On Friday’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO, host and comedian Bill Maher interviewed Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow.
The two discussed Breitbart’s coverage, the media, Russia, free speech, the shooting at a congressional baseball practice, and political rhetoric.
Marlow said that Breitbart is “not going to cover the exact same stories the exact same way as all the other outlets. We’ll leave that to the rest of the establishment press. We’re very much anti-establishment, trying to highlight stories that we don’t think get their fair day.”
After the discussion turned to Russia, Marlow stated that there was no evidence of collusion or obstruction of justice, adding, “You guys continue to talk about this story in the establishment press instead of talking about the president’s agenda, which is by design. Because you guys won’t apologize if it turns out there’s nothing, no one will come out on MSNBC, they’ll just move on to the next hysteria, and that’s a huge advantage for people like me who are covering the rest of the news.”
Marlow later said, “I love highlighting Muslim voices who are progressive and reformist and want to take out some of the misogyny and some of the hatred associated with radical elements of it. And I think that’s an important place to start, but to bring back what Breitbart does different than anyone else, is we cover stories the establishment press doesn’t want to cover.”
On free speech, Maher and Marlow agreed that if the depictions of the assassination of President Trump were of President Obama, the reaction on the left would be different.
Maher then raised corporations pulling ads from people who engage in speech they do not like. Marlow said, “This really started–in my view–in the modern era, with Breitbart–where a lot of people are boycotting Breitbart. And what they’re doing is, there’s a lot of anonymous people online, cowardly people. We don’t know who’s funding them. We don’t know who they are, who are putting out all of this misinformation about who we are and what we stand for, and they’re trying to round up corporations to boycott us. And so, what’s happened is that corporations are now deciding what’s free and fair speech, who can make a living, what opinions you can make a living saying now, and, of course, now, you’re seeing the right fight fire with fire and want boycotts of when the left takes it too far in their Trump hatred. So it’s a very dangerous path we’re on, and I really do think, Bill, and I appreciate you giving me this opportunity, people on the left and the right who are free speech advocates need to come together right now and say that corporations are not going to define the First Amendment and free speech in this country.”
Marlow said that he does not believe Bernie Sanders is at fault for the congressional baseball practice shooting and continued, “When you have a climate where you have, CNN, for example, calling Breitbart to the number one platform for the Nazi salute over a video we never played and CNN played, when you have the New York Times accusing Breitbart of putting racist dog whistles out, when the media lies so much about people, calling Trump supporters racists, despicable, deplorable, all of these things over and over…”
Maher cut in, “They have been racist, despicable, and deplorable.”
Marlow concluded, “I encourage everyone to go to breitbart.com/people. You can meet some of the Breitbart reporters, the Breitbart editors. They’re the most wonderful, diverse, influential journalists on the planet, and no one is interested in their real story because they’re so quick to call people racist. And it’s not working. That is why so many Democrats are losing across the country. … And so, if you want to play that game, Bill, if you want to keep calling us racists, I don’t think it’s going to work for you, so please, have at it.”
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