Spreads hatred, bigotry, sexism and misinformation

Serves as an authoritarian defense and propaganda operation for President Trump

Launches inflammatory attacks on progressives

Uses violent and unhinged rhetoric when talking about the press 

Smears peaceful protests as violent mobs

Makes false, misleading, and inflammatory claims about gun violence

Honed its extremism first as NRA News

The New York Times reports that several National Rifle Association board members are questioning “the value of” NRATV after one of its hosts showed an image last fall of cartoon characters wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods. But NRATV has been a cesspool of hate and outlandish claims since the beginning.

Launched in late 2016 as a rebranding of NRA News, which debuted in 2004, NRATV serves as the often-inflammatory propaganda arm of the National Rifle Association and, as of late, President Donald Trump as well.

In September, NRA spokesperson and NRATV host Dana Loesch showed an image of Thomas & Friends characters wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods during a broadcast. NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre was “livid and embarrassed,” according to the Times’ new report. It quotes NRA board members and Florida lobbyist Marion Hammer saying that since then, she and others on the board “have questioned the value of” NRATV -- though Hammer herself previously appeared on NRA News to make an embarrassing comparison between assault weapons bans and racial discrimination. The reported fracture between some NRA board members and the NRATV network comes amid reports of financial problems at the NRA and cutbacks on both staff and hosts at NRATV.

NRATV uses its platform to spread hatred, bigotry, sexism and misinformation

NRATV frequently wades into conversations that have nothing to do with firearms, espousing hateful rhetoric on a number of topics. Hosts, correspondents, and guests have warned viewers that Black Lives Matter will perpetrate race-based violence, lobbed anti-trans attacks, claimed men are being turned into “second rate women,” called the #MeToo movement a “vehicle for political purpose,” and defended conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. In September of 2018, Dana Loesch gained widespread criticism for showing an image of Thomas & Friends characters wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods to attack the children’s show for making its cast of characters more diverse.

In an attempt to criticize the children’s show for increasing diversity, Dana Loesch featured an image of Thomas & Friends characters with KKK hoods during her NRATV show Relentless.

DANA LOESCH (HOST): Thomas the Tank is now bringing gender balance to the show by adding girl trains. Seriously. One of those trains, Nia, will be from Kenya to add ethnic diversity to the show. And -- which that, by the way, that’s where it gets really strange to me because I’ve looked at Thomas and Friends, at their pictures, and I see gray and blue. Am I to understand this entire time that Thomas and his trains were white? Because they all have gray faces. How do you bring ethnic diversity? I mean, they had to paint, what I guess they thought was some sort of African pattern on the side of Nia’s engine? How do you bring ethnic diversity to a show that literally has no ethnicities because they're trains. They don't even have skin pigmentation. Where -- was there some concern that the show had racist undertones? Because, Sir Topham Hatt clearly is white, but the trains? I mean, I’m looking at this picture and I’m really, really struggling to understand how in the world there isn’t any diversity in any of this. Oh, was it because, I see it. It was the white hoods. And the burning train tracks. OK, fine, fair point. Fair. I get it. Thomas the Tank Engine has been a blight on race relations for far too long. Clearly this is overdue. Right? [NRATV, Relentless, 9/7/2018]

NRATV correspondent Chuck Holton said “men are getting less masculine today” and that they were meant to “be dangerous,” “try harder,” and “do the dirty work.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): My son is 9, he was playing a basketball game over the weekend, and they got smoked 35-5, OK, in this basketball game. I mean, they utterly just got obliterated, they looked horrible. So the kids were gathering with the dads and moms, and my kid was there. I walked up and I said that was brutal, what a shellacking that we took. And one of the moms says, “Oh yes, but they still had fun. They still had fun.” And I responded. I responded, I said, “You show me a kid that has fun losing, I’m going to show you a loser.” Well some of the parents loved it, some of the parents hated it, your thoughts.

CHUCK HOLTON (NRATV CORRESPONDENT): I’m sure that statement did not go over well. You know the culture we have in America today is everyone is a winner, everyone gets participation trophies. You know, this is what has spawned this generation of mealy-mouthed young men who -- any metric you want to measure, men are getting less masculine today and the crazy thing is the culture says that’s a good thing. Well, it’s not a good thing. Men were made to create, they were made to conquer, and if they don’t have something to conquer, if they’re told by their culture, “just sit back, just be comfortable, don’t do anything dangerous” -- no, men were meant to be dangerous. And that’s why there’s such a clash between what I preach and what I espouse when it comes to manhood and what some of those clowns on the left like to talk about. And, you know, that’s just the way it goes. I think you’re absolutely right, we need to teach our sons to be upset when they lose because competition is a good thing.

…

HOLTON: You know, I think the science of motivation, Grant, especially when it comes to boys, means you’ve got to play to their masculinity. You’ve got to help them understand, this is what men do. Men try harder, men do the dirty work, men get out their and fight, they stay in the fight, they don’t give up. And unfortunately there are far too many people who are doing just the opposite today. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 1/15/19]

After Twitter banned conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Loesch went to bat for him and claimed nothing he “has said is violent or threatening.”

DANA LOESCH (HOST): I’m not a fan of Alex Jones, and his obsession with [CNN reporter] Oliver Darcy's eyes is weird. But he’s not wrong that Darcy appears to be on a bit of a crusade. And he also seems to be a lot more lefty since he left The Blaze and is now at CNN, which seems to happen to a lot of people when they end up going to a legacy media outlet. But this crusade that he's on ultimately paid off, since Jones and Infowars, they’ve now been banned from Twitter as well. And by the way, what does that achieve? Getting somebody kicked off Twitter, what does that achieve for you, other than bragging points? You're going to put it in your bio, “Got somebody kicked off Twitter”? I mean, what purpose does that achieve?

…

LOESCH: Suppression is still suppression, and nothing Jones has said is violent or threatening. It’s kooky. And when people start getting banned from platforms, platforms that essentially control the online public square, because CNN commentators or contributors or whatever they are don’t like them, that seems kind of douchey, let’s be real, and kind of a dangerous precedent to set where it concerns corporate censorship. [NRATV, Relentless, 9/7/2018]

Following a racist comment made by Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), then a nominee for Florida governor, then-NRATV host Dan Bongino called it an “entirely fabricated, far-left scandal.”

DANA LOESCH (HOST): There are people out there saying that DeSantis needs to step down right now, he needs to do it today. What do you make of this?

DAN BONGINO (NRATV HOST): That’s a joke. It’s a bad joke. Nobody, Dana, in Florida -- we live in the real world, by the way, outside of the political intelligentsia who have fabricated this, air quotes, scandal out of nowhere -- is talking about this. No one. I mean, I barely get out of my house but when I do, I talk to some people in the gym and elsewhere. This is an entirely fabricated, far-left scandal. It’s kind of disgusting too, because Ron DeSantis is an American patriot who, regardless of what you think about his politics, has rather heroically served this country. And anybody who actually knows Ron DeSantis, and let me put out a disclosure here, I have appeared at events with Ron. I know Ron well, he’s not my -- he’s not like an old childhood friend of mine, but I know Ron from the Florida political scene. No one who knows Ron DeSantis, and I mean no one, would ever level such a disgusting charge using the r-word at him. But they’re desperate. [NRATV, Relentless, 8/29/2018]

Loesch claimed the #MeToo movement “was an attempt to hijack real trauma and real emotional abuse” and “use it as a vehicle for political purpose.”

