Indicted ”fake elector” and Arizona state Sen. Anthony Kern has been barred from using the Senate video studio at the state Capitol after he used the government facility to appear on Nazi apologist Stew Peters’ internet talk show.
“The Senate president does not approve of how the senator chose to use legislative broadcast resources last week,” Kim Quintero, a spokesperson for Republican Senate President Warren Petersen, told 12News. Kern’s “privileges to use those resources for future interviews have been revoked,” she added.
The interview, which took place on May 1, featured the extremist Freedom Caucus member opining on Arizona Democratic House members' decision to host a Drag Story Hour in the basement of the state Capitol the day before. That event, which was attended by Democratic representatives, their staff, and supporters of Planned Parenthood, earned the homophobic scorn of the state’s Republican majority and a suspension of privileges by House Speaker Ben Toma.
Talk show host Peters is a long-standing piece of shit who built his audience as a COVID denier. Recently, he’s shelved COVID conspiracies in favor of promoting Holocaust denial.
In March, Peters used his show to praise Nazi book-burning as “justified,” describing the practice as “great” and “awesome.” He later argued that the “propaganda that surrounds” World War II made it impossible for him to judge whether or not Adolf Hitler was “evil,” but that in the case of book burnings, he thought the real question to ask is, "Wasn’t he a hero?”
During Kern’s interview with Peters, the latter falsely claimed that the Drag Story Hour featured children (it did not) and called the drag king who read at the event a “mentally ill satanic pedophile,” according to the Arizona Mirror. Kern evidently forgot to push back on these false claims.
So what did Kern have to say during the interview?
“God is raising up Donald Trump and Anthony Kern and Stew Peters and people like us to shout,” he declared.
Kern is one of 18 people recently indicted for their part in a fake elector scheme that aimed to illegally install Donald Trump in office after he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden. Kern’s other claim to fame is being a gun fetishist asshole who believes anyone should be allowed to carry concealed weapons on college campuses.
The GOP senator seems to believe that being around people with guns is somehow safer than being around people who read books.
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