Milo Yiannopoulos - Darling of Alt-Right Movement Throws Himself Under the Bus

Milo Yiannopoulos resigns from Breitbart News amid pedophilia comments backlash

Milo Yiannopoulos. © Drew Angerer / Getty Images / AFP

Senior Breitbart editor and alt-right figure Milo Yiannopoulos has resigned from Breitbart News following a scathing backlash after he apparently defended pedophilia.

Yiannopoulos issued a statement announcing his departure from the conservative news organisation thanking the company for the freedom to “carry conservative and libertarian ideas.”  He also revealed plans for a new media venture during a press conference he held in New York.

“I would be wrong to allow my poor choice of words to distract from my colleagues reporting, so today I am resigning from Breitbart, effective immediately. This decision is mine alone.”

Mr Yiannopoulos, a vocal Donald Trump supporter who rose to fame for his far-right views, appeared to endorse sexual relationships between “younger boys and older men” in an excerpt from The Drunken Peasants podcast which aired a year ago.

He said in footage broadcast online that he defines paedophiles as people who are sexually attracted to children who have yet to hit puberty. He adds that he believes some teenagers under the age of 16 are able to consent to sexual activity.

At one point he refers to the possibility of relationships between 13-year-olds and 25 or 28-years-olds, claiming “these things do happen, perfectly consensually”.  

He later said the podcast was selectively edited, and parts where he said the current age of consent is "about right" were removed.

Somewhere, he admitted to having a relationship with a priest when he was 13 or 14. That's where the 'coming of age' comment came from.  Yiannopolous still doesn't see the realtionship as child sex abuse. 

Thy bus runneth over

The “alt-right” figurehead, who was permanently banned from Twitter in July after claims he helped lead the racist and sexist abuse of Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones, had his book deal with publisher Simon & Schuster pulled in the wake of the remarks. 

He was also dropped from speaking at the prestigious Conservative Political Action (CPAC) conference, which will feature President Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence, in Maryland next week.

Sources from Breitbart told Fox Business late on Monday that they were also considering dismissing him from the publication that helped launch his career.

There was reportedly a fierce internal debate about whether to keep him on, but a source said the decision was ultimately one related to branding, with senior executives debating how “damaging his comments are to the Breitbart brand”.

“Breitbart already has advertising issues regarding its association with the Alt-Right, and this doesn’t help the business side,” said the source.

On top of this, a senior editor at the publication told Fox Business “at least half a dozen” employees were prepared to leave the company if Mr Yiannopoulos stayed.

Mr Yiannopoulos ended his statement, which was tweeted by a journalist at the New York Times: “Breitbart News has stood by me when others caved. They have allowed me to carry conservative and libertarian ideas to communities that would otherwise never have heard them. They have been a significant factor in my success. I’m grateful for that freedom and for the friendships I forged there.

"When your friends have done right by you. you do right by them. For me, now, that means stepping aside so my colleagues at Breitbart can get back to the great work they do."

Breitbart said in a statement released shortly afterwards: "Milo Yiannopoulos’s bold voice has sparked much-needed debate on important cultural topics confronting universities, the LGBTQ community, the press, and the tech industry."

"Milo notified us this morning of his decision to resign as editor of Breitbart Tech and we accepted his resignation.”

In a press conference following his resignation, Mr Yiannopoulos said there were two comments in the podcast that did not accurately reflect his views, but suggested the rest did.

He said the scandal has been a "politically motivated witch hunt" and accused people of waiting until the "most damaging moment" to highlight footage that has been in the public domain for a year.

He added that he had not owned up to the comments before they were reported on by the press because he did not even remember making them.

Voice Shaking, Michelle Obama Calls Trump Comments on Women ‘Intolerable’

Is the wrong woman running for president?

Michelle Obama is the best political speaker in America today

Michelle Obama Denounces Trump’s Words on Women

By REUTERS 1:45 Video The first lady, Michelle Obama, on Thursday spoke out against Donald J. Trump’s comments about women. “This is not something that we can ignore,” she said, while campaigning in New Hampshire for Hillary Clinton.

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, NYTimes

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Michelle Obama issued a deeply personal denunciation of Donald J. Trump on Thursday for his lewd comments about women, exhorting voters in scathing terms to reject his candidacy and the campaign’s increasingly vulgar tenor by backing Hillary Clinton as a matter of conscience.

