Colorado Springs Congressman Jeff Crank has refused to explain comments about privatizing Medicare, repealing Obamacare, excommunicating Nancy Pelosi, and more on his right-wing radio show, but on Friday, he defended his tenure as a talk radio host, saying that a series of articles in the Colorado Times Recorder did not portray who he “really” was on the Jeff Crank Show and challenging the Colorado Times Recorder to release all of the audio to provide readers with the full picture of the program and him.
In response, the Colorado Times Recorder informed Crank’s campaign office that we cannot release all his shows because we only have a fraction of them, which we downloaded as part of our coverage of Crank between 2011 and 2021. And even if we had all of them, we think we are prohibited from posting all of them without permission. Crank’s office didn’t respond.
We also asked Cumulus Media, the parent company of Colorado Springs radio station KVOR, where Crank hosted the Jeff Crank show from 2008 through 2021, to release Crank’s shows “as a public service, to help the public know more about Crank.”
Crank’s campaign didn’t accept our offer to jointly ask Cumulus Media to release the entire Jeff Crank Show archive.
A press contact for Cumulus Media didn’t respond to our request.
Crank made his comments on Friday in an interview on KVOR’s Richard Randall Show. Randall invited Crank to discuss how his opinions on issues might have evolved, saying Crank did a lot of “talking” as a radio host and people “learn” and “change.”
But Crank elected not to talk to Randall about his views on any issue.
Instead, he said that during his years on the radio, he occasionally interviewed yours truly on the Jeff Crank Show, treated me respectfully, and said I would probably not share audio of his interviews with me. He said releasing all the audio would “make sure that people know” who he “really” is.
“I think it’s kind of funny,” said Crank on air Friday. ” I have a blogger, who’s a very liberal blogger, and he’s out now, you know, going back through some of the audio from my radio shows and trying to make a big deal about it. And I have to laugh because actually that blogger, I invited that blogger onto the show. He disagreed with me, but I brought him on as a guest, and I was very polite to him. He’s probably not going to release all that audio to make sure that people know who I really am. But I gave him the opportunity to come on and talk, challenged him. You know, I don’t think he won the, quote, debate on on air when I did that.”
In fact, while I didn’t reference my appearances on Crank’s show, I did write in one of my articles last week that as a radio host Crank was often respectful: “Crank was often respectful to opponents on his show, but his harsh rhetoric, like the attack on Pelosi above, was common, as you’d expect from a right-wing talk radio host at the time and, later, as we’ve come to expect from MAGA leaders.”
Crank’s office didn’t respond to my email asking if they thought this was fair.
In one of the Colorado Times Recorder’s recent articles on Crank — about his opposition on his radio show to gay marriage and to women serving in combat — reporter Jamie O’Rourke linked to a story about one of my appearances on Crank’s show. I wrote a story in 2013 about Crank saying on his show it was “disgusting” for gay men to kiss on television. My article included his thoughts on his comments and journalism.
RELATED: Read the Colorado Times Recorder’s four-part series on the Jeff Crank Show:
As a Talk Radio Host, Congressman Jeff Crank Embodied MAGA, Even Before It Existed
CO Springs Congressman Opposed Gay Rights to Marry & Join Military
Blame Claims: Jeff Crank Promoted Election Conspiracies by Attacking Democrats
