Glenn Beck and his colleagues at TheBlaze dedicated a segment of their daily news show to rationalizing the behavior of CRTV host Gavin McInnes and his often-violent “Proud Boys” men’s fraternity.
On today’s episode of “The News & Why” on TheBlaze, Beck and his co-hosts discussed recent violent incidents involving members of the Proud Boys, a group founded by McInnes and designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Beck shared the story of the time he faced rampant threats against his life after speaking out against Infowars pioneer Alex Jones. It was after that experience, Beck said, that he decided to rethink his public rhetoric.
“I’m not going to die for a piece of comedy. I’m not going to die for something I’m like, ‘pretty sure,’ you know? And I think that perhaps Gavin is getting to that point, to where he sees how serious this is becoming and it’s not about losing a platform. It’s about losing your life,” Beck said.
Stu Burguiere, a host at BlazeTV, said McInnes could be “starting to see this moment where the media has decided that he is equally as bad as antifa, or the real cause of the problem.”
“I like Gavin,” Burguiere said. “He’s a smart guy and seemingly a funny guy and I would agree with him, I’m sure, on 90 percent of stuff. I don’t really like this approach, per se, but when you become a target—when multiple big-time national reporters are putting the blame for all these incidents on him, publicly—I mean, the target is going on this organization.”
Although the table of pundits agreed that the Proud Boys enter situations looking for violence, Beck continued to stand up for the group.
“They are sick and tired of somebody saying, ‘You can’t say this. You can’t do this.’ Who are you to say that to people? And so they put themselves in these awkward positions ready to swing back. You swing at them, they’ll swing back. They’re not going to swing first,” Beck said. “But still, they know what they’re getting into. … That’s not going to win in today’s society and I think that’s what Gavin may be seeing now with the press. They’ve already picked sides. They’re for antifa.”
McInnes joined Beck on his radio program yesterday. At one point in time, McInnes was a somewhat frequent guest on Beck’s network.
