She arms her family at Christmas, offered to shoot Syrian refugees and starred in low-budget film about housewife becoming a rock star: Meet GOP firebrand Michele Fiore who launched Nevada governor campaign with beer bottle shooting video

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The Nevada gubernatorial candidate who launched her campaign with an ad of her blasting beer bottles once gave her five-year-old grandson a pistol and starred in her own low-budget film.     

Republican Michele Fiore, 51, who has voiced support for the Proud Boys militia, announced her plan to run at a news conference on Tuesday, and followed the formal announcement with a dramatic campaign video ad. 

In the video, Fiore comes out of a pick-up truck with a Trump 2024 bumper sticker, then touts her gun and status as a Washington outsider who was an early supporter of former President Donald Trump. 

The campaign commercial is not the first time Fiore has used guns to promote herself. In 2015 she sent out a Christmas card of her family holding pistols and semi-automatics, including her five-year-old grandson Jake who held a Walther p22. 

She defended the image saying: 'If you look real close, you'll see that his finger is not on the trigger. 

'That five-year-old grandson of mine has total trigger control.

'I think giving firearms as a present and getting firearms as a present is a great present, and I think because Christmas is a family affair, our ultimate responsibility is to protect and make sure our family is safe.'

In 2015, Fiore sent out a Christmas card of her family holding pistols and semi-automatics, including her five-year-old grandson Jake, who held a Walther p22; also pictured are Fiore's mother, Lili, daughters Sheena and Savannah and their husbands, David and Kyle; as well as five of her now seven grandchildren, Jake, twins Morrigan & Mara, Jayden and Jemma

Fiore again posing with her two daughters to promote the protection of second amendment rights

 Prior to her forays into politics, Fiore gave the entertainment business a try. 

Fiore co-wrote, produced (with second husband Nat Kaime) and starred in a low budget, semi-autobiographical film called Siren. 

Fiore played the role of Storm Fagan, a wife and mom who decides to try to fulfill her lifelong dream of making it big as a rock singer. She told reporters she put on 20 pounds for the role and lost 30 during the shoot.

'She seems like your ordinary overweight middle-aged wife & mom except her dream of being a rock star still weighs heavy on her soul,' says the imdB description of the 2006 film. ''They' say she can't do it, watch her transform and over come life's brutal obstacles to turn her dream into reality.'  

The movie was a flop, with Fiore herself calling herself a 'Sundance reject,' as a screening at the festival drew as few as 12 people. 

Prior to her forays into politics, Fiore gave the entertainment business a try. Fiore co-wrote, produced in starred in a low budget, semi-autobiographical film called Siren

'She seems like your ordinary overweight middle-aged wife & mom except her dream of being a rock star still weighs heavy on her soul,' says the imdB description of the 2006 film. ''They' say she can't do it, watch her transform and over come life's brutal obstacles to turn her dream into reality'

The movie was a flop, with Fiore herself calling herself a 'Sundance reject,' as a screening at the festival drew as few as 12 people

Fiore was born in Brooklyn to a Kennedy-era liberal, lesbian mother who raised her around equality parades in the late 1970s. Her uncles were NYPD officers who taught her how to fire a gun. 

Her biography says she still takes care of her mother Lili. 

Married and divorced twice, she wed her first husband, Timothy Johnson, at the age of 16 and had her first daughter at the age of 19 while living on a United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.

Fiore has two daughters, Sheena and Savanah, whom she says are both married to first responders, David and Kyle. Between the two daughters, she has seven grandchildren, Jake 10 years old; Twins Morrigan & Mara 7; Jayden 7; Jemma 3; Jackson 2 years and infant Jetson.

Her second marriage to Nat Kaime, who she ran a health care business with, helped inspire her conservative leanings as he was a regular listener to Rush Limbaugh. 

Fiore eventually began to volunteer and run for Congress. In 2010 during the Tea Party uprising, the casino mogul Steve Wynn encouraged her to run for the House of Representatives. She finished second in an eight-person primary.  

Las Vegas City Councilwoman Michele Fiore presented herself as a gun-toting Washington outsider in her campaign ad for Nevada governor

Fiore shot and destroyed bottles representing vaccine mandates, voter fraud and critical race theory as a vow to do away with them if she wins her bid for governor

She served in Nevada's Assembly from 2012 to 2016 and was the only Republican in the legislature to support same sex marriage. She also backed the legalization of marijuana. 

She received an A+ rating from the National Rifle Association and carries a pistol at all times.  

She also pushed a bill that would allow students to carry guns on college campuses, suggesting it could decrease sexual assaults. 

'If these young, hot little girls on campus have a firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them,' she told the New York Times. 

'The sexual assaults that are occurring would go down once these sexual predators get a bullet in their head.' 

Her gun advocacy even includes a pro-second amendment calendar she posed for in 2015. 

The calendar features quotes from founding fathers of America, fellow gun rights activists like Ted Nugent and Rush Limbaugh and monthly themed snaps featuring Fiore, including the famous Christmas photo with her family.

The calendar was dubbed 'Michele Fiore's 2016 Walk The Talk 2nd Amendment Calendar.'  

