SiriusXM under fire after agreeing to new Breitbart radio deal

SiriusXM announces deal with Breitbart to expand its shows and bring back Stephen Bannon. The satellite radio broadcasting company SiriusXM announced on December 5 that Stephen Bannon, the chairman of Breitbart News and a former chief strategist for President Donald Trump, would rejoin Breitbart News Daily on weekday mornings on its Patriot channel as the Trump-aligned outlet embarks on a “major expansion in radio programming.” In addition to co-hosting Breitbart’s flagship morning radio program, Bannon also plans to lead the right-wing outlet’s election coverage for the 2018 mid-terms and 2020 general election. [SiriusXM, 12/5/17]

CNN: “Sirius XM faces celebrity backlash after Steve Bannon rejoins radio show.” SiriusXM faced intense social media criticism for the deal, with “Seth Rogen, John Leguizamo, and singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge” all promising “to boycott” the satellite radio, according to CNN. Additionally, “The hashtag #BoycottSiriusXM … was posted or shared by thousands of social media users over the weekend.” From the December 10 article:

Actors Seth Rogen, John Leguizamo, and singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge have all promised to boycott SiriusXM for allowing Bannon to appear on the subscription radio service.

[...]

The hashtag #BoycottSiriusXM, meanwhile, was posted or shared by thousands of social media users over the weekend, according to the tracking site Keyhole.

SiriusXM said in a statement Friday that the network “has promised to deliver a diversity of opinions and viewpoints, from conservative to progressive to everything in between.” [CNN.com, 12/10/17]

Bannon mocks boycott calls, claims show doesn’t feature racism or misogyny

Bannon in response to boycott calls said there are no “racist” or “misogynist comments” on Breitbart radio. Speaking about the calls for boycott, Bannon said on Breitbart’s daily show: “I've done thousands of hours of radio now. They can't find any racist comments, they can't find any misogynist comments.” Co-host and Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow responded, “Yeah, they can’t find anything.” From the December 11 edition of SiriusXM's Breitbart News Daily:

STEVE BANNON (CO-HOST): Alex, these guys that are cancelling their subscription, Howard Dean. All I would ask them is -- like the NPR guy that came in and sat in for a couple of weeks on the show, and wrote this really, I think, pretty good piece in the Vanity Fair right before I left for the campaign is that, “Hey, you should listen to the show for a while before you make a judgement,.” Just listen, just listen. What you're going to hear is hardworking -- like the guy that just called from West Virginia. He got off the night shift, he's sitting in his truck going to go eat breakfast. And what's he doing? He's listening to more of the show, then called in to participate, and what you hear is the voice of America. What you're hearing is your fellow countrymen. And, I've done this show -- I've done thousands of hours of radio now. They can't find any racist comments, they can't find any misogynist comments, they can't find any -- they've scoured it. Media Matters has gone through every second of this and they can't find -- this show doesn’t --

ALEX MARLOW (CO-HOST): Yeah, they can’t find anything. No.

BANNON: This show doesn’t have haters on it. What this show has is concerned Americans who finally have a platform with a voice. Here is what they fear folks, here’s what they fear: They fear that finally somebody has given a platform at the Breitbart News site, and on the Breitbart Daily Show, and Breitbart Tonight, and all the weekend shows we do. Here’s what they fear: They fear that’s somebody’s finally given a platform for the hobbits to speak their opinions, and they don't like that, right? [SiriusXM, Breitbart News Daily, 12/11/17]

Contrary to Bannon’s claim, examples of racism and misogyny on Breitbart radio are easy to find

Breitbart’s Alex Marlow wondered if “culturally there was an issue” regarding Puerto Rico being unprepared for Hurricane Maria. Discussing Puerto Rico’s plight in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, host Alex Marlow wondered if “culturally there was an issue there where people were not prepared” for the hurricane. From the October 10 edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily:

ALEX MARLOW (HOST): OK. So, let me ask you, Bruno. Do you think that culturally there was an issue there where people were not prepared for really what would have -- it is inevitable that Puerto Rico is going to get hit by a hurricane every so often. I mean, most of the time you get away with it, but it's going to happen every 10 years or so. They're going to get slammed by something. Do you believe that there wasn't enough done, there wasn't enough effort made by the people of Puerto Rico to be prepared?

