PHOENIX — Republican State Sen. Anthony Kern has been barred from using a video studio at the state Capitol after doing a remote interview with an antisemite.
"The Senate president does not approve of how the senator chose to use legislative broadcast resources last week," Kim Quintero, spokeswoman for Republican Senate President Warren Petersen, said in a statement Monday to 12News.
"As a result, his privileges to use those resources for future interviews have been revoked."
Petersen oversees Senate operations, including the first-floor broadcast room that members can use.
Kern appeared on May 1 on the online "Stew Peters Show."
Peters spreads his brand of antisemitism and Holocaust denial to hundreds of thousands of people through social media channels.
"In case you haven't noticed, bowing down to Jews has become this strange sort of sacrament," Peters said during a recent program.
He went as far as to suggest the Auschwitz death camp, where millions perished, never existed.
"The gas chambers, the crematoriums - so often discussed, they were destroyed at the end of World War II - if they were ever there in the first place," Peters said.
Katie McCarthy tracks extremism for the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism. She said Peters stepped up his antisemitic rhetoric after Hamas' terror attack on Israel last October.
"He really began to pivot and just begin to openly blame and name the Jewish people for any perceived problem in society," McCarthy said in an interview.
"There really isn't a single segment that he does in which he doesn't mention Jews in some way, shape or form."
Kern was charged with nine felonies last month in the so-called "fake electors" scheme to overturn Donald Trump's 2020 election defeat in Arizona 2020.
He was one of 11 Trump electors who purported to be the "real Arizona electors" at the signing of a bogus certificate in December 2020.
Kern joined Peters' show live last week to discuss a "Drag Story Hour" that a Democratic lawmaker hosted in the basement of the House of Representatives.
Kern had ginned up social media outrage over the event, pointing his finger at Republican House Speaker Ben Toma. Toma is one of Kern's four opponents in the GOP primary for the West Valley's Eighth Congressional District seat.
Just as Kern was banned from a Senate space, Toma declared House meeting rooms off-limits for Democrats "until trust can be restored."
At one point, Peters wondered aloud whether Toma was a pedophile—one of Peters' frequent topics.
"Is Ben Toma a pedophile? Is he a groomer?... Or is he just incompetent?" Peters said.
Kern's conversation with Peters was largely a mix of campaign politics and Christian nationalism.
"God is raising up Donald Trump and Anthony Kern and Stew Peters and people like us to shout," Kern said in a loud voice.
Peters responded: "I'm talking about organizing with your neighbors in a militia format as directed by the Constitution."
Peters was a bounty hunter before moving into social media's far-right universe three years ago.
McCarthy said no matter the interview topic, elected officials such as Kern who appear on Peters' show make it seem mainstream.
"It sort of conveys the message that this sort of hateful rhetoric and beliefs are okay, and it helps to normalize and mainstream them," McCarthy said. "That's incredibly alarming."
In response to his ban from the Senate broadcast studio, Kern texted 12News: "It's sad the media such as yourself don't respect the American flag as much as Arizonans do."
He hasn't responded to a follow-up question seeking a more specific response to Petersen's punishment.
Kern isn't the only Arizona Republican who's appeared on "The Stew Peters Show."
U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake, Congressman Paul Gosar of Flagstaff, and State Sen. Wendy Rogers of Flagstaff have also joined Peters.
Gosar and Rogers have both been censured by their respective legislative bodies over suggestions of violence.
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