DANA LOESCH (HOST): We brought you the story the other day about the explosive allegations against DNC Vice Chairman Keith Ellison in which his former girlfriend accuses him of being a controlling, abusive maniac who emotionally destroyed her. And she now claims that she has the texts and the videos to back it up. But despite that, the DNC has barely said a word. Their “believe all women” mantra suddenly seems incapable of making a dent in that silence. And in fact Ellison still seems to be on excellent terms with the party, securing the nomination for Minnesota attorney general just yesterday. Now the only thing that the DNC has said is that they’re, quote, “looking into it.” For what? Evidence? But I thought evidence didn’t matter. Any allegation provided by a woman is supposed to be enough, isn’t it? Isn’t that how everyone wanted this Me Too moment to work? You believe all women. You believe all women whether or not the evidence exists. They’re asking for evidence so I guess, what, they’re calling her a liar? Are they shaming the woman and calling her a liar for bringing forward these allegations? I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time that this happened with individuals on the left. But seriously, how far does it go? I mean, I’m just pointing out the inconsistency here. It's believe all women except when Keith Ellison is involved? It's believe all women except when [former Democratic congressman] Anthony Weiner is involved? It’s believe all women except -- how far does it go?

…

The “believe all women” thing and the Me Too movement thing was an attempt to hijack real trauma and real emotional abuse and real serious physical abuse that women have suffered. And it was an attempt to hijack it and use it as a vehicle for political purpose and it's shameful. [NRATV, Relentless, 8/16/2018]

While reporting on homicide rates in Switzerland, Holton pushed a white nationalist talking point that credited the country’s “homogeneity” for its low crime rate, saying he wished the U.S. could “go back to that.” [Media Matters, 7/20/2018]

On NRATV, Holton said immigration detention centers are “too nice” because they give immigrants a “secure environment with hot showers” and “three hot meals a day.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): Just about every Democratic leader in Congress, from Congress to the Senate, all are now saying the same thing: What an outrage that the families are still being detained together. They had called foul when they said we were separating children and families to be detained. Now they’ll be kept together, still detained, still they're crying foul, the reason being is they don’t want anyone detained. They literally want people to be able to come in here, make a claim of asylum, which are really bogus claims of asylum. You’re coming from Mexico, it’s not an asylum claim. Running from a domestic dispute -- as sad as that is, and I want them to get help, that’s Mexico’s problem. Asylum claims are when you're coming from literally brutal dictatorships. You know if you’re coming -- you sneak out of North Korea and you manage to get here, you can claim asylum. Because you were carrying a Bible in North Korea and pushing the word, that’s asylum. These people are using that to sneak in here, many MS-13 gang members are using the same claim to sneak in here. Donald Trump says, let the courts figure it out. In the end they don’t want anyone detained. They want them to waltz on in to the United States of America, get their citizenship and ultimately vote for Democrats.

CHUCK HOLTON (NRATV CORRESPONDENT): Yeah, without a doubt. And the fact that the Obama administration was pursuing essentially the same policy when it came to separating children from their parents and the fact that, as we said yesterday, that this part of the law was actually put into place by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, that very liberal court that said you can only keep children in detention for 20 days and then they have to be moved from their parents to either, put with a relative or into a different holding facility. Again, I’ve visited those facilities. Those facilities, if anything, are too nice. Now, we've seen the pictures of the children in cages, wrapped up in foil, that was a temporary solution for just maybe a matter of hours as the children were brought into America, when they were caught after crossing illegally. And then they were moved to a place like Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where they were put up in basic training barracks on the military base. A very safe, secure environment with hot showers, probably for the first time in their lives, with three hot meals a day, with games to play and education and health screenings and things that they had never seen before in their entire lives, and then they were given free phone calls back to their homes. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 6/21/2018]

Loesch said “third-wave feminism” and criticism of toxic masculinity created an environment “where men are underappreciated” and said feminists “wouldn’t know what masculinity was if it hit them in the face.”

DANA LOESCH (HOST): I am so tired of this matriarchal witch hunt on young men. There is nothing toxic about masculinity, but there are plenty of toxic things about third-wave feminism and the matriarchy that’s attempting to assert authority and also be the ombudsman over all characteristics and definitions of that which are either masculine or feminine. As a boy mom, kind of had enough of this. Especially like women who just need to stay in your lane and don’t be telling men how their masculinity is toxic. No, the problem that we’re having with society is that there’s an attack on masculinity where toxic masculinity isn’t an issue in all of the homes where there are absent fathers. That’s a lack of, not toxic. See, we have an issue right now where men are underappreciated, dads are ridiculed either as the dumb dad on television, that awful stereotype that still persists, or they are told that, what, they’re oppressive, they are suppressive simply because they are males and in the United States of America. I’m so tired, as a woman, as a mother of boys, having to combat this garbage from women -- many of which, many of whom don’t even have children -- and others who wouldn’t be able -- they wouldn’t know what masculinity was if it hit them in the face. No. Honestly, stop it. [NRATV, Relentless, 6/7/2018]

Frequent NRATV guest Brandon Morse said, “The Black community has been in this enslaved mentality with the Democratic Party for forever.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): So what do you make of all this Kanye stuff? Truthfully, I was surprised. It was well thought out and you look at some of these liberal outlets -- they called it a rant, they called it unhinged. I actually thought what he had to say was fairly interesting.

BRANDON MORSE (REDSTATE): Most of what he had to say was actually really great to hear. It was just overshadowed by his slavery comments. The slavery comments, however, if you actually just -- following what he was saying was, what he was talking about was the mentality of being enslaved and how that’s a choice, that’s something you can break free from. It was not easy to get that from what he was saying because, I mean, what he did say was pretty controversial. If you really break down what he was talking about, what he said made perfect sense. The Black community has been in this enslaved mentality with the Democratic Party for forever. You can see that in what Maxine Waters had to say when she was talking about how, Trump (sic) needs to watch what he says, maybe there could be someone who comes in there and corrects his wrong think, and makes sure that he doesn’t say as much next time. Who are you to tell Kanye what he can and can’t believe? Who are you to tell any Black man what he can and can’t believe? I think that Kanye’s right to point this out. The Democratic Party has done absolutely nothing for the Black community. They have only driven them into squalor. They have only put them under the government's thumb. Kanye is absolutely correct to call that out and switch parties. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 5/4/2018]

NRATV’s Chuck Holton said it’s “a huge problem in America” that “young men are being turned into second-rate women,” especially in “inner city” communities where they’re raised in “single parent households.”

DANA LOESCH (NRATV HOST): But where it concerns the Boy Scouts, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s up with some of these chicks today, if it’s just third-wave feminism. I just have to speak frankly about it, it is pretty damn annoying because I think -- where do men go? I mean, you’re a dude, Chuck. You don’t have any refuge in society anymore. Where do dudes go? You can’t have Boy Scouts, you can’t have your men's only club, you can’t do anything like that because somebody out there who doesn’t have enough to do in their day freaks out and decides to act like it’s exclusionary. Well then create your own. That’s never an option, though, for people. It’s all about getting -- you know if Girl Scouts were unhappy because they didn’t do camping or whatever it was, or marksmanship, then reform Girl Scouts. Don’t take over Boy Scouts and then just -- that doesn’t make any sense. That was specifically about turning, and helping boys grow into becoming young men.

CHUCK HOLTON (NRATV HOST): Well and you just brought up a huge problem in America, Dana, and that is that young men are being turned into second-rate women. That most of their teachers are women, that they’re raised mostly by mothers, I mean obviously, especially in inner city communities, the majority of young men, of young boys, are raised in single parent households. And that’s usually a mother. There’s a huge dearth of manly example in our society today. And a place like the Boy Scouts was kind of the last refuge of where a boy could go, he could have some positive male role models. It’s not to say that women are not strong. It’s not to say that women can’t present a good role model to a boy. But boys are hardwired to want to identify with the men. [NRATV, Relentless, 5/3/2018]

Following a shooting at YouTube’s headquarters, Holton said the company’s decision to “censor content” “opens them up to a lot of hatred from people around the world.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): Chuck, we were one of the first to report on this yesterday, and you and I were both on [NRA national spokesperson] Dana Loesch’s show, and I was on [NRATV contributor] Dan Bongino’s show as this was breaking. You and I were both very careful not to speculate about what happened. Not to call into question what happened. And yet while we were being very careful, while we were asking questions and waiting for answers, the left was out there literally pushing this narrative that the shooting was somehow the NRA’s fault and that I need to apologize for a tweet that NRATV sent out of one of my videos.

