Michael Savage, a radio host whom, according to Vice President Mike Pence, President Donald Trump “appreciates ... respects and admires,” echoed Fox contributor Nigel Farage’s suggestion that “World War II-style internment camps may be the answer” to terror attacks, noting that he, “said the same thing a few weeks ago.”

Savage, a bigoted conspiracy theorist, has a close relationship with Trump, frequents his Mar-a-Lago Florida property, and once claimed that he was "the architect of Trump’s messaging." Savage, who has previously called for “kill[ing] 100 million” Muslims, was one of the first right-wing media figures to openly and repeatedly question former President Obama's birthplace and religion and has a history of promoting bizarre conspiracy theories about murder and diseases.

On his June 5 radio show, Savage reiterated how he “had a big hand in helping Donald Trump ... get his message across and, therefore, getting him elected, and advocated for “World War II-style internment camps” as “the answer” to recent terror attacks. Despite acknowledging that “it is true that most [people interred in WWII] were innocent,” Savage later asked “why don’t you intern” the “1,000” people on the DHS watchlist, adding “how do we know that the internment in World War II didn’t help us win the war?” (emphasis added):

MICHAEL SAVAGE (HOST): Should the government regulate Twitter, Facebook, and the other sites that are being used to communicate by the rats in dirty headscarves who are killing our children? What would you do to stop this? Should Islam immediately be banned from prisons? Well, you can't ban Islam. Isn't it just like Christianity, and Judaism, and Buddhism? No, no it is not.

[...]

Ariana Grande gave another concert in Manchester and raised money for -- I don't know what the money was for. Is that a way to fight Islamism? Having another concert? Is that the answer? Of course that's not the answer.

Well, what is the answer? Well, one London politician, one politician from England said we have to put them in camps immediately, and of course CNN wouldn't go for that. British politician says suspected terrorists should be put in camps. Now that will get all of the good liberals in New York very frightened. Nigel Farage, the former UK Independence Party leader, UKIP, said “Britain has been so weak on border control and clamping down on radicalization that World War II-style internment camps may be the answer.” I said the same thing a few weeks ago.

[...]

Now, I said the same thing last week. Why are we going soft on Islamists when they're going hard on the West? I'm asking you a question. How much longer are we going to tolerate them killing us and killing our children? The answer is, a very long time, because America is a weak nation, it has been poisoned by many, many different sources. 

SAVAGE: Yes, it’s true I had a big hand in helping Donald Trump and get his message across and, therefore, getting him elected. There’s no question about that.

[...]

I’m sticking to the subject matter of today: What needs to be done to stop Islamists who are on the watchlist in America right now. We were told there were over 1,000 active cases, that was a few months ago when the FBI was run by what’s his name again, I forgot. The guy who is no longer there, I forgot his name already, Mr. Comey, Mr. Comey. He said he had 1,000 active cases, or DHS did. What does that mean, 1,000 of them are on the list, or there’s more than 1,000? Why don’t you intern all of them before they run people over on a bridge, or stab people in the street? It was done during World War II.

[...]

How do we know that the internment in World War II didn’t help us win the war?

Fox News host Eric Bolling pushed the myth of “no-go” zones in England, a claim that previously caused international embarrassment for the network which they were forced to admit was a lie.

In January 2015, two Fox News hosts were forced to apologize for pushing the myth of so-called “no-go zones” in Europe, “places where non-Muslims don’t go” that are governed by Sharia law. Fox’s baseless "no-go zone" claims led to international embarrassment for the network, with former British Prime Minister David Cameron saying the claims were made by a “complete idiot.” Jeanine Pirro and Julie Banderas apologized on-air for hyping the claim, with Julie Banderas admitting there was “no credible information to support the assertion.”

Two years later, Eric Bolling is taking the lie one step further, claiming authorities should “look into the mosques” in “ Muslim no-go zones where local cops in France and in Great Britain don’t go into these neighborhoods and they let them actually practice Sharia law.” From the June 5 edition of Fox News’ The Specialists:

ERIC BOLLING (HOST): A few years ago I was on a show and, about five or six years ago on The Five and a guest comes on, there was a terror attack, and the guest talks about the Muslim no-go zones in Europe. He got in a whole crap-load of trouble for saying it. To suggest that there was no-go zones. Now we are finding out in fact there are Muslim -- radical Islamic Muslim no-go zones where local cops in France and in Great Britain don't go into these neighborhoods and they let them actually practice Sharia law. Part of this is PC culture gone amok in Europe.

[…]

How do you not step up and say, “no we're going to knock down doors in these no-go zones, and we’re going to pull people out, and we’re going to look into the mosques?

Fox & Friends Sunday hosts apologized after two of the show’s guests -- one of whom works for the channel -- floated the possibility of using internment camps to detain terror suspects in the U.K. following the June 3 attack in London.

