatives to disseminate propaganda to a large American audience. Johnson, Pool, and other Tenet content creators maintain they were unaware of the alleged Russian influence campaign and were victims of deceptions.
Interfering in American elections financially, however, is still one of the campaign finance violations that’s taken seriously and prosecuted, Ghosh says. “This is one of our bedrock campaign finance laws, to keep American elections working toward the goals of American public welfare, and not the opposite.”