CHUCK HOLTON (NRATV CORRESPONDENT): Well Grant, as usual, the facts don’t matter to them and as usual they went ahead and made fools of themselves by jumping to conclusions about what was going on there at YouTube headquarters. And, you know, I have talked about this before, YouTube making these changes where they’re going from being a platform for videos to being a publisher of videos, meaning that they are starting to censor content here and there, whatever, actually opens them up to liability and it opens them up to a lot of hatred from people around the world. Bottom line is, as it turns out, this shooter was just pretty downright crazy even by California standards and that’s saying something. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 4/4/2018]

Holton compared liberals in America to ISIS because “they both hate America, they both say it’s a terrible place,” and “they both are for open borders.”

CHUCK HOLTON (NRATV CORRESPONDENT): I don’t really understand how these progressives or these liberals can call the NRA ISIS in America, and act as if that’s a bad thing when they take so much common cause with ISIS. I mean, if you think about it, they have so much in common. The liberals in America and ISIS -- they both hate America, they both say it’s a terrible place, they both are for open borders and --

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): Yeah, but Chuck, but Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, I’m not going to do it.

[CROSSTALK]

STINCHFIELD: I will not compare liberals in this country to ISIS. I will not do it. ISIS literally wants to march people out into the beach --

HOLTON: I’m not comparing them, but I just wonder if it would be –

[CROSSTALK]

STINCHFIELD: They literally want to march people out on the beach and lop our freaking heads off. And now I know there are liberals that hate America --

HOLTON: That's right, that's right.

STINCHFIELD: But they are not – I’m not comparing them to ISIS, I’m not going the same route that they just did to us. It’s not true. They want to harm America? Yes, in the big scheme of things, absolutely. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 2/13/2018]

Holton called migrant caravans from Central America “an invasion under the guise of migration” and said the caravans were coming to influence the 2018 midterm elections.

CHUCK HOLTON (NRATV CORRESPONDENT): Now it’s undoubtedly awfully convenient that these huge caravans are forming now and are being speedily transported north just in time for the November 6 election. But the real story here is the nexus we’re finding between left-wing groups from the United States, [George] Soros-funded groups in Latin America and the Venezuelan government. See, the [Brett] Kavanaugh confirmation clown show a couple of weeks ago really fired up the Republican base and it may have hurt the Democrats’ chances to retake the House and the Senate on November 6. So these groups are falling back on an issue that played well for them earlier in the year and that’s the family separations at the border. But for a party that’s supposedly so very concerned about Russian attempts to influence our elections in 2016 and that dreaded word collusion we've heard so much about in the press, it’s telling that a bevy of left-wing groups are partnering with a Hungarian-born billionaire and the Venezuelan government to try to influence the 2018 midterms by sending Honduran migrants north in the thousands.

...

HOLTON: This is the same playbook we’ve seen in Europe. It’s an invasion under the guise of migration. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 10/19/18]

Holton repeatedly pushed a conspiracy theory that Jewish philanthropist George Soros was funding migrant caravants, and he continued to do so even after a gunman inspired by a similar conspiracy theory carried out a mass shooting at a synagogue:

CHUCK HOLTON (NRATV CORRESPONDENT): When we’re talking about this caravan, one of the things that we’ve really been excoriated for is for saying that this thing is being, maybe not funded directly, but certainly facilitated and encouraged by left-wing groups, mostly in the United States and elsewhere. I did a little bit of research, and it didn’t take a whole lot, AWR [Hawkins], I’ll tell you, to find a pretty direct link between George Soros money and the people in the caravan getting fed. Now, I have been crucified on Twitter for this because they say that I’m pushing a conspiracy theory, but let me just break it down for you. George Soros funds the Open Society Foundation, right? OSF funds the International Migration Institute, IMI, and IMI gives money to a whole host of other organizations, one of which is called the Alianza Americana. And if you got to the Twitter page of Alianza Americana, you can see that they’re traveling along with the caravan, bringing food and shelter and comfort to those people coming north. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 11/16/18; Media Matters, 10/29/18]

Loesch launched an anti-trans attack on NRATV, insisting that “just because you get some boobs, and you put some red lipstick on, poorly applied, and a very poor smoky eye bad dye job, that don’t make you a chick.” She also told transgender women not to “appropriate my sex.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): Chelsea Manning is now running for the United States Senate --

DANA LOESCH: Bradley.

STINCHFIELD: Bradley Manning, Chelsea Manning, whatever he/she wants to call herself, himself. Running for United States Senate in Maryland. A felon, can’t even vote for him or herself.

…

LOESCH: And don’t correct me on pronouns, for anybody who is watching, because I’m not going to suddenly pretend that this individual who is pretending to be a woman is a part of my sisterhood. He went through maturity and puberty as a male. Just because you get some boobs, and you put some red lipstick on, poorly applied, and a very poor smoky eye bad dye job, that don’t make you a chick. So don’t appropriate my sex. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 1/16/2018]

During an NRATV segment on crime in South Africa, Holton called it a “warning for what could happen in the United States” and suggested that Black Lives Matter supporters might be poised to commit mass rape and murder.

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): Our race relations are strained here in American after eight years of Barack Obama, but nowhere is near as bad as it is in South Africa, where white families are being tortured and killed almost every day in racist violence. It is a warning for the United States that you will never hear from the mainstream media in this country. Veteran Army Ranger and Frontlines correspondent Chuck Holton joins me with more on this. Chuck, I know you’ve been looking into this, particularly doing some research, and really the things that we’re starting to learn are frightening and I guess it's not shocking that the mainstream media is not talking about this.

CHUCK HOLTON: Right, you know the parallels between what’s happening in South Africa and the blatant racism and violence we’re seeing from people like the Black Lives Matter crowd, from people like Louis Farrakhan and his minions, is happening in spades in South Africa. The violence against farmers is being called for by government officials, it's being celebrated by politicians, and the scary thing is, it's kind of a warning for what could happen in the United States if we continue to let this get out of control, to go down this path of this racial tension, this racial hatred that is being forced on the American culture by the Black Lives Matter crowd.

…

HOLTON: This has to stop, and if you want to see why it has to stop, you look at South Africa. Over -- between three and four thousand white South Africans have been killed in the most horrific ways, brutalized, raped, tortured, drug behind cars, had drills taken to them. Some really horrific things. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 7/19/2017]

Then-NRATV host Bill Whittle claimed that there is “no Black oppression to speak of, no institutionalized, genuine Black oppression as there was in the past” and therefore, you don’t need the left.

BILL WHITTLE (NRATV HOST): Here is what they're doing, though, right? Political correctness is the left’s defensive position, but their offensive position is critical theory. Critical theory says we divide the country up into groups; the entire idea of “e pluribus unum,” the fact that we’re made into new people just as individuals, that has to go out the window. The country has to be divided up into tribes, the tribes have to be sent to attack the middle, and that is why you are not a real woman, you see, that’s why [NRATV host] Colion Noir is not a real Black man and so on and so on and so on. Because if you are, then their entire narrative falls apart. If there is no Black oppression to speak of, no institutionalized, genuine Black oppression as there was in the past, then what do you need the left for? And if women aren’t oppressed, then what do you need the left for? And if people like you can take care of yourself and defend yourself in your own life, then why on earth would you need some sort of left-wing overlord to tell you what to do and take all your money? Pretty much how it works, I think. [NRATV, Bill Whittle’s Hot Mic, 7/7/2017]

After the terrorist attack in Manchester, England, Holton said the country had it coming for a long time due in part to “multiculturalism” and “gender-bending.” [Media Matters, 5/23/2017]

NRATV serves as an authoritarian defense and propaganda operation for President Trump

Leading up to Trump’s 2016 election victory and continuing after, NRATV has defended Trump’s rhetoric, behavior, and policies from critics on all manner of issues, often to authoritarian lengths. Hosts have insisted his travel ban was justified because “all radicalized terrorists are Muslims,” insisted media outlets need to ask for a “pardon” because of their “treasonous” treatment of Trump, and claimed the Democrats are trying to “Al Capone” him at all cost.

