Winner of Arizona primaries cited senior Nazi official in college essay, political opponents jump on it

“Blake Masters is not and never has been a Nazi sympathizer,” his lawyer stated, threatening litigation against a reporter.

By World Israel News Staff

Blake Masters has become Arizona’s new Republican nominee for senate, having defeated state Attorney-General Mark Brnovich and businessman Jim Lamon in Tuesday’s primary.

Masters, supported by former president Donald Trump and tech financier Peter Thiel, describes himself as an “anti-progressive.”

The Jewish Insider (JI) dug up some dirt about the 35-year-old venture capitalist and author, including a provocative essay referencing a “poignant quotation” from Nazi official Herman Goering to argue against U.S. intervention in foreign conflicts.

The essay was published on a libertarian website in 2006, when Masters was still a teen and before he had moved to embrace Republican values.

In a statement to JI in late April, the outlet reports, “Masters acknowledged that he had gone ‘too far’ when he said ‘that no recent American wars have been just,’ but he did not address his decision to include the Goering quotation.

“Speaking last month with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has hailed Masters as ‘the future of the Republican Party,’ the Senate hopeful boasted that ‘most’ of the essay — which had also cited a noted conspiracy theorist who has been accused of espousing antisemitic tropes — ‘holds up’ in hindsight.”

“’I explain how the state often uses propaganda to sell its wars,” Masters said on Carlson’s show. “I pointed out that that’s what the Nazis did.”

However, JI noted, the revelation that Masters had quoted Goering was very upsetting to the new senate candidate, who slammed the “cheap journalist tactic” of “guilt by association.”

Masters also threatened to sue an Arizona Mirror reporter who wrote that he had “praised” Goering, calling it a defamatory allegation. His lawyer penned a letter stating that “Blake Masters is not and never has been a Nazi sympathizer.”

Last week, before Masters’ definitive win, Lamon released an attack ad reminding voters of his opponent’s college essay, JI noted.

“You think you know Blake Masters?” a narrator intones, before noting that the Republican Senate candidate had “called World War II unjust,” “extensively quoted an antisemite who believes Jews and Zionists are bent on world domination” and “unironically quoted a Nazi war criminal.”

The publicity surrounding the Goering quote has unsettled many in the Jewish community.

“The Goering quote is, in and of itself, not antisemitic,” Tim Eckstein, who chairs the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix, told JI in June. “It is that Masters cannot appreciate that other non-Nazis have said similar things, and there is something pernicious in quoting Goering, or any other prominent member of that murderous regime. For him, it is all one big game.”

American JewsAntisemitismArizonaBlake MastersDonald TrumpRepublicansUS politics