Arizona Republican Blake Masters, the Republican Party's senate candidate in the race against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), was just caught in a lie about a far-right, white-supremacist-friendly social network site.
The Jewish Insider recalled a July endorsement that Masters earned from Andrew Torba, the CEO of Gab, the social media site known for being a hotbed of white supremacy. Torba gave Masters his seal of approval, but Masters rejected the endorsement, claiming he's never heard of the guy.
“I’ve never heard of this guy and I reject his support,” Masters said in two different statements. “The reason I’ve never heard of him is because he’s a nobody, and nobody cares about him except the media.”
Now Torba is striking back by calling out the"flat-out lie" from the GOP senate hopeful.
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“Blake Masters knows exactly who I am,” Torba wrote in a Gab post, that has since been removed. “We had a long conversation on Twitter Spaces live a few months ago. Mega cringe cucking here, but whatever, I still want him to win for the great people of Arizona and for the right to control the Senate."
Masters' campaign acted as if he's never even heard of Torba.
“Blake interacts with tens of thousands of people on Twitter spaces — the sentiment remains that he doesn’t know Torba and rejects his support,” said adviser Katie Miller.
The problem for Masters, however, is that there's a tape of their conversation and the Jewish Insider acquired it.
"It would not be unreasonable, however, to expect that Masters might remember his nearly three-minute exchange with the founder of Gab during a live Twitter conversation in January — a recording of which was obtained by Jewish Insider on Tuesday," the site reported. "Their discussion was focused largely on content moderation and censorship, even as Torba introduced himself to Masters with an unsubtle nudge to join his platform, which is regarded as something of a repository for extremists banned from other platforms."
The two men exchanged a few comments and questions, including whether the Republican would join the site.
“My question for Blake is, Blake, when are you getting on Gab?” asked Torba after Masters entered the Twitter Spaces discussion hosted by former Trump official Adam Korzeniewski.
Masters stammered, promising that he's not against the social media site at all.
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“I’ll check it out. I’m definitely not, I mean, I’ve never used it. I’m definitely not anti — I think I’m on Gettr,” he said, referencing the right-wing social media site founded by ex-Trump adviser Jason Miller.
“I have a question for you," Masters went on, "because I agree with you that, like, Apple and I guess the other one would be the Google Play store or whatever, they shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate against a company. I’m curious, presumably, you’re not banned from the app store, right?”
Gab is actually banned from the Apple app store, Torba explained. There was a back and forth, and Masters was sympathetic for Torba's tech problems.
“I hadn’t realized it was that bad,” Masters said. “That’s obviously super messed up. I don’t think Apple should be allowed to do that."
In the past, Masters has promoted legislation that would force all cell phone companies to allow social media apps across their services, “requiring them to provide reasonable nondiscriminatory access to all users,” Masters wrote in a 2021 Wall Street Journal editorial.
Jewish Insider cited The Anti-Defamation League's citations about some of the more infamous members of Gab's platform, including the gunman who killed 11 people in the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. They describe the platform as “rife with white supremacist” and “antisemitic bigotry.”
Torba may have been banned from Twitter, but he was able to use Gab's account to use Twitter Spaces conversations with Korzeniewski.
Torba has promoted several Republican candidates over the past year, and as they all pivot to appear less fringe in the general election, the CEO has been annoyed with their distancing of Gab. Masters, however, appears to be the one that bothers him the most.
“Just want you guys to be aware of who bend the knee to media pressure and who does not,” Torba wrote in the Gab entry that was deleted. “What is concerning is that Blake can flat-out lie like this, he’s already becoming a typical politician before he is even elected!…”
Read the full report at Jewish Insider.
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