“This is not normal. This is not politics as usual,” Mrs. Obama said in a 25-minute speech here during which her voice at times quavered with emotion. “This is disgraceful, it is intolerable, and it doesn’t matter what party you belong to,” she added. “No woman deserves to be treated this way — none of us deserves this kind of abuse.”

In remarks that were among the most outspoken by a first lady in modern history, Mrs. Obama, who has mostly avoided the political limelight, positioned herself at the center of a campaign she characterized as having devolved into “madness.” (Theatre of the absurd?). She implored voters to “stand up and say enough is enough.”

“I can’t believe that I’m saying that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women,” the first lady told several hundred voters at a university here.

“I can’t stop thinking about this — it has shaken me to my core,” Mrs. Obama said, reacting to the emergence last week of a recording in which Mr. Trump was heard coarsely boasting about kissing and groping women without their consent.

What followed from the first lady, who has styled herself America’s “mom in chief,” was a message about empowering women to rise up against sexual abuse and harassment in every context. The speech was all the more striking because it was delivered on behalf of Mrs. Clinton, whose experience with her husband’s infidelity all but disqualifies her from speaking in similarly vivid terms.

Aides said Mrs. Obama had always planned to reshape her stump speech as Election Day neared to focus more on women and the significance of electing the first female president. But when Mr. Trump’s remarks surfaced on Friday, she ripped up that speech, ultimately settling on one that was all the more biting for its intimate tone.

“I feel it so personally,” Mrs. Obama said on Thursday, placing her hand against her heart for emphasis as she spoke about Mr. Trump’s treatment of women. “It’s like that sick, sinking feeling you get when you’re walking down the street minding your own business and some guy yells out vulgar words about your body, or when you see that guy at work that stands just a little too close, stares a little too long so you feel uncomfortable in your own skin.”


Women listening to Michelle Obama speak during a campaign rally for Hillary Clinton on Thursday in Manchester, N.H. “This is disgraceful, it is intolerable, and it doesn’t matter what party you belong to,” Mrs. Obama said of Donald J. Trump’s lewd comments about women. JIM COLE / ASSOCIATED PRESS

“I can tell you that the men in my life do not talk about women this way,” Mrs. Obama added. “To dismiss this as everyday locker room talk is an insult to decent men everywhere.”

The speech was a riveting moment in an already remarkable campaign, coming just before Mr. Trump appeared in West Palm Beach, Fla., to angrily denounce as “false smears” news reports in which several women said he had made unwanted advances on them.

The New Hampshire rally was Mrs. Obama’s sixth campaign appearance for Mrs. Clinton in a month, and the first lady broke from her usual approach and did not speak about Mrs. Clinton’s qualifications for the presidency until halfway through her speech. She said the former secretary of state “embodies so many of the values that we try hard to teach our young people,” and ticked off highlights from Mrs. Clinton’s résumé, saying that any parent would be proud to raise a daughter like her.

But she also sought to appeal to those unenthusiastic about Mrs. Clinton or politics itself, issuing a call to voters across the political spectrum who have been alienated by a contest dominated by outrageous statements and partisan rage.

“We simply cannot endure this, or expose our children to this any longer — not for another minute, and let alone for four years,” Mrs. Obama said. “This has got to stop right now.”

She argued that even voters repulsed by the tone of the campaign — “we are drowning in it,” she said at one point — must consider the norms of behavior they wanted to instill in their children.

“In our hearts, we all know that if we let Hillary’s opponent win this election, then we are sending a clear message to our kids that everything they’re seeing and hearing is perfectly O.K. We are validating it. We are endorsing it,” Mrs. Obama said. “We’re telling our sons that it’s O.K. to humiliate women. We’re telling our daughters that this is how they deserve to be treated. We’re telling all our kids that bigotry and bullying are perfectly acceptable in the leader of their country.”

I have been saying for months now that Trump talks, acts, and thinks like an adolescent. I would prefer someone with at least a semblance of maturity running the biggest military in the world.

Instead, she framed the decision to vote for Mrs. Clinton as akin to a woman’s choice to speak out in the face of sexual mistreatment or violence.

“We need to recover from our shock and depression and do what women have always done in this country,” Mrs. Obama said. “We need you to roll up your sleeves. We need to get to work.”