For Immediate Release
Thursday, July 7, 2022
Contact: Hannah Goss, hgoss@azdem.org

New York Times: “The Strident Writings of a Young Blake Masters Dog His Senate Run.”

PHOENIX — A new, New York Times report highlights Blake Masters’ long history of controversial writings and opinions, including previously unreported statements from Masters opposing U.S. involvement in World War II, stating that Al Qaeda isn’t a threat to America, and praising a Nazi leader.
The New York Times investigation comes on the heels of a series of reports detailing Masters’ long record of controversial statements — including quoting Nazi leaders, calling World War II unjust, and promoting the Unabomber — which have quickly become fodder for his primary opponents to use in advertisements against him.

See below for key excerpts or check out the full story here:

• In the most recent examples, unearthed and provided to The New York Times by opponents of Mr. Masters, he took to the chat room of CrossFit…to espouse views that might not sit well with the Republican electorate of 2022.
• As he had in other forums, Mr. Masters wrote on the CrossFit chat room that he opposed American involvement in both world wars — although World War II, he conceded, “is harder to argue because of the hot button issue of the Holocaust (nevermind that our friend Stalin murdered over twice as many as Hitler … why do we gloss over that in schools?).”
• Also on the CrossFit chat room, Mr. Masters, then 20, argued that Iraq and Al Qaeda did not “constitute substantial threats to Americans.”
• Not surprisingly, Mr. Masters’ youthful writings have already become fodder in the hotly contested race for the Republican nomination to take on Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona…
• Another G.O.P. contender, the businessman Jim Lamon, latched onto Mr. Masters’ 2006 writings on an early blogging site, Live Journal — reported by Jewish Insider in April and June — in which Mr. Masters had claimed that “‘unrestricted’ immigration is the only choice” for a libertarian-minded voter.
• Mr. Masters declined to comment for this article.
• Mr. Lamon, for one, has taken political advantage, running an ad framing Mr. Masters as a conspiratorial antisemite. Mr. Masters released a response in which he said he knew “the left-wing media” would “try to smear me” … He added: “Well, it turns out loser Republicans would do that, too.”
• In 2007, Mr. Masters expanded upon his libertarian critique of the United States in the oddly chosen forum of CrossFit’s chat rooms…He called the United States “an empire-driven (soft and hard) nation-state with security craving sheep” and dismissed the Federal Reserve Board as a “semi-private banking cartel.”
• And, on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Mr. Masters — who now embraces Mr. Trump’s “America First” slogan — asked, “what about the non-Americans in the twin towers? Personally I see no reason to lament the demise of ‘American’ innocents any more than those of other nationalities.”

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