US5 min(s) read
Published 15:24 05 Aug 2026 GMT
Conservative influencer Savanna Cannon has pushed back against viral claims that she is being paid by Israel after an Instagram video she made attacking Congresswoman Ilhan Omar generated millions of views and a very loud argument on both sides.
Cannon, 22, posted a video last week where she called Omar 'a fraud' and claimed the Minnesota representative's net worth had jumped from $65,000 to $30 million during her time in Congress.
She accused Omar of coming 'to the USA to corrupt its people and resources'.
The video got enormous traction, but most of the conversation ended up being about Cannon herself rather than anything she said about Omar.
Three things, mostly.
Her outfit, her posture, and her OnlyFans account.
Cannon recorded the video wearing a tight purple bodysuit while sitting in a wide-legged position.
That became the story.
One viral post read: "Watch me make sexual gestures while I tell you how Ilhan Omar is a subhuman terrorist."
Others labelled her an 'OnlyFans creator' and questioned why anyone would take political commentary from someone who sells explicit content online.
Then came the Israel theory.
Multiple users alleged, without providing evidence, that Cannon was being paid by Israel or pro-Israel lobby groups to attack Omar, who has been one of the most vocal critics of Israeli policy in Congress for years.
The claims spread fast, and Cannon has denied them.
Cannon addressed the allegations on X, calling the 'paid by Israel' theory baseless and saying she has no financial relationship with any foreign government, lobby group, or political organisation.
In her post, she also used a slur - which is why we're not going to post the whole thing.
As you might imagine, she has leaned into the attention rather than backing away from it, as she stands to make a decent amount of money from the resulting attention.
Her social media following has grown significantly since the video went viral, and she has continued posting political content in a similar style.
She has been open about running an OnlyFans account alongside her political commentary and has not treated the two as contradictory.
The claim that Omar's net worth rose from $65,000 to $30 million has not been independently verified and appears to be based on a widely circulated but unsubstantiated figure.
Omar's financial disclosures, which are publicly available, show income from her congressional salary and her husband Tim Mynett's consulting firm.
They do not show the kind of wealth Cannon described.
The claim that Omar 'married her brother' to commit immigration fraud has circulated for years.
Omar has denied it repeatedly. Investigations by multiple news outlets, including the Minneapolis Star Tribune, found some irregularities in her immigration paperwork but could not substantiate the central allegation.
The broader accusation that Omar is 'a fraud' is a political opinion, not a factual claim.
It is one that has been made by figures across the right for years.
Cannon is not the first conservative influencer to go viral while blending political content with a heavily stylised visual presentation.
The Bulwark, a centre-right political publication, recently ran a piece examining what it described as a 'symbiotic relationship' between right-wing media and OnlyFans, arguing that a growing number of young women are building audiences by combining provocative imagery with conservative talking points.
Critics on the left say the trend reduces political discourse to aesthetics and clickbait.
Those on the right say it undermines the credibility of conservative women by making them easy to dismiss.
Supporters say women should be free to present themselves however they choose without having their political views discounted because of it.
It is, depending on where you stand, either a new form of political commentary or the end of serious political debate. The internet has not reached a consensus and probably never will.
Omar is a Democratic representative for Minnesota's 5th congressional district.
She was first elected in 2018 and was one of the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress. She is Somali-born and arrived in the US as a refugee.
She has been a persistent critic of Israeli government policy and US military spending, positions that have drawn both strong support from progressive voters and fierce opposition from Republicans and pro-Israel groups.
In 2019, she apologised for tweets about the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC that were criticised as antisemitic, writing: "I unequivocally apologise."
She has been booed by her own Somali community at events in Minneapolis, stripped of her Foreign Affairs Committee seat by Republicans in 2023, and has had her loyalty to the United States questioned repeatedly by political opponents including Donald Trump, who once told her and three other congresswomen of colour to 'go back' to where they came from.
She has not publicly responded to Cannon's video.
Cannon is a 22-year-old American social media influencer based in the US.
She describes herself as a conservative political commentator.
She has accounts on Instagram, TikTok, X, and OnlyFans, and her content typically combines political opinion with an influencer-style visual presentation.
Before the Omar video, she had a modest but growing following.
After it, she became one of the most talked-about political commentators on social media for about a week.
Whether that translates into a sustained platform or fades as the news cycle moves on remains to be seen.
She has not disclosed who, if anyone, funds her content.
The 'paid by Israel' theory has not been supported by any evidence.
Cannon says she is self-funded and speaks for herself.
