Former Politico reporter Mike Allen repeatedly praised Breitbart.com, the self-described “platform” for the white nationalist “alt-right” movement, in an interview discussing the launch of his new media venture, Axios.
Allen appeared on the January 7 broadcast of Breitbart.com’s radio show, describing it as “an honor” to join Breitbart.com reporters Matthew Boyle and Charlie Spiering.
Allen promoted Axios -- which launched January 9 with a series of newsletters that it says will cover “media trends, tech, business and politics” -- during the interview and also said that at Axios “we admire so much what’s been built at Breitbart” because “you do things that other people aren’t, and both journalistically and as a business, that’s a great place to be right now.”
Citing Breitbart.com’s election coverage, Allen characterized the outlet as “ahead of the curve” and concluded the interview by saying, “We admire your coverage -- we admire what Andrew Breitbart and his successors have built.”
At no point during the interview did Allen address Breitbart.com’s noxious coverage, which has included headlines calling Bill Kristol a “renegade jew,” claiming that “birth control makes women unattractive and crazy,” and giving “permission” for people to use the word “faggot.”
As ThinkProgress noted, “The interview provides a stark example of how Breitbart -- an outlet that recently featured a ‘black crime’ vertical, published a piece last year equating feminism with cancer, and is currently under fire for running a fake news story about a Muslim mob setting fire to a church in Germany -- is becoming normalized in Donald Trump’s America.”
During the interview, Allen also praised Trump transition team tactics that make it harder for media outlets to report on cabinet nominations.
Praising plans by Trump and Senate Republicans to schedule multiple hearings per day this week for nominations to the heads of cabinet level agencies, Allen said of the move, “That’s what we call ducks in a row”:
MIKE ALLEN: I think a big storyline is that the Trump administration, the machinery that they are building, I think it is much more organized and much more aggressive than people realize. I think we have a little hint of that with the confirmations that we have teed up -- I think three on Tuesday, five on Wednesday, another on Thursday. That’s what we call ducks in a row.
As Politico noted, “the net result” of this tactic “will likely be too many events for comprehensive news coverage.”