Stinchfield called the U.S. House of Representatives, now controlled by Democrats, “a sham” and “nothing short of a torture chamber designed to inflict harm, pain, and ultimate destruction on President Trump.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): The Democratically controlled House of Representatives is now officially a sham. It is now nothing short of a torture chamber designed to inflict harm, pain, and ultimate destruction on President Trump and his administration. Bringing back a known liar, Michael Cohen, the president’s former attorney and confidant to spew nothing more than allegations that amount to old news and same old same old Democratic talking points. All of it is a disgrace. Nothing new came out of yesterday’s hearing. Even if you believe every word uttered by this convicted liar, you can’t prove anything other than the fact that President Trump was no choir boy, he can be brash and harsh at times, driven and committed to winning. But still, in my opinion, not a criminal. So what does the media do? It focuses on old, salacious details that President Trump has proven has had no effect on his ability to govern and govern well. The president is winning on the national stage, on the foreign stage, and everywhere in between. Our country is in the best shape it has ever been in. The world is not safe, but it’s as safe as it’s been since 9/11. Much of this success we owe to President Trump, his advisers, and of course the military he commands. In just one month of governing the House, the Democrats have managed to prove that they have a vendetta against anyone who doesn’t agree with their left-wing way of thinking. A vendetta against the president, and of course a vendetta against gun owners. While one committee is trying to sink a president, the rest of the Democrats were pushing and voting for a universal background check bill that would sink legal gun owners, make some of them felons, put others in danger, cost all of them hard earned money. And it has nothing, I repeat, nothing to do with safety. Just as the Cohen hearings have nothing to do with collusion. All of it has to do with underhanded tactics designed to hurt conservatives, punish them, and beat them into submission. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 2/28/19]

On NRATV, Stinchfield called journalists “enemies of the people because they’re trying to tear this nation up” and suggested they ask Trump to pardon them for their “treasonous” behavior.

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): The media is melting down over those caught up in legal battles with any association to the Trump campaign and President Trump himself. They yell things like this to him.

[VIDEO CLIP]

STINCHFIELD: The president ignores activists like this, just waiting to pounce. You hear them yelling who is he going to pardon. They want him destroyed. They want his administration and, in turn, America to fail just so they can say, “We told you so,” and elect a left-wing Democrat into office. Here’s how the president should answer those questions about who he will pardon. He should just yell back, “You should be asking for a pardon.” Reporters, editors, producers -- anyone associated with the mainstream media should be asking for a pardon. They are the ones who have abused and even weaponized the First Amendment. When they try to actively destroy a country, to me that’s treasonous. But that is where the media is today. The reason they don’t ask for a pardon is because they know they won’t get it. For a few reasons. One, they’re guilty. They are enemies of the people because they’re trying to tear this nation up. Two, they show no signs of remorse, there's no attempt to make up for any of their devious ways. And three, they know the president wouldn’t pardon the mainstream media. Not because he despises them, but because the American people who elected him wouldn’t stand for it. Finally, the mainstream media is being exposed as an un-American counterforce to everything that this country stands for. Maybe the media needs to ask for a pardon not from President Trump, but from the American people. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 8/27/2018]

After an anonymous op-ed from inside Trump’s White House was published in The New York Times, Stinchfield called the author a “traitor” and insisted Trump “needs to find him, out him, and if he’s responsible for these leaks, arrest him.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD: (HOST): He is an un-American troll infiltrating an administration doing the work the people elected him to do. If he is thwarting parts of Trump’s agenda, he is guilty of treason, a crime against the American people and those who voted for President Trump. I have long said the resistance is real. This traitor must be rooted out. It is my belief that he is most likely responsible for leaks to The New York Times too. If that is the case, he needs to be prosecuted. He claims he wants the administration to succeed, but writing the piece it is clear to me he is nothing more than actively working to tear this nation apart. Quote, he writes this: “That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.” Who is he to dub the president’s ideas as misguided. We like that the president is impulsive. The American people knew full well what they were getting in President Trump, a man who lives by intuition and is right most of the time.

…

STINCHFIELD: The president needs to find him, out him, and if he’s responsible for these leaks, arrest him. The American people are fed up with all of this. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 9/6/2018]

In defense of Trump’s legal problems, Loesch claimed Democrats were doing whatever it takes “to bring down the president” and said they’re trying to “Al Capone” him.

DANA LOESCH (NRA NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON): The moral argument over the president’s infidelities would never result in legal trouble. So they believe they have to take a lesson from the Clinton years and find a way to make it a legal problem. And that’s exactly what they’re using campaign finance for, an already unconstitutional set of laws to pull it off. They’re trying to Al Capone the president. I mean, you remember. Capone didn’t go down for murder. Elliot Ness didn’t put him in for murder. He went in for tax fraud. Prosecutors didn’t care how he went down as long as he went down. The same goes for Democrats. Whatever avenue is needed to bring down the president, they’ll take it. [NRATV, Relentless, 8/22/2018]

In defense of Trump, Stinchfield said “nobody gives a rat’s ass” about the Stormy Daniels payment, the Access Hollywood tape that captured Trump admitting sexually assaulting women, or “any of it.”

DAN BONGINO: New rules, Grant. It’s winning now, I don’t want to hear your lectures. Don’t give a damn about Michael Cohen, don’t give a damn about [President Donald] Trump’s sex life before the election, don’t care. If that bothers you, fine. Knock yourselves out. I don’t care. I am saving lives here, we are trying to save our gun rights. When I say save lives, I mean pro-life judges, we’re trying to save our Second Amendment rights, we’re trying to save our health care system, we’re trying to save our kids, we’re trying to reinstitute American pre-eminence in the world, OK? I don’t care anymore. I don’t care about the dude’s sex life, I don’t care about slippy McDougal and Smoky Daniels and Daniels Smoky, I don’t care about where the guy’s dipstick was a year ago, 10 years ago. I don’t care. New rules, don’t give a damn. Don’t care even a little bit. I want to save my business, I want to save my family, my church, lives in the womb, and the health care system. New rules, don’t care. Only care about winning.

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): You know what’s so funny, Dan, so I was out talking to a couple buddies, just standing around the bar talking, just almost as you and I talk on this program. And it’s wild that we think alike, because I told them the exact same thing. And I brought up Trump's -- all of his problems. I said, this is a president who said, remember, grab them by the, by the p. Caught on tape saying that. He says he’s going to walk down on Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody in the head and he’d get away with it. He's got the Stormy Daniels thing, and you know what? Nobody gives a rat’s ass about any of it. The reason being is America is finally on track again. And so we are doing great things being led by this president, nobody cares about all of that stuff. And it is new rules in many respects. And you know what, it’s like Donald Trump was covered in mud coming into all of this, you throw more mud on him, it doesn’t make a difference. But if he had a white dress on, you throw one piece of mud, it ruins the whole dress. Donald Trump was already covered in mud, it doesn’t matter. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 7/26/2018]

In defense of Trump’s executive order barring immigration from seven majority Muslims countries to the United States, Stinchfield admitted the ban “is about religion” because “all radicalized terrorists are Muslim.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): It is not a Muslim ban at all. There are 40 other countries, majority Muslim countries, that people can still emigrate here from. Now I will tell you what this is about -- it is about religion. It’s about radical Islamic terrorists. Not all Muslims are radicalized, but all radicalized terrorists are Muslims. And that is an important distinction that the left does not want to think about. The left does not want to even acknowledge the fact that radical jihadists want to come to the United States and blow us up. They would like nothing more than to march us out onto the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, or the Pacific, kneel us down, and lop our heads off. But they want to coddle the people coming here, hoping that they’re not terrorists. We cannot hope that they are not terrorists. We must ensure that they are not terrorists. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 1/30/2017]

In one of the first broadcasts after NRA News was relaunched as NRATV, Stinchfield attacked the media for supposedly spending too much time covering sexual assault allegations against Trump.

