On Thursday, YouTube announced they would be permanently banning Trunews, a video ministry run by Rick Wiles. YouTube justified the ban by saying that Trunews repeatedly violated the website’s rules regarding hate speech.
Despite (or perhaps due to) Wiles’ rabidly anti-Semitic statements, Trunews has over 100,000 followers of Facebook.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), welcomed the ban.
.@YouTube has finally banned #antiSemitic outlet TruNews, and we hope other social media platforms will follow suit. More on TruNews and its long history of perpetuating vile #hate: https://t.co/koamDsGP41 pic.twitter.com/jikmunnSy0
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) February 20, 2020
Last month, Wiles labeled the Democrat push to impeach President Trump a “Jew coup.” The video warned Christians that Jews intend to take over the U.S. and “kill millions of Christians.” At the time, TruNews had over 185,000 subscribers on YouTube and its videos had garnered some 17 million views.
“That’s the way the Jews work, they are deceivers, they plot, they lie, they do whatever they have to do to accomplish their political agenda,” Rick Wiles said. “This ‘impeach Trump’ effort is a Jew coup and the American people better wake up to it really fast because this thing is moving now toward a vote in the House and then a trial in the Senate. We could have a trial before Christmas. This country could be in civil war at Christmastime. Members of the U.S. military are going to have to take a stand just like they did in the 1860s with the Civil War. They are going to have to decide: are you fighting for the North or the South?”
Wiles is a non-denominational senior pastor at Flowing Streams Church in Vero Beach, Florida. His website, TruNews, is known for promoting racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
In February, Wiles specifically attacked Breaking Israel News, referring to reporter, Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz as a “Kabbalist wizard.” He stated that Jews are using “witchcraft” to influence President Trump into building the Third Temple, which he called “the devil’s temple.” He also accused prominent evangelical leaders of accepting bribes from Jews to advance their agenda.
Wiles has accused pro-Israel Christians of being in a “marriage with Satan”, accusing John Hagee, Mike Evans, Pat Robertson, and Perry Stone, of the “sin of promoting Zionism.”
Wiles supports Trump but has frequently criticized the president for being controlled by the “Jewish lobby,” which he also calls ‘the synagogue of Satan.” He accuses Trump of capitulating to threats on his life made by “the Jewish mafia.” He also blames Jews for pornography and, oddly enough, rap and hip hop, music genres not normally associated with Jewish artists.