Fiore's gun advocacy even includes a pro-second amendment calendar she posed for in 2015. The calendar was dubbed 'Michele Fiore's 2016 Walk The Talk 2nd Amendment Calendar'

The photos featured Fiore posing sometimes provocatively, but always with a firearm

One of the months featured a photo in tribute to conservative radio icon Rush Limbaugh

May is Military Appreciation Month and Fiore's calendar celebrates it appropriately

A James Bond theme pose suggests that 'diamonds aren't a girls only best friend'

One of the calendar photos features a quote from fellow second amendment activist and rocker Ted Nugent

A Jessica Rabbit-themed Halloween shoot shows off Fiore's love of the October holiday

Fiore also caused controversy in 2015 for saying she would shoot Syrian refugees herself when asked if Nevada should offer them asylum. 

'What, are you kidding me? I'm about to fly to Paris and shoot 'em in the head myself,' she told a local radio station. 

'I am not okay with Syrian refugees. I'm not okay with terrorists. I'm okay with putting them down, blacking them out, just put a piece of brass in their ocular cavity and end their miserable life. I'm good with that.' 

Fiore has also come under fire for having pushed 'Right to Try' laws to allow patients to choose experimental treatments, claiming that cancer is a fungus and could be cured by baking soda. 

'If you have cancer, which I believe is a fungus, and we can put a PICC line into your body and we're flushing with, say, salt water, sodium carbonate, through that line and flushing out the fungus,' she said in 2015. 

Fiore has featured gun rights heavily in several of her campaigns and claims to carry a pistol with her regularly

Fiore also pushed a bill that would allow students to carry guns on college campuses, suggesting it could decrease sexual assaults

'If these young, hot little girls on campus have a firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them,' she told the New York Times

Fiore is also a staunch supporter of police and has expressed displeasure with the Black Lives Matter movement

Fiore isn't just comfortable with a gun, she can also ride a horse, as seen in this campaign ad when she ran for Nevada State Assembly

Her ties to rancher Cliven Bundy and his family put her in a media spotlight during armed standoffs between self-described citizen militia members and federal law enforcement in Bunkerville, Nevada, in 2014 and Malheur, Oregon, in 2016.

Fiore was credited with helping negotiate an end to the standoff and diffusing the situation.   

According to the Washington Post, she 'began conducting a complex balancing act, calming down the terrified occupiers while telling them that she shared their outrage and also reaching out to the FBI to prevent a shootout.' 

She told reporters she was able to get to the refuge to coordinate the occupiers' surrender. 

Fiore, a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, continued to praise the president at a Republican Party event just days after the Capitol riot

Fiore and President Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., met during a campaign stop in Nevada, a state Trump ended up losing in 2020

Fiore also pushed 'Right to Try' laws to allow patients to choose experimental treatments, stating the widely debunked theory that cancer is a fungus and could be cured by baking soda

Despite being a fiscal conservative, Fiore has admitted to owing the IRS more than $1 million in unpaid taxes. She blamed it on money stolen by an employee and bad accounting by her ex-husband Kaime. 

Fiore served as Mayor Pro Tem of Las Vegas, a largely ceremonial position. She had to step down from the platform in 2020 after causing outrage over comments she allegedly made regarding race at a local Republican convention. 

Niger Innis, a conservative activist who is Black and attended the county convention, claims he heard Fiore say 'If there's a job opening and my white ass is more qualified than somebody's black ass, then my white ass should get the job.' 

Innis said Fiore's comments were 'sloppy' but didn't believe they were racist.

Fiore did confirm she used the phrase 'all lives matter' during the event, something she wholeheartedly agrees with. Though she has issues with Black Lives Matter, she claims to have met with them and 'learned from their cause.'

In 2016 when interviewed about the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York, she called Garner's death 'not justifiable' and suggested that Black Lives Matter and people like those on Bundy's ranch could come together.

She also suggested the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida should arm themselves, provided they 'weren't drinkers.' 

'I think that all of us citizens — Black Lives Matter, ranchers' lives, everyone's lives — need to stand arm in arm and just say enough is enough,' Fiore said. 'We're just not going to put up with abuse of power anymore.' 

Fiore also has connections to the Church of Scientology. 

Journalist Tony Ortega has speculated that she is a member and Fiore is on the Board of Directors of Applied Scholastics, a school that provides 'Study Technology, a precise set of learning tools developed by American author and educator L. Ron Hubbard. 

Its purpose is to promote and develop programs of effective education for educators, business trainers, parents and children – anyone who need to improve their study skills to enhance their scholastic, business and person success.' 

Michele Fiore participates in a Republican debate in Henderson, Nevada, in 2016 

Fiore will likely draw support from conservative Republicans who see her as a champion for gun rights and an advocate for former President Donald Trump, who remains hugely popular within his party

Fiore will likely draw support from conservative Republicans who see her as a champion for gun rights and an advocate for former President Donald Trump, who remains hugely popular within his party. 

Her entrance may shift debates to the right in a race in which former U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, once known as a moderate, has refused to explicitly say Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

The teaching of critical race theory in schools, and vaccine mandates are among the hot button social issues currently sweeping the US, with Fiore keen to capitalize on both topics to set herself apart from her rivals.  

Besides Fiore and Heller, Nevada's June 2022 Republican primary field includes Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, Reno attorney Joey Gilbert, Gardnerville surgeon Fred Simon and venture capitalist Guy Nohra.

On Tuesday, Fiore, who was elected Nevada's Republican National committeewoman in 2020, said she supported efforts to audit the state's 2020 election result. Gilbert, who was outside the U.S. Capitol when it was violently stormed on Jan. 6 has also called for additional election review.

Fiore said she planned approach the campaign similar to her previous political battles and wouldn´t work with Democrats if it meant compromising her positions.

'That isn´t me. You´ll never hear me do that. If you want that, then vote for one of my primary opponents,' Fiore said.