CAM EDWARDS (NRA NEWS HOST): We're going to be talking in our “Hero of the Day” segment today about an off-duty deputy in Massachusetts who is out to dinner with his wife when all of a sudden a guy runs in, he's got a knife, and he starts stabbing people in this restaurant. Nobody could have anticipated this attack. Thankfully that off-duty deputy had his personal sidearm with him, and that off-duty deputy was able to respond to that threat, was able to neutralize that threat, and save lives in the process. It's those types of stories, they never make the national news headlines, Grant, but they happen every day when you have citizens who are prepared to protect themselves, the people that they love, and those around them, if need be.

GRANT STINCHFIELD (NRATV HOST): And instead what the media does, instead of talking about stories like that, because that is a story that affects women, gun ownership affects women, they talk about Donald Trump's sexual allegations and all the like to get us to look someplace else because they don't want to talk about the real issues that matter to America, because if those issues are talked about, there's no way Donald Trump loses. [NRATV, Cam & Co., 10/27/2016]

NRATV launches unhinged inflammatory attacks on progressives

After the midterm elections, NRATV ramped up its attacks against the Democratic Party, specifically zeroing in on supposedly “self-absorbed” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and claiming that former President Barack Obama is “plotting his team’s next move” and will “use his wife Michelle to ultimately conquer you” because he has “unfinished business.”

Stinchfield said Ocasio-Cortez is “so self-absorbed, she can’t feel the impact of” 9/11 because she criticized U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan.

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): So the socialist darling from the Bronx, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has picked a new fight. This headline from the New York Post spells out her position on Afghanistan. AOC thinks the war was disastrous and wrong. The woman whose Green New Deal promises to figure out a way to handle cows that pass gas is now crapping on patriotism and of course national security. She makes me sick. As someone who grew up in New York -- I did, so did she -- I know the depths and despair that followed in the days following the 9/11 attacks. I was there, one of the first reporters to make it to ground zero. My friends lost lives at the hands of Islamic extremists. I know what it did to this country and I know how it unified us in a global fight against terrorism, a fight that is still going on today. What is troubling is AOC is from New York too but she clearly doesn’t care, because she is so self-absorbed, she can’t feel the impact of a horrific terrorist attack. Clearly she is oblivious to the fact that terrorists were and still are using Afghanistan as a base to wage their holy war. Instead of realizing our military must do everything it can to stop these jihadists over there before they get here, she focuses on a fake tragedy, like having to wait a few weeks for her paycheck when she got elected to office and moved to Washington, D.C. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 3/6/19]

Stinchfield warned viewers not to “count out” former first lady Michelle Obama for a presidential run, saying Barack Obama “will use his wife” to “ultimately conquer you.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): Folks, make no mistake, the leader of the Democratic Party is still Barack Obama and believe it is no coincidence he has been quiet for the past few weeks, almost missing from the national debate. Be warned, Barack Obama is not gone. He isn’t hiding, either. He’s plotting his team’s next move. This is a man who relishes the spotlight and the power, which makes his disappearance all the more concerning. President Obama has unfinished business. For eight years, he apologized for American greatness. His quest was to tear this nation apart to dupe Americans into thinking only the Democratic Party, only Barack Obama could build this country back up. It’s a scam, and that scam truthfully still continues. Now I believe as the left goes after our guns from state house to state house, the goal is to disarm you and ultimately conquer you. And Barack Obama will use his wife Michelle to do just that. Do not count her out as a possibility to run for the White House. It is calculated that not many are talking about it. It is calculated that the Obamas have kept a low profile over the past few weeks. Any time the left’s dynamic duo goes silent, brace yourselves for a bombshell. Right now, the Democratic field looks so disappointing. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Sen. Kamala Harris, Michael Bloomberg, maybe Joe Biden, maybe Hillary Clinton. So what do you have? Two no-name senators and three washed up old anti-gun leftists. There is nothing electrifying about any of them. Michelle Obama could change that in a second. The Obamas know it. And puppet master Barack may be about to pull the strings that will continue his quest to fundamentally change America into an all too recognizable version of Venezuela. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 1/30/19]

During Stinchfield, NRATV aired a deceptively edited video of a Nancy Pelosi speech to make it seem as if she had criticized Trump for not respecting “the dignity and worth of” MS-13 gang members. [Media Matters, 8/3/2018]

NRATV uses violent and unhinged rhetoric when talking about the press

Calling the press the “boil on the backside of American politics” and the “rat bastards of the earth,” NRATV has frequently branded the mainstream media as an arm of the Democratic Party and as biased against and hateful toward gun owners. The network has insisted mainstream media figures are “disappointed” when a semi-automatic assault weapon isn’t used in shootings, claimed media coverage of school shootings contributes to the “wussification” of America, and smeared a reporter as a “miserable racist” for criticizing the president.

NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch called mainstream media “the boil on the backside of American politics,” and said reporters are “the rat bastards of the earth” whom she hopes get “curb-stomped” by Trump’s election. [Media Matters, 11/28/2016]

While discussing press coverage following a school shooting, Stinchfield said the coverage “makes everybody scared” and contributes to the “wussification of America” where “kids are afraid of everything.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (NRATV HOST): All right, so Dana let’s break it down step by step. One is that The Washington Post points out, and I’m amazed that this contributor to The Washington Post actually pointed this out, that the chances of your kid being killed in a school shooting are slim to none. I mean, it just doesn’t happen all that often. But with that said, even though the chances of a school shooting happening at your child’s school is slim to zero, the chance of another school shooting happening again is very high. We will see it. The problem with the mainstream media is that they live off of sensationalism and they live off of emotion. I blame the mainstream media in many respects for it, but I also blame the American public for it as well because the American public eats it up. So as much as people say well I don’t want to see bad news on TV at night, when you put good news on TV -- and news stations have tried this experiment before, I worked in mainstream media for over 20 years -- they've tried putting good news on. People don’t want to watch, they tune it out. So the American public can dictate, in some respects, what the media covers just simply by turning the channel when it’s something they don’t want to see. But in the end, when it comes to school shootings, you’ve got liberals inside the media that by and large hate guns. Every time they can publicize a school shooting, not only does it play into what the public wants to see as far as the sensationalism and the emotions, but then they can also encourage that war against gun ownership and the anti-gun climate that we’re seeing today all played out any time this happens. So it makes everybody scared. But it’s the wussification of America. It’s not just school shootings, it’s everything. Kids are afraid of everything today. Where, Dana, you and I talked about empowering people to take responsibility for their own safety and security. People call us paranoid. That’s not being paranoid, that’s so we can go out in the public and not be fearful. [NRATV, Relentless, 12/3/2018]

Following a mass shooting involving a handgun at a video game tournament in Florida, Stinchfield promised NRATV viewers there were reporters “who were disappointed -- you hear me? -- disappointed that an AR-15 wasn’t used.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): This was a 24-year-old rich white kid shooting up a video gaming tournament. All the cable outlets went with wall-to-wall coverage. Once again, more ratings gold for the anti-gun media. Meanwhile, other shootings were unfolding. In Chicago alone, you had 29 people wounded by gunfire this weekend, two of them killed. Do you hear that? Twenty-nine people shot. The media ignored that story, as they always do. Liberal reporters who claim to be the voice of the people ignore the people if they happen to live in the hood. It’s media racism and the coverage, or lack of coverage thereof, proves it. Don’t get me wrong, both stories deserve coverage, both of them. They deserve equal coverage, but here’s what will happen: The media will continue to ignore what’s happening in Chicago because it doesn’t involve white fancy suburbs. They will also forget about Jacksonville because the death toll just isn’t big enough for them. Tell that to the mothers of two young gamers who died. Plus, the shooter used a handgun, not the all-vilified AR-15. Yes, I promise you there were reporters who were disappointed -- you hear me? -- disappointed that an AR-15 wasn’t used. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 8/27/2018]

After appearing in a CNN town hall with the survivors of the Parkland mass shooting, Loesch claimed she was the victim of a “public lynching” at the hand of the news network.

