Sputnik‘s Lee Stranahan has good reason to personally demolish Breitbart News‘s radio show on SiriusXM. Breitbart News has canned him twice. He has also quit twice in a state of fury, the most recent of which came last year when Political Editor Matthew Boyle shat on Stranahan’s ability to attend White House press briefings.
Stranahan’s radio program Fault Lines is moving to a morning slot of 7 a.m. to 10a.m. on 105.5 FM, putting Breitbart’s morning radio show in his direct line of fire.
“I get to slaughter Alex Marlow,” Stranahan tells me with utter glee in his voice in a Tuesday phone interview. “That’s the enjoyment aspect. I’ve been biding my time, waiting for revenge against that moron.”
Like a sex-crazed lover on ecstasy, Stranahan has returned to the Breitbart well more than once on account of his unabashed love for the late Andrew Breitbart, who dropped dead of a heart attack in 2012. Stranahan, still a heavy Andrew disciple, is incensed by the subpar performance of his former employer that he insists tarnishes Andrew’s memory.
This is partly why he’s out for blood.
“I’m lickin’ my chops,” Stranahan said. “I can’t wait for Monday. I’m just going to mop the floor with them.”
Breitbart News‘s Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow gets the brunt of Stranahan’s venomous, firebreathing ire. Mostly because he thinks Marlow is quite possibly the dumbest human being alive. Boyle, he says, is a nice guy who is just “Bannon’s Bitch” — which he insists is Boyle’s nickname over in the dungeons of Breitbart.
Neither Marlow nor Boyle replied to email requests for comment for this story.
“He’s not entertaining or knowledgeable,” Stranahan croons on about Marlow. “Well, Matt’s unintentionally entertaining. He’s cringeworthy. He can’t even speak properly. It’s entertaining in a Porky Pig sort of way. Alex is just boring.”
Stranahan delightfully doesn’t need any cattle prodding to expand on his thoughts.
“Matt is fingernails on chalkboard,” he says. “He’s literally unlistenable.”
Kurt Bardella, formerly a publicist for Breitbart News, doubts the strength of Stranahan’s venom.
“I feel like Lee has gone through multiple cycles of loving and hating them,” he told The Mirror by phone Wednesday. “I feel like he’s done these revenge campaigns before only to return to Breitbart. I think that certainly people can play the game of what Andrew would’ve changed, but at the end of the day he’s dead and has been dead for awhile. Lee is making himself out to be martyr figure. Part of me believes this is about generating controversy. The reality is no one really gives a shit about Lee or Lee’s fight with Breitbart or Breitbart’s fight with Lee. He overestimates how much the rest of the world cares about their melodrama.”
That Stranahan paints himself as an underdog figure in Washington’s narcissistic media ecosystem is not lost on me. He explains that his radio show, in its previous iteration — had no abilities to take callers, which is a basic of most radio shows. But now it will. Garland Nixon is his co-host. They even have producers: Mike Hirsh and Eric Ladny.
“It’s obviously a huge compliment for the show,” he brags of his program’s move to mornings. “It’s awesome.”
If Stranahan hadn’t once been involved with erotic photography that he sold on his Intimate Arts website and DeviantArt, this might all be annoying. But he just doesn’t care what the optics are on what flies out of his mouth. Which is 90 percent charming and 10 percent despicable.
He previously lived in Burbank, Calif., where he was a staff graphic artist and animator for the nationally syndicated entertainment show Access Hollywood.
“We just want to make this the best morning radio show in news anywhere,” he said of Fault Lines.
Stranahan is an open fan of President Trump. Just try to ridicule him for it. He doesn’t care.
“We’ve been featured in The Washington Post and Vice,” he said. “I’m the only Trump supporter who works for Sputnik or Russia Today…so that this is somehow pro-Trump propaganda, I wish there were more. That’s completely absurd. Most of the lineup is very socialist. I’m not saying it in a name calling way, partially because Republicans are wimpy.”
