For the second time this month, MSNBC host Ari Melber afforded valuable airtime to the right-wing conspiracy theorists responsible for concocting the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. MSNBC seems to think it is doing a public service by exposing lies intended to undermine the foundations of our democracy, but right-wing provocateurs like Steve Bannon are celebrating their mainstream exposure as a propaganda victory for the far-right extremist movement.
On the January 21 edition of MSNBC’s The Beat, Melber sat down for back-to-back interviews with three people involved in events leading up to the insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 – former Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro, former Trump campaign adviser Boris Epshtyen, and Trump rally organizer Dustin Stockton.
Melber’s interview with Stockton, who was accompanied by his lawyer for his second appearance on MSNBC in recent weeks, was not problematic. Stockton made an effort to address his role in spreading lies and misinformation, confirmed his cooperation with investigations into the January 6 insurrection, and reiterated contrition for his participation in the pro-Trump conspiracy theory movement.
Unfortunately, Melber’s interviews with Navarro and Epshteyn were less instructive for viewers, who had to endure a more than 20-minute torrent of lies and misinformation about the 2020 election and its aftermath, most of which were unaddressed by MSNBC. Melber opened the segment by assuring viewers “the reporting we're about to share with you can help us all go deeper inside this investigation,” but what followed was ineffective back-and-forth between a besieged TV host and two professional propagandists intent on overwhelming him with well-rehearsed, rapid-fire lies.
Hours before he was scheduled to appear with Melber, Epshteyn joined former Trump strategist Steve Bannon’s War Room: Pandemic podcast to rehearse the lies he intended to spread while the two celebrated the opportunity to access MSNBC’s audience. (It's no accident that Bannon was named Media Matters' “Misinformer of the Year” for 2021.)
Clearly, Bannon considered Epshteyn and Navarro’s appearances on MSNBC to be successful because he invited both to join him for laudatory interviews on the January 24 edition of War Room. Bannon compared Epshteyn to giants of the legal profession – former Supreme Court Justices Felix Frankfurter, Louis Brandeis, and Oliver Wendell Holmes – and aired a clip of Epshteyn falsely claiming “this election was stolen from President Trump, President Trump won the 2020 election,” as proof positive that Epshteyn had accomplished his mission by infiltrating MSNBC. Bannon went on to mock Melber’s knowledge of the law, while Epshteyn said “it was a blast” to spread lies about the election on a mainstream cable program.