DANA LOESCH (NRA NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON): [CNN’s Jim] Acosta is upset that someone yelled “CNN sucks.” Imagine how he would feel if his network set up a public lynching of him, as they did of me and Marco Rubio, wherein people called me a murderer, and they screamed, “burn her,” and they rushed the stage and grabbed at me as I left. [CNN's] Jake Tapper corroborated this shortly after it happened, tweeting this in response to those who were in doubt. He says, “I don’t know, but Chris’s” -- talking of my husband -- “description is accurate and I made sure that she was escorted out of the room.”

I wonder if Acosta can imagine what it feels like when his network allows guest after guest day after day to refer to you as a murderer. To refer to 6 million law-abiding Americans as people who hate children and are terrible parents, simply because we believe in the right of self-defense. As Derek Hunter, author of Outrage Inc., who was on the show just this week, he said on this program yesterday it wasn’t journalists on the baseball field over a year ago who were shot by a Bernie bro. It wasn’t journalists who were attacked in Sen. Rand Paul’s yard resulting in life threatening injuries. It wasn’t journalists who were trapped in their office -- in their building in Portland by rioters and when they called for police, they were told that police couldn’t help them because they didn’t like their profession. It’s not journalists being run out of college campuses under threats of violence with property-destroying rioters. It isn’t journalists who had their homes targeted with paint, their boats vandalized, their children threatened with kidnapping and worse because of what they believe or what they do. It isn’t journalists who had to move because they support natural rights. It isn’t journalists who are being doxxed. It isn’t journalists who are being told by lawmakers to confront -- that lawmakers telling people to confront them in running them out of America. It isn’t journalists who are constantly referred to as people who share teeth and referred to as -- or it’s intimated that they’re backwoods, racist hillbillies by other media types infuriated by that Hillary didn’t win. No, you see the media has actually done this to average Americans. The media has treated its audience this way. [NRATV, Relentless, 8/3/2018]

NRATV labeled CNN’s Don Lemon “a miserable racist” for pointing out that Trump sounds different when he uses a teleprompter.

BILL WHITTLE: Yeah, well this is Don Lemon, and CNN, and all the other people like him, making it very clear to the other people on the panel how much smarter that they all are -- not just how much smarter Don Lemon is, but how much smarter all of them are compared to Donald Trump and the idiots that voted for him. By the way, Don, if you’re going to be criticizing people for writing speeches as if they were done by high school kids, you might want to look at your sentence, because your sentence doesn’t make any sense grammatically. It's very badly flawed, you might want to have a -- maybe a junior high school kid edit your work next time because the sentence you actually delivered on the air is not a grammatical sentence. But put that aside for a second, Don. You know, what he basically said was, yes, he sounded great, but he could only have sounded great because it was a speechwriter. Really? No kidding. A president used a speechwriter? Imagine my shock.

And what Don Lemon eventually went on to do, shortly after this, Grant, was he said we can tell that Donald Trump was just reading a teleprompter because Donald Trump impromptu doesn’t sound like that. But Barack Obama, when Barack Obama speaks off the teleprompter, he sounds exactly like Barack Obama does on the teleprompter. Which is either a flagrant lie or the most ignorant man in the world. You ever heard Barack Obama get off the teleprompter? It's like, [stuttering]. I’m not exaggerating, that’s exactly what he sounds like. So, I have only one explanation for why Don Lemon would say something like this, Grant, and the only explanation I can come up with is, is he’s a malignant racist. He’s a racist. He must think that white people are not smart enough to be able to use big words without a teleprompter, while Black people like him and Barack Obama can. So, if you want to dish this out to us for the last 10 or 15 years, here it comes back at you, Don. I’m calling you publicly, I’m calling you a miserable racist who thinks that white people are not smart enough to understand the big words that Black guys like you and Barack Obama understand. So how do you like that, pal? Tell me how that feels. [NRATV, Hot Mic, 3/2/2017]

NRATV smears peaceful protests as violent mobs

NRATV has bemoaned the “shrieking shrill of women protesters and demanded they be “jailed” for approaching cabinet members and elected officials in public places.

During the confirmation hearings for now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Stinchfield complained about the “shrieking shrill of women” protesting his confirmation over sexual assault allegations.

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): All right, you get the point. It goes on and on and on and in fact, Judge Kavanaugh starts to speak and the shrieking shrill of women in the back there, screaming all kinds of socialist nonsense. That can be heard in the background, disrupting what? The American people being able to hear from a potential Supreme Court nominee. What do they think they’re accomplishing other than solidifying the fact that they all look like fools? And so this is what we’re up against. It will continue. The Washington police need to step in short order. They have a right to be there; they do not have a right to disrupt that hearing. That is not about free speech. They do not have that right to disrupt the hearing. They certainly have a right to be there. If they want to disrupt, then they should be arrested. It is despicable and it is disrespectful to the American people and to our Constitution and to Judge Kavanaugh. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 9/5/2018]

After protesters confronted Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Stinchfield said the “violent, socialist intimidators … should be jailed” because “you can hear the distress in Elaine Chao’s voice.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): Maxine is seeing the fruits of her hate speech grow, ripen, and get picked straight from the tree. This attack on two government leaders is a result of her call to action, to go and harass people. And it will turn violent. And I’ll tell you, there may be no violence, there is a threat. And they’re becoming more and more common. The violence will come, you watch. We’ve already seen it before, just think about the shooting of a Republican congressman practicing baseball. And you think about the Black Lives Matter march here in Dallas, where a sniper killed five police officers. They are violent, this is proof, the rhetoric has been upped, I’m frightened for anybody out there who speaks up about this. If this was Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren harassed like this, can you imagine? They’d be put in jail. And they should be, really. I’d be the one calling for it. Like these violent, socialist intimidators, they should be jailed too. You can hear the distress in Elaine Chao’s voice. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 6/27/2018]

NRATV makes false, misleading, and sometimes inflammatory claims about gun violence and attacks survivors of mass shootings

Following any type of mass shooting, NRATV frequently refers to the victims as “sheep” who could have saved their own lives if only they had been armed. Hosts praise AR-15 assault weapons as the best way to defend yourself against a tyrannical government, push for arming teachers in classrooms, and called it “fake news” to count suicides in the total number of annual U.S. gun deaths. After the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history in Las Vegas, NV, an NRATV host said it would be “simply unacceptable” to pass a law that would have prevented the gunman from obtaining his firearms.

After a Texas police officer fatally shot Botham Jean, an unarmed Black man, in his own apartment, which the officer claimed she entered because she mistook it for her own unit, Loesch suggested Jean might have lived if he “was a law-abiding gun owner.”

DANA LOESCH (HOST): One of the other things that seems kind of extraordinary to me -- when you go, and this -- when you go into somebody’s house, things smell different, right? I mean, granted, the lights are off, it’s still going to kind of look different. It’s going to kind of feel different. It’s going to smell different, because it’s just -- there’s different stuff and different people that live there. And I would just think -- I don’t know, maybe I’m assuming to much -- and granted, 15-hour shift, that’s a long shift. But still, your senses hit you before anything else does. And that, I don’t know, maybe I’m missing something, but that seems -- that that would obviously wake you up.