CALLER: Look, my father, when he retired, he built his own house. Concrete foundation, cinder block walls. He’s had his roof completely strapped with cables. My father was going to retire there. He knew exactly what he was doing. He built his house. He's like, “My house is fine.” Most people have good construction. Now, the wooden houses, obviously, those people who built those houses, maybe they didn't have the resources. But, again, that's -- when you know you're living in an area where storms will occasionally hit -- and it's not going to be the first and last time this happens -- you as a person have to make sure that you live in a house that can withstand that. [SiriusXM, Breitbart News Daily, 10/10/17]

Breitbart’s John Nolte: Women are using #MeToo to share their stories of sexual harassment as a “status symbol.” Discussing the #MeToo movement, which aims to empower women to share their experiences of sexual harassment and assault, Breitbart’s John Nolte claimed that it was “like the AIDS ribbon” and had become “a status symbol.” From the October 17 edition of SiriusXM's Breitbart News Daily:

ALEX MARLOW (HOST): OK, so let's talk about this “me too” hashtag that really took a lot of the country by storm over the weekend. I admit, I didn't fully follow it. Tell me what the thing was and what came from it.

JOHN NOLTE: It was actress Alyssa Milano, who did Who's the Boss and Charmed, and she came up with this idea -- I guess a friend of hers gave it -- to tag as “me too,” m-e-t-o-o, and the idea is to say “me too” publicly and tell your story of sexual harassment. And it took off, and there's a number of named actresses using it and claiming that they -- but, again, it's like the AIDS ribbon. You know, I feel very bad for these women, but it's sort of becoming a status symbol. And unless you name names -- and none of these women so far have named names -- and I'm fine, if they want to say, listen I talked to the police. If they want to say that, I'm fine with that. Like, America Ferrera, she should go to the police. She was raped as a nine year old. But no one's naming names. It's just sort of becoming -- and maybe, it's probably good. I'm not saying it's not good. It probably feels good to know you're not alone. [SiriusXM, Breitbart News Daily, 10/17/17]

Bannon and Breitbart’s Ken Klukowski lauded Ed Gillespie for his racist campaign focusing on “sanctuary cities” and “MS-13” in Virginia gubernatorial race. Discussing the Virginia gubernatorial election during the November 6 edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily, Bannon and Breitbart editor Ken Klukowski lauded Republican candidate Ed Gillespie for having “embraced” Trump’s agenda, saying the race “all [came] down to kind of the Trump issues,” such as “sanctuary cities” and fears of the street gang “MS-13.” [SiriusXM, Breitbart News Daily, 11/6/17]

A Breitbart guest conflated relationships between consenting adults with the allegations of child molestation and sexual assault tied to Roy Moore. On the November 20 edition of Breitbart News Daily, Media Research Center's Dan Gainor attempted to deflect criticism of Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore by comparing Moore’s pursuit of sexual relationships with teenage girls -- which include at least one accusation of child molestation and another accusation of sexual assault -- with progressives who have “been saying ‘love is love’ for years” regarding relationships between consenting adults:

DAN GAINOR: The media want to say, “Roy Moore stands accused.”

ALEX MARLOW (HOST): Yes.

GAINOR: Remember, go back to the original Washington Post story. There were four women cited in that. Three of them were of legal age.

MARLOW: Right.

GAINOR: And if the left -- the left is the one -- they've been saying “love is love” for years, which means anything goes between -- at least one hopes-- consenting legal people. So that immediately means the Post larded up their story with allegations from people who were of legal age to undercut him to basically make it seem like the other case is more credible. Well, which is it? Is it “love is love,” in which case you're not going to go around reporting anything that crazy liberals do, you won't show us how bad the gay pride parade is in San Francisco, et cetera. Or are you really going to say anybody who dates somebody who’s 16, even if it's legal, they're a creep. [SiriusXM, Breitbart News Daily, 11/20/17]

Breitbart's Alex Marlow: The word “rape” now means “any sex that the woman ends up regretting that she had.” Marlow complained that rape “used to have a narrow definition” of “forced sexual attack and penetration” and that it now meant “any sex that the woman ends up regretting that she had.” From the November 21 edition of SiriusXM's Breitbart News Daily:

ALEX MARLOW (HOST): Rape used to have a narrow definition. Rape used to have a definition where it was -- it was brutality, it was forced sexual attack and penetration. Now it's become, really, any sex that the woman ends up regretting that she had. And that leaves us without a lot of clarity, because when words lose their meaning, then they can be manipulated. And so now the left has made it so that women who are, maybe are -- I don't want to paint a scenario because the freaks at Media Matters are listening and they want to take me out of context, so I'm not going to give specific scenarios -- but you guys can do this in your own mind, where rape used to mean something. We used to all knew what it meant. And then now we don't know what it means. And then we don't know what's credible and what's not. And now everyone is going to come forward. [SiriusXM, Breitbart News Daily, 11/21/17]

Breitbart panel suggested that Muslim women were “baby factories.” Discussing the growing Muslim population in Europe, and that Muslim “integration” into European society is supposedly “not working,” a panel on the show, which included Bannon, suggested that Muslim women were “baby factories.” From the November 30 edition of SiriusXM's Breitbart News Daily:

STEVE BANNON (HOST): What’s more inflammatory? The videos that Ann Coulter on her Twitter feed, that the president retweeted, that shows guys -- I think it was over in Egypt -- I believe it was one of the videos, Sean -- throwing one of the gay guys off the roof, which is a video that a couple of years ago people remember -- retweeting that. Or is the Pew study that shows that -- and people could argue that that is alarmist, showing that 30 percent -- Sweden to be 30 percent Muslim population because of legal immigration, illegal immigration, and birth rates. Well Britain could be 18 percent. France could be what? France could be 20 percent. Is Pew Research a hate group?

OLIVER LANE: No, of course not. I mean the reason that people might say that it is, they’ll say, “Well why do you people care? Why do you care that 30 percent of the population of Sweden is Muslim? Why is this intrinsically a bad thing?” We’re not saying it’s intrinsically a bad thing. There's plenty of fine, working Muslims in this country. The reason that it's a problem is because integration, simultaneously, is not working and these people are not --

BANNON: Why is it not working? Why is it not working?

LANE: We know. This is something [Breitbart’s] Raheem [Kassam] researched extensively about in his book, that second generation --

BANNON: You guys haven't assimilated anybody since the since the Normans came over, right?

[...]

LANE: Yeah, I mean, people who say, “Ah, the Huguenots, they came over,” that was a hundred thousand people over 200 years. This is mass immigration on a scale we have not seen.

LIAM DEACON: Yeah, but the problem that you have there is that there was such an enormous amount of people coming that create communities of their own.

BANNON: Why is the birth rate so radically different among the Muslim population and the native population of the United Kingdom.The native population, whether it is the wave even of guys that came from India, or whatever, 40 years ago. Why is this new? Why are these new folks have such higher birth rates in France, in Sweden, in the United Kingdom? Have the people that live here just given up on the future.

[...]

LANE: I mean, they have different cultural values. It’s the way they treat women in those societies. They’re not are allowed to get jobs, and they are sexually treated as baby factories --

BANNON: As a Muslim.

LANE: -- in a lot of these cultures. I mean Raheem wrote --

BANNON: Baby factories. [SiriusXM, Breitbart News Daily, 11/30/17]

Breitbart's Raheem Kassam said a woman who accused Trump of sexual assault was too ugly to sexually assault. Breitbart London Editor-in-Chief Kassem suggested that Trump could not have sexually assaulted Jessica Leeds, who had accused Trump of assaulting her in the 1980s, because she “doesn't look like somebody that Donald Trump would would hit on, grope, prey upon,” and that she “doesn't look too glam to me.” From the December 7 edition of SiriusXM's Breitbart News Daily:

RAHEEM KASSAM (HOST): I just have to say, after seeing Jessica Leeds, the Trump accuser, on television yesterday, on CNN, yesterday, I thought -- the first thing I thought to myself was “these guys are going to have to do a lot better than that.” The guy is married, the president is married to Melania Trump, one of the most beautiful and elegant women in the world. Jessica Leeds looks like a -- well, I don't want to be cruel. She doesn't look like somebody that Donald Trump would would hit on, grope, prey upon. Even her old pictures of 30 years ago, when she's claiming this exists. It just -- this doesn't add up. This won't stack up to people in their minds, knowing what they know about President Trump, is that he is, to some extent, a person who likes appearances, who likes good appearances. Don't forget how annoyed he gets with his staff when their suits don't fit right. And look at his house. He likes things glam. Jessica Leeds doesn't look too glam to me. [SiriusXM, Breitbart News Daily, 12/7/17]