Newsmax hired white nationalist sympathizer Michelle Malkin

Michelle Malkin

Citation Gage Skidmore / Creative Commons

Conservative media outlet Newsmax TV announced on May 21 that it was hiring far-right blogger and white nationalist sympathizer Michelle Malkin. 

Malkin has a long history of promoting racist and anti-Semitic claims and conspiracy theories. For instance:

  • Malkin has advocated for racial profiling and defended the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
  • A former Fox contributor, Malkin said on Fox & Friends that allowing Muslims into Western societies would be “suicide.”
  • Malkin said on Fox News that migrant caravans traveling toward the U.S. from Central America were “coordinated globally” by “menaces inside and outside of our country.” 
  • Malkin appeared on Fox & Friends promoting the same anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that motivated the Tree of Life synagogue shooting. The attack resulted in the deaths of 11 people. 
  • On Fox News host Sean Hannity’s radio show, Malkin said that having a high “foreign-born” population would be “existential suicide” for the United States. 
  • Malkin appeared on Sebastian Gorka’s radio show and echoed the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that organizations “allied” with philanthropist George Soros are working toward “demographic conquest” in America. 
  • During a 2019 speech at the University of California, Los Angeles, Malkin praised Holocaust-denying white nationalist Nick Fuentes, saying she would be proud if she were his mother. Following her comments, Young America’s Foundation banned her from its speaking circuit. Malkin has since become further aligned with Fuentes and his followers, known as “Groypers.”
  • In December 2019, Malkin appeared on the channel of YouTuber Vincent James, who frequently pushes white nationalist and conspiratorial content, for a 42-minute interview. 
  • During 2020’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Malkin attended a rival event, racist “America First Political Action Conference,” which featured two speakers from the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Only one year before, Malkin had addressed the 2019 CPAC, saying that “civil war is imminent” in the United States. 
  • In April 2020, Malkin appeared on the white nationalist Red Ice YouTube channel, which had been banned from the platform for “multiple or severe violations of YouTube’s policy prohibiting hate speech.” 
  • Malkin has moved her column to a site that publishes white nationalists and Holocaust deniers.
  • Malkin wrote a column blaming immigrants for the spread of coronavirus at meatpacking plants; the article was briefly retweeted by Laura Ingraham.

Newsmax’s hiring of Malkin is deeply troubling, especially considering that Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy is a “close confidant” to President Donald Trump. Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer also recently started a show on the network.

The relationship between the Newsmax CEO and Trump goes beyond just hiring someone who outlived his usefulness in Trump’s White House. Ruddy parties with the president and the two are so close that Trump has reportedly interrupted intelligence briefings to repeat comments he heard from Ruddy.