JEFF HOUSTON [NRA CARRY GUARD DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS]: Yes, you would think so. And OK, 15-hour shift, yes, that’s a long day. And the job that a police officer has is often strenuous and can take a toll on you. But look, after 15 hours of hard work, one should not be in such a state of discoherence that you're walking in and not knowing that you’re in your own place. So, there’s just some really strange -- something strange is going on here. Not happy with this, obviously, a guy is dead that did not need to be. So, the rangers will do a good job of investigating this, but it’s just a tragic thing.

LOESCH: Right. This could have been very different if Botham Jean had been, say he was a law-abiding gun owner and he saw somebody coming into his apartment. I mean, there’s no -- I don't think there’s any context that the actions would have been justified. If I see somebody coming into my house and I’m not expecting them and they’re walking in like they own the place, I would -- I would act to defend myself. And this could have been very differently had he actually had a firearm on him. Maybe it would be a different individual, she might be the one carried out. [NRATV, Relentless, 9/10/18]

After 13 people were gunned down during a mass shooting in California, Stinchfield called residents of the state “sheep” because they’re not allowed to carry guns in bars.

GRANT STINCHFIELD (NRATV HOST): The bottom line is once again, this was a bar, it was a gun-free zone. Now a lot of states, including Texas, has a law that if it’s a bar, more than 50 percent alcohol sales, you can’t carry firearms in there. You can debate the merits of that or not. I do believe that I have individual responsibility for myself and I’m not going to carry a firearm if I think I am going to be inebriated but that’s not to say I can’t go sit in a bar, have a beer and watch a football game, and be OK to have my firearm.

CAM EDWARDS (NRATV HOST): Listen, we’ve got designated drivers in the country, I don’t know why we can’t have designated carriers. I enjoy a drink as well, but if I’m out with my family and I’m at a restaurant -- here in Virginia we’ve got a similar law -- actually we -- now you can carry in restaurants. We don’t have bars in Virginia, so you’ve got restaurants that serve alcohol, and we changed our law a few years ago. It used to be that you couldn’t carry in restaurants that serve alcohol, now you can. So you know, quite often if I’m the one driving my family out to dinner, I know I’m not drinking, so yeah, I can legally carry and I’m going to be fine with that. I think we need to have these discussions. Look, and I’m happy to have that discussion right alongside the discussion of, we need to ban these guns, we need to ban these magazines, we need this and that and the other gun laws. Let’s also talk, though, as you say, about allowing people to protect themselves, when, right now, they’re utterly defenseless.

STINCHFIELD: And that's what's happened in California. The laws there have turned people into sheep. They are defenseless. They've disarmed everyone. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 11/9/2018]

On NRATV, Stinchfield claimed arming teachers is “more in the boundaries of what the federal money should be used for than even textbooks or after-school programs.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): Texas is asking to spend federal Department of Education grant money to buy firearms for teachers that have gone through the state’s school marshal program. Teachers trained to carry firearms in school, in firearms, and the state needs permission to use federal money to do that. As you can imagine, the left is melting down. Anti-gunner’s outrage that the government would soon be funding firearms to put in the hands of educators. I would argue -- of all the things schools use federal grant money for, this may be the most legitimate. It falls into the core functions of the federal government, provide for the safety and security of its citizens. In fact, using federal tax dollars to buy guns for teachers is more in line and more in the boundaries of what the federal money should be used for than even textbooks or after-school programs. Guns in the hands of good guys has a direct impact on our safety, a core function of government. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 8/28/2018]

After a mass shooting during a video game tournament in Florida, Stinchfield criticized the victims for supposedly not hearing the sound of gunshots over their headphones, saying they were “living in [their] own world” and “that can become deadly.” [Media Matters, 8/27/2018]

When a mass shooting in a Waffle House was stopped by James Shaw Jr., an unarmed customer who rushed the gunman, Stinchfield said Shaw could have stopped it “permanently” if he was armed.

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): What amazes me is people have been tweeting at me, these folks on the left, somehow saying this proves that you don’t need a good guy with a gun because James -- if anything, it proves to me that he had more guts, and he was braver without the gun. But clearly if someone was there with a gun, we wouldn’t be having a manhunt right now. It doesn’t take away from the fact that a gun could have been useful in this situation.

...

STINCHFIELD: Anybody, whether it was Mr. Shaw, whether it was somebody else, if they had a gun, we wouldn’t be having a manhunt right now. OK? It takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun. Yes, a good guy with guts stopped a bad guy with a gun momentarily, but he didn’t stop him permanently. And this guy is still on the loose. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 4/23/2018]

In a pre-recorded NRATV video, outlet host Colion Noir taunted the student survivors of the Parkland school shooting, claiming that if an armed guard had stopped the gunman, “your classmates would still be alive, and no one would know your names.” [Media Matters, 3/23/2018]

During a segment on gun safety proposals following the mass shooting during a country music festival in Las Vegas, Stinchfield said passing laws that would make it harder for people to get a gun, including the gunman, would be “simply unacceptable.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): This is a very important point, that even the president didn’t address: Piers Morgan says make it harder for the Las Vegas shooter to get his firearms. There is no law or proposed law today that would have stopped him from getting his firearms. He would have passed every background check, there was no evidence of mental illness, not one new law would have stopped him. So make it harder for him to get his firearms means make it harder for all of us to get our firearms. And that is simply unacceptable. It is our right in America to keep and bear arms. The left wants to get in the way of that right, and they do it under the guise of somehow being called common sense gun control. There was nothing common sense about where Piers Morgan was going there, I want to make that clear. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 1/29/2018]

Stinchfield claim it’s “fake news” to include suicides in the number of annual gun deaths, calling the statistic “deceptive” and saying that it’s used by the media to “wage war on gun owners.” [Media Matters, 1/8/2018]

Whittle said he has his AR-15 to protect him and his family from “you progressives out there on the far left.”

BILL WHITTLE (HOST): You got it folks. So for those of you progressives out there on the far left who wonder why guys like me, conservatives like me, have an AR-15, the answer is I have an AR-15 to protect myself and my family from you. From you. [NRATV, Bill Whittle’s Hot Mic, 9/6/2017]

In response to a proposed law that would fine gun owners for not storing their firearms properly in the event they are stolen, Loesch said that’s “like shaming a rape survivor.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): All right, so the other that topic we talked about just a little bit earlier here, this new study out now, I need everyone to know, the American Center for Progress (sic) is a left-wing group. They issued a study that gun thefts are up in the southern United States. They may or may not be, doesn’t matter. The end result of the study is, they want to increase storage laws and give penalties to the victims for not storing their guns properly and they make no mention of going after the criminals.

DANA LOESCH (NRA NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON): That's like shaming a rape survivor. It’s the exact same logic. How about this, how about they make tougher penalties for individuals who steal? Steal firearms. How about they have harsher punishment for those individuals who break the law? These individuals that they are seeking to punish haven’t broken the law. They have been victimized, as you accurately noted. So why in the world would they pass legislation that seeks to further victimize the already victims of these criminal acts? [NRATV, Stinchfield, 7/28/2017]

One day after Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) was wounded during a mass shooting, NRATV’s Bill Whittle said he has his “AR-15 to kill people” and to “defend me against my government.”

BILL WHITTLE: I think, I personally think it is a mistake for people to say it's used for hunting, or it's used for target shooting. I have my AR-15 to kill people. That’s exactly what [Chris Jansing] said it's for and that’s what I have my AR-15 for. That’s why it’s there. I am not worried about a deer breaking into my house at 4 o’clock in the morning and coming through the window and maybe murdering me or raping my wife, or anything. I am not worried so much about a coalition of deer marching people into extermination camps. I am worried about people doing that. So that’s what I have that weapon for. The bigger issue here is this idea of this gun as a weapon of war. I hate to break this to her, but basically, essentially every gun is a weapon of war. That’s what they’re designed for. That’s why they’re there. And I think when we start retreating from the purpose of this, we get ourselves into this kind of trouble. And then they start saying, “Well, why do you need this for for hunting?” I don’t need it for hunting, I need it to stop bad guys, but mostly I need it to stop people like you. I need it to stop people like you, ma'am, who are trying to tell me how to defend myself, my life, my property, and my family, when you don’t have a clue about any of this. I am sure you live in a world where the police are very, very close, but guess what, the police don't prevent murders and the police don't prevent rapes. They investigate them. They draw a chalk outline around your body. You’ve seen too many movies where policemen come bursting through the door at the last second, guns blazing and shoot the gun out of the bad guys hands. It doesn’t happen that way. The police are there to investigate your murder. They are not there to prevent your murder, they can’t do it, they can’t be there everywhere.

