For GOP debate, NBC partners with right-wing outlets with history of peddling extremist rhetoric

By Oliver Darcy, CNN

(CNN) — NBC News is uniting with a pair of strange bedfellows for the third Republican Party primary debate.

The Republican National Committee on Monday formally announced that it will partner with the Peacock network to host the Miami face-off, along with the Salem Radio Network and Rumble, two right-wing media companies that have a history peddling and profiting off extremist rhetoric.

It’s no surprise that the GOP, which veered sharply to the right during Donald Trump’s presidency, would select Salem and Rumble as partners. But it is striking that NBC News would agree to link arms with such organizations.

Before Trump upended America’s politics, Salem was a run-of-the-mill conservative media organization. It used to be most well known for owning conservative publications such as RedState and syndicating “The Hugh Hewitt Show.” CNN even partnered with the company for four GOP debates in 2016.

But, like so many facets of the GOP, the company has legitimized radical voices in recent years. In 2023, it is defined by a stable of MAGA Media personalities, such as Charlie Kirk, Dinesh D’Souza, Sebastian Gorka and Jenna Ellis — right-wing figures who have espoused incendiary views, pushed dangerous conspiracy theories and told outright lies about the 2020 election.

In recent months, Kirk has, for instance, called for President Joe Biden, whom he declared a “tyrant,” to actually be “put in prison and/or given the death penalty for crimes against Americas.” And as recently as last week he baselessly suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had allowed Hamas terrorists to attack the Jewish state and murder innocent Israelis in a bid to solidify his power.

That is merely a taste of the radical rhetoric that is being mainstreamed to the American public by Salem, which distributes its programming to more than 2,000 radio stations across the country. It would be impossible to print an exhaustive list of the insidious comments that Salem’s hosts have peddled to their audiences in recent years. The rhetoric goes well beyond espousing traditional conservative viewpoints and sails into far-flung, dark and stormy seas, once a place that few ever ventured.

Rumble is no better.

The video-sharing website has become home to the far-right, offering unsavory figures who have been banned from mainstream platforms such as YouTube a space to continue poisoning the public information well. And, not only has the company allowed some of the most menacing forces in politics to maintain sizable platforms, but it has also allowed them to earn treasure in doing so.

Andrew Tate, the far-right misogynistic alpha male influencer charged with human trafficking and rape in Romania, has privately boasted that he has a $9 million deal with Rumble, as we reported earlier this year. And Rumble has even allowed the Holocaust denier and openly racist Nick Fuentes the ability to profit off of his neo-Nazi rhetoric.

When I asked NBC News on Monday if the network was actually comfortable collaborating on the third GOP debate with Salem and Rumble, given each company’s history, a spokesperson declined comment. But a person familiar with the matter told me that Kirk will not be on stage, and that Hewitt is likely to be the co-moderator alongside NBC News anchors.

Regardless, the matter shines a spotlight on the difficulty news organizations are facing as they attempt to work with the GOP to host primary debates this cycle. Most conservative media outlets are not what they were pre-2016. Just like the Republican Party, they have been remade in Trump’s image, embracing conspiratorial thinking and bathing in rhetoric often detached from reality.

News organizations will need to grapple with this uncomfortable reality as they navigate the 2024 waters. Do they really want to associate themselves with and — as a result — help legitimize companies that are in the business of mainlining extremism to the American public? Is doing so really worth hosting a debate which the party frontrunner will likely refuse to participate in?

NBC News has made its decision. Now it’s up to other news organizations to do so as well.

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