Breitbart’s editor-in-chief, Alex Marlow, took to the airwaves of the publication’s Tuesday morning radio show. Of course, the topic of choice was Milo Yiannopoulos’ advocation of pedophilia as revealed in newly surfaced audio. The notorious right-wing “provocateur” saw himself disinvited from CPAC following the remarks. Simon & Schuster also canceled his book, and some believed that Milo would also be dismissed from Breitbart. However, Marlow strongly hinted that the door may not shut on Milo’s Breitbart tenure and also somehow blamed “the left” for the controversy.
The process by which this happened is almost breathtaking. Marlow did express disappointment over Milo’s “indefensible” remarks (which included what Milo claims is a joke about how a priest taught him how to give “good head”). Several Breitbart employees have launched an effort to have Yiannopoulos removed from staff, yet on the radio show, Marlow began to construct a Milo defense against “the left”:
“The comments are absolutely indefensible, they’re appalling, and very disappointing that those came out … However, there is context. Some of the context is that Milo is a gay man, who was abused as a child. These are not irrelevant … There are millions of examples of the left normalizing behavior similar to what Milo describes.”
Marlow is likely referring to a column that Yiannopoulos once wrote to blame the left for defending pedophiles. The editor stated that he believed Milo was speaking from experience, and he said Milo insisted that he’d “never had inappropriate contact with a minor.” And although this is all very upsetting, Marlow also thinks someone organized a “coordinated hit” against Milo:
“More important context which is very unfortunately, is this does look like a coordinated hit. The problem is the video is a real video with horrible things on it. But it still is unfortunate that it does look like the forces on the left, and some of the Republican establishment and the never-Trump movement perhaps. There seems to be growing evidence this was all coordinated to wait for a peak moment when Milo was red hot, coming off his Bill Maher appearance, and they sat on this story and hold it for maximum political damage, which is really sort of sickening, which they would keep this from the public if they had it until they tried to wait until they could do the most damage to his career and to Breitbart … so it is a political war out there, but the bottom line is the video speaks for itself and it says something very terrible.”
Marlow believes the timing of the audio release (the clip was apparently filmed in the summer of 2016) was purposefully orchestrated right after Yiannopoulos’ controversial appearance on Real Time. The editor is still making it clear that the remarks were terrible, but he’s giving Milo a chance to fully address the matter at a press conference this afternoon. Hopefully, Milo will do so without the attitude he took while penning a “note for idiots,” which is how he reacted to the audio’s release.
It almost sounds like Milo’s not being booted from Breitbart, right? If this is the case, the already long list of advertisers who have blacklisted the right-wing site will only widen in scope. Get ready.