…

WHITTLE: My weapons are here to defend me against my government. Ultimately, when it’s said and done, that’s the main reason I have these weapons. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 6/15/2017]

On NRATV, Italian actor and model Fabio Lanzoni called for more gun ownership in California because then-Gov. Jerry Brown is “releasing all the rapists” and “there’s going to be a lot of raping going on.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): Fabio, you talk about politicians. You are in California, not only are they waging war on gun ownership, but you’ve got this Prop 57 which is letting criminals out of jail and prison early just to save some money. This has become a disaster. We here at NRATV are big on law and order. You had someone break into your house, I don’t know if that was the catalyst to gun ownership or not --

FABIO LANZONI: Let me tell you, let me tell you, everybody -- it’s an epidemic. Number one, you have a governor like Jerry Brown, who turned his back to the law enforcement. This is their boss. Our police are demoralized because when your boss is going to take the other side – this is a very, I said, nonpolitical, you know, issue. You have the police on one side, the law enforcement, and then you have the criminal on the other side. Of course we have to stand with the law enforcement, but you know the governor of California took the side of the criminal. With Prop. 57, he brought down all the violent criminals to nonviolent because they were good in jail. And now he’s releasing tens of thousands. Now, yes, everybody is getting burglarized, mugged, robbed in the streets. It’s an epidemic.

STINCHFIELD: Including yourself, Fabio. Your house was broken into.

LANZONI: Just in my street in one week they did 25 homes just to give you an idea. Because now I’m getting a police report every week. Just in my area, in the month of March, 325 homes. Just in this small neighborhood of Los Angeles. It’s an epidemic, it’s everywhere. On top of that, the police have a very hard time now even to stop this criminal. And you know now the new wave of criminals he’s going to release is going to be pedophiles, child molester, and rapists. He is releasing all the rapists. So next thing you know, there’s going to be a lot of raping going on. What’s the governor of California going to say to the parents and every single woman out there should be up in arms. And on top of that, it’s almost impossible, especially in Los Angeles, to get a gun. They almost make it impossible for regular people to get gun, when criminal can get any gun they want, including automatic weapons. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 5/19/2017]

An NRATV guest called Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mother, a liar and smeared Martin as a criminal after Fulton wrote an op-ed shredding Stand Your Ground laws in Florida.

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): Stand Your Ground laws are very important to us here, we believe it is all of America’s key principles that you should be able to defend yourself and not let evildoers do whatever they want. And you should never be forced to retreat, it could put you in harm’s way. Trayvon Martin from Florida, his mom, we all know that case, wrote an editorial, scathing last week in Florida, she spelled out some lies about Stand Your Ground and really, very, very troubling stuff.

BOB OWENS: It really was, Sybrina Fulton, like I think every mother who has tragically lost a son for any reason doesn’t want to think the worst of her son. But the story she concocted was an abject fantasy that had absolutely nothing to do with the reality of the matter. Trayvon Martin was not stalked, he was casing a house to be robbed, as he had allegedly done before that got him kicked out of his school in Miami Gardens. That's why he was in Sanford with his father. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 4/3/2017]

On the anniversary of the Pulse nightclub mass shooting, NRATV’s Stinchfield called the victims “sheep” because none of them were armed. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 1/12/2017]

NRATV guest said the Second Amendment is “so important” because “we the people have to have the firepower and the manpower to be able to stand up to tyrants in the government like” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): The [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] is a giant mess and the fact is it shouldn’t even be a federal agency, it should be disbanded. But here we are now with more Washington craziness and I think it just has people across the country fed up.

JENN JACQUES: Fed up, if they are hearing about it of course, Grant. Because as we know because CNN, MSNBC and their ilk don’t like to report what government agencies like this are actually doing. And it came out yesterday that the agency is basically a Democratic Party donor bank funding payroll. Because we found out that they have been funding liberal campaigns at a rate of 593 Democratic to one Republican.

STINCHFIELD: Yeah, so to me that was not a shocker. And I think that you could go through every federal agency in Washington today and you’re going to find it filled with liberals. It’s why President Trump is having such a hard time battling back against the swamp that he says he wants to change. The reason is, who goes into government work? It’s liberals who love big government that get paid fat-cat salaries. There is a reason why the counties in Virginia are the most wealthy in the nation. It’s because government work is there.

JACQUES: Absolutely and I believe that the government should only do for the people what the people cannot do for themselves. I believe that our government is so bloated that we just need to have a kind of a beheading if you will, of all of these fat-cat liberal bloated government agencies. There is no reason for the CFPB to even exist except to fund Democratic campaigns.

STINCHFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. The new director, Mike Mulvaney, who immediately enacted a 30-day hiring freeze, had pointed out in his news conference basically saying, if you knew the powers that I have, that’s a quote from him, you would be shocked at what he could do to business out there, to people out there. It’s amazing the powers that were given to him by an Obama administration that pushed through this CFPB.

JACQUES: Look, it’s shocking but, hey, it’s the truth. They really do have a stranglehold on us as citizens and again this is why the Second Amendment is so important. I mean, we the people have to have the firepower and the manpower to be able to stand up to tyrants in the government just like this.

STINCHFIELD: Yup, you better believe we do. [NRATV, Stinchfield, 11/29/2017]

NRATV honed its extremism first as NRA News

Before rebranding itself as NRATV in 2016, the NRA’s media operation was called NRA News. Despite her current objection to unhinged NRATV content, NRA lobbyist, former president, and board member Marion Hammer went on NRA News to compare an assault weapons ban to racial discrimination. Others appearing on the media outlets also expressed extreme views.

On NRA News, former NRA president and current Florida lobbyist Marion Hammer compared an assault weapons ban to racial discrimination, saying, “Banning people and things because of the way they look went out a long time ago. But here they are again. The color of a gun. The way it looks. It's just bad politics.” Hammer was ridiculed for her comment by then-Comedy Central host Jon Stewart. [Media Matters, 1/4/2013; Comedy Central, The Daily Show, 1/17/2013]

During an NRA News Cam & Co. segment, Holton attacked the “Black community,” said white privilege is “a culture of individual responsibility,” and said the Black community is “welcome to come. All you have to do is join us in respecting authority and taking responsibility.” [Media Matters, 8/22/2016]

Edwards highlighted vigilante patrols active in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina for his “The Armed Citizen Files” segment and praised them for “looking out for each other by walking the streets armed with firearms,” despite extensive reporting that established that the groups he was talking about targeted African-Americans with racially motivated violence. [Media Matters, 8/25/2014]

During his “The Armed Citizen Files” segment, Edwards praised a man who reportedly broke up an armed robbery in Alabama, but didn’t mention he was currently under indictment for raping a minor. [Media Matters, 1/28/2014]

NBC Sports Network canceled the NRA-sponsored hunting show Under Wild Skies after the host Tony Makris was criticized for shooting an elephant in the face and then compared his critics to Hitler during an NRA News appearance. [Media Matters, 9/29/2013]

Frequent NRA News guest Tony Katz said victims of Hurricane Katrina shouldn’t have expected to be rescued if they “don’t know how to get to dry land or how to move before the storm comes.” [Media Matters, 5/28/2013]