The Wrong Stuff: Peinovich Co-Host Fired From EMT Job After Racist Comments Fall Under Scrutiny

News of McNabb’s firing marks the end of a tumultuous time for residents of Patrick County, Virginia, where he worked. The firing also puts an end to what had become a popular “alt-right” talking point around the controversy: The fact that he remained employed, they argued, proved their toxic views were palatable to the majority of the general public.

McNabb used his platform on the Michael Peinovich-led podcast to make comments comparing his black patients to animals and to boast about how he once “terrorized” a young boy using a needle. HuffPost reported on these and other comments in December, which triggered an investigation of McNabb, and increased public scrutiny of his hateful remarks.

“No one else gives a f--- about some guy who makes racist jokes on the internet being an EMT in Virginia,” Andrew Anglin of The Daily Stormer boasted March 2 about McNabb’s ongoing employment. “This is all just about a tiny clique of the journalists themselves, backed by the Jews that run this show, attacking people they don’t like and trying to destroy their lives. It isn’t actually journalism, because no one is interested in it.”

Contrary to Anglin’s musings, however, people were immediately interested in HuffPost’s story. McNabb’s employer suspended him while HuffPost reporter Christopher Mathias was still researching it.

The antisemite McNabb argued to the public later in December at a hearing that he was simply an “entertainer” and called the scrutiny of his cruel and racist words part of a “witch hunt” – echoing language used by President Trump about the Mueller investigation.

McNabb briefly thought he got away with it after the hearing and made a point of bragging about his employment both on The Daily Shoah and on social media.

On Feb. 25, the Virginia Department of Health’s Office of Emergency Medical Services also cleared him of allegations that he violated regulations forbidding discriminatory behavior on the job. McNabb and his cohorts responded to that news with outspoken celebration and used it as an opportunity to mock Mathias.

“His new nickname is Dopey Mathias,” Peinovich declared from his Twitter account on Feb. 28.

McNabb himself published a blog post to Peinovich’s website on March 2, calling the HuffPost report a “smear.” He suggested that his repeated racist rhetoric on Peinovich’s programs did not make him a white supremacist.

Anglin claimed on his site that McNabb’s being cleared of wrongdoing was a “win” for the white nationalist movement at large. He promoted the news heavily at a time when morale is low among white nationalists, who are regularly losing their anonymity and day jobs, some becoming embroiled in trying legal disputes.

The decision that McNabb had not violated rules also came at the same time that “Heel Turn,” a YouTube streaming channel that attempted to unify a divided alt-right, had collapsed. “Joachim Hoch,” a white nationalist propagandist involved in the Heel Turn project, wrote on Twitter at that time that the movement was “failing.”

“None of these people in the government are going to do anything about our rights, so it’s time for people to start pushing back,” Anglin quipped, portraying McNabb’s situation as being evidence of a way forward for members of organized hate movements. “The McNabb win is a big win.”

The JEB Stuart Volunteer Rescue Squad announced they had fired McNabb under the auspices of “[looking] out for the members of our community,” according to WSLS.

Patrick County Board of Supervisors Chairman Lock Boyce, who had been targeted with derision and mockery on The Daily Shoah across multiple episodes of that show, told WSLS that firing McNabb was the right thing to do.

“That’s an admirable thing for them to do and I'm glad they did it,” Boyce told the station.

Photo illustration by SPLC