Gavin McInnes Speaks for First Time After Being Completely Deplatformed and Fired
Internet television personality and founder of the Proud Gavin McInnes has spoken for the first time after being completely deplaformed from social media and being fired from his internet television shows after his network CRTV merged with The Blaze.
McInnes sat down with ABC America Nightline Reporter Paula Faris for a feature interview to counter what he has called the “lies and propaganda” circulating about him and the Proud Boys over the past two months.
McInnes and the Proud Boys were banned from Twitter in August who deemed them a violent extremist group. Following the Proud Boys confrontation in New York with Antifa in October which saw nine members charged, the Proud Boys and its members were banned from Facebook and Instagram.
McInnes then quit the Proud Boys in late November in the hope his disassociation would help the New York 9 during their trials.
Since then McInnes has been denied a visa to tour Australia in February 2019, he was fired from Blaze TV after his employer CRTV merged with Glenn Beck’s Blaze TV. Now McInnes has been banned from YouTube for copyright infringement and a video featuring public urination meaning he has been completely deplatformed from all major social media platforms.
The ABC interview is McInnes first opportunity to reach a mass audience since his deplaforming. Despite quitting the Proud Boys he still had no regrets about starting the western fraternal organisation. He clarified he only supported justified violence but conceded “I shouldn’t have said, you know, violence solves everything or something like that without making the context clear. And I regret saying things like that”.
Faris asked McInnes if the Proud Boys were racists, misognists, a hate group or hipster Nazis. McInnes said all the Proud Boys were about was western supriority “Russia sucks. China sucks. The Middle East is not my cup of tea. I don’t have — I think it’s inarguable that the west is superior. The west is built on liberty and meritocracy and busting your ass”.
Another comment McInnes was asked about was on the Joe Rogan show about Mexicans “Mexico sucks because of Mexicans. What have they contributed to society in the past hundred years? Tacos?” He clarified the context of the discussion “we were sitting around talking and someone was bitching about how America and their foreign policy and it’s ruined all these countries, it’s ruined Mexico and I said, America did not ruin Mexico. Mexico — Mexicans are responsible for Mexico”.
Faris was invited along to a bar to meet other Proud Boys which featured two black Proud Boys including Yosef Ozia who has appeared on the Unshackled Waves. They reaffirmed that Proud Boys “stand against white power, for sure… A black Nazi is, like, I don’t know. A meat-eating vegan” and described the Proud Boys as “an organization that does not care who you sleep with, what god you pray to, all we care is that you have a good time, that you improve yourself”.
The okay symbol was also criticized by Faris who deemed it a white supremacist symbol but the Proud Boys view it as just a joke, created by the online forum, 4 Chan, designed to rile up the left. But McInnes in the interview disavowed the symbol “I’ll give you that bone and if I was their boss, I would say, guys, this is causing too much trouble, please stop doing it in photos”.
Faris also spoke with ex-Proud Boy Dante Nero who claims the Proud Boys can easily come under extremist influence “the complicitness in the fact that you’re not checking people with racist and violent tendencies makes you part of the problem”.
The Proud Boys despite McInnes disavowing it were damaged by the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virgina in 2017 which turned violent as of the organizers Jason Kessler was a member of the Proud Boys at the time but once it was clear it was an alt-right white nationalist event he was expelled from the organisation.
The new Chairman of the Proud Boys Enrique Tarrio was briefly involved in Unite the Right but did not participate “I definitely didn’t. After I heard the tiki torch thing, I decided completely against it”.
The interview ends with McInnes at home with his wife (her face is not revealed) where we learn that she was the main driver of McInnes’ decision to quit the Proud Boys due to the negative media coverage “this is impeding on the peace for my opportunity to raise my kids”. She also has different politics from her husband “I was raised in a liberal household. I’m a die hard Democrat and so your politics having evolved this way in the last few years has been a challenge”.
The interview finished with Faris asking McInnes if he accepts responsibility for his comments on violence I do bear any responsibility. I mean, I’m not guilt free in this. He denied he was apologizing but when asked if he would take those words back said “that’s a good question. Yes. I guess — well, I don’t know. No. That ship has sailed”.
McInnes does not have a personal website and so far has not made active accounts on free speech social media outlets such as Minds.com Gab.ai and BitChute. His next step in his media career was not addressed in the interview.