On the Russia propaganda claim against Sputnik, he says, “What are you talking about? People who work at Breitbart, I’m completely dead to them. That’s the Soviet Union. I’m like a non-person there. I’ve been humiliating them publicly for months. Their coverage is awful.”
If Stranahan has an achilles heel, it is his love for Trump’s ex-Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who recently returned to Breitbart News after a year-long stint in Trump’s White House. “I love Bannon,” he said. “Now if Bannon did a morning show, I’d have to kick his butt, but I wouldn’t do it with glee.”
But isn’t this all just hurtful to Breitbart?
“I’m not insulting Breitbart,” he said. “I’m insulting the 31-year-old idiots who are besmirching the name of Andrew Breitbart.”
Stranahan insists he doesn’t have shitty things to say about everyone at Breitbart. He says he has compliments Texas Bureau Chief Brandon Darby — who he fought bitterly with when he worked under him but has since patched things up — and Washington-basd “London” Bureau Chief Raheem Kassam.
“Raheem is an asshole — there’s no doubt about that — but he does great work,” he said. “Aaron Klein, Joel Pollack. I think it’s great. I’m a fan of Breitbart. I’m a fan of Breitbart.” (He repeats himself for emphasis.)
Stranahan says any criticisms he has for the right-wing news site comes from a place of love.
With that, he calls right-wing media personality Mike Cernovich a “lying ape.”
He explained “Alex [Marlow] has that idiot on the show.”
There is no love lost between Stranahan and Cernovich.
“Lee is a never been who is jealous of me,” Cernovich told The Mirror upon being told that Stranahan had called him a dishonest animal. “He used to call me repeatedly begging me for links and RTs. I felt sorry for the guy and would promote him. But like all dysfunctional men who never made it, he began crying about me in hope he could surf my name. His efforts to attack me, like his attempts to break news, have been an impotent disappointment.”
Stranahan said he began going after Marlow after he appeared on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” and gave into the Russian narrative that Russia was part of the DNC hack.
Stranahan was floored that Marlow didn’t once say Andrew Breitbart’s name.
“Alex is a coward and he’s shallow,” he said. “Somebody told me last week that he didn’t know that the EPA secretary was a cabinet level position. He got fooled by fake Steve Bannon — this is how stupid Alex Marlow is. They sent an email to Alex from an address Steve has never used. He wrote back to the guy six times. The hoaxer was saying this outrageous shit.”
Stranahan continues trampling Marlow and comes in for a knockout punch.
“When I say Alex is stupid I am not being mean,” he said. “You have to be the biggest moron in the world …there’s no way you can read the email and think this seems like it’s coming from Steve if you’ve ever got emails from Steve. Raheem [Kassam] got emails from the hoaxer but never responded.”
So why doesn’t Breitbart News rid itself of Marlow?
“Short term I think Bannon’s hands are tied,” Stranahan explained. “Alex has his whole family working there. They can’t do it today. Alex hosts the radio show, his mom and dad and sister work there. He’s the editor-in-chef. At this point cutting out Alex…at this point Bannon is meeting with millionaires and billionaires and handling the business end.”
At this point the ex-Breitbartian is drunk on his hatred for Marlow and digs around in Andrew Breitbart’s coffin.
“Alex is the coffee guy…Alex, go get me coffee,” Stranahan said, imitating Andrew’s spirit. “That’s what he did for Andrew. Matt Boyle. He [Bannon] likes him because he’s Bannon’s Bitch. That’s his name internally. It’s 100 percent true. He’ll say that when he comes out of Bannon’s lap. By the way, Matt’s a nice guy, I guess, so it’s not personal. Those guys were good when Bannon needed someone to boss around.”
Spitting in the face of Boyle maneuvering him out of the White House and Breitbart News last year, Stranahan plans to be a regular at the White House briefings.
“I ask for a pass and they give me one,” Stranahan said, explaining how easy it is for him to get in there. “I just get one. It’s not hard to get a pass.”