The day after the attack in London, which killed seven and injured dozens, Fox News’ Fox & Friends Sunday hosted Fox contributor and former U.K. Independent Party leader Nigel Farage and Daily Mail columnist Katie Hopkins. Both guests invoked the idea of internment camps for terror suspects in the U.K. to respond to the attack. Later in the show, the hosts apologized for their guests’ radical suggestions. From the June 4 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends Sunday:

CLAYTON MORRIS (CO-HOST): Earlier on the show, we had a couple of guests mention the word internment, the idea of internment camps, as a possible solution to this. I think I made it well-known my feeling on that, which I find reprehensible, but on behalf of the network, I think all of us here find that idea reprehensible here at Fox News Channel. Just to be clear.

PETE HEGSETH (CO-HOST): No suggestions of that.

MORRIS: Absolutely.

Farage first brought up the notion of internment camps, saying that “unless we see the government getting tough, you will see public calls for those 3,000 [terror watch list suspects] to be arrested.” Farage added, “if there is not action, then the calls for internment will grow”:

ABBY HUNTSMAN (CO-HOST): Nigel, you have the pulse of the people. You were behind the Brexit movement before anyone really knew that that was actually going to happen. We've got these big elections in the U.K. this week. What is the mood?  What is the sense where you are of the people in the U.K. about this threat of terror? [Do] they feel like where they are they have a handle on it?

NIGEL FARAGE: We are as a people very slow to anger. We are remarkably tolerant of things. But I do think, bear in mind this is now the third terrorist incident that has happened in my country in the spate of as many months. And the mood that I get now is we want some real action. We don't just want speeches given outside number 10 Downing Street. We want genuine action. And if there is not action, then the calls for internment will grow. We have over 3,000 people on a sort of known terrorist list, and we’re watching and monitoring their activities, but a further 20,000 people who are persons of interest, mainly they’re linked in some way to extremist organizations. Unless we see the government getting tough, you will see public calls for those 3,000 to be arrested. And I’m not sure, I’m not sure that that is the right approach, because the big danger with that is we might alienate decent, fair-minded Muslims in Britain.

HEGSETH: Of course. Calls for internment --

FARAGE: But whatever happens, we do need action.

HEGSETH: -- would be strong talk.

Later, Hopkins reiterated Farage’s remarks about internment, and even went further, saying that the U.K. “need[s] start incarcerating, deporting, repeating until we clean this country up” and that “we do need internment camps”:

CLAYTON MORRIS (CO-HOST): How do you think her speech resonated? Do you think it hit the mark, or did it miss?

KATIE HOPKINS: It missed the mark. I mean, we were relieved, I think, I was relieved that she didn’t come out and say the stuff that our London Mayor Sadiq Khan has been saying.

[...]

HOPKINS: At least Theresa May came out and said “enough is enough.” What she hasn’t done, what she didn’t do, is tell us what we need to hear. And that is that things are going to change completely. That tomorrow, 3,000 people on the watchlist are going to be rounded up. We need to hear that 650 jihadis that returned to the U.K. are going to be incarcerated and deported. And we need to hear that Saudi-backed mosques and extreme hate preachers and imams within those mosques are also going to be shut down and deported. That’s what regular British people want to hear, what I want to hear. And it is not enough to say we will win against terror, because if this is terror losing, then victory is meaningless because this is horrible.

[...]

MORRIS: Talk about the nuts and bolts of this. Nigel Farage on the show a short time ago bringing up the word “internment,” bringing up the specter here in the United States of internment camps -- Japanese internment camps. You’re mentioning deportation and rounding up and mass incarceration. What would that look like? Do you think that Theresa May, do you think that the British government would actually do that?

HOPKINS: I don't think they've got the stomach to do that. I don’t think they’ve got the political will to do that. I also see how they pander still relentlessly to these preachers who are on the wrong side of this argument. People who are against the prevent strategy for counterterrorism. People like Cage to speak out always in defense of Islam and how great it is. Islamic preachers who speak out about the fact that what we need to be worried about is Islamophobia. We’re not worried about that. We do need internment camps. Before, I would’ve bought the idea that, no, this gets more people radicalized. You know, that’s not the solution. But we’ve gone beyond the tipping point. I tell you this country cannot take another attack.

Farage and Hopkins are both notorious Islamophobes on whom Fox News regularly relies for its post-terror attack fear-mongering about Muslims and immigrants. Farage is a staunch Trump ally, former Breitbart contributor, and anti-Muslim agitator who has accused British Muslims of having a "split of loyalties" and falsely claimed Sweden is the "rape capital of Europe” because of Muslim immigration. Farage frequently appears on Fox to push anti-immigrant rhetoric. Hopkins frequently uses her Daily Mail column to push xenophobic misinformation. Hopkins, who is currently being sued for libel, has called migrants “cockroaches” and falsely accused a Muslim family of being terrorists. In a recent report from Sweden, she claimed without evidence that the country’s news is filled with reports of rape and assault of young women, discussed an unsourced alleged rape of a 12-year-old by an unaccompanied minor immigrant, and told the impossible-to-substantiate story of a girl “terrified of going out alone” because she lives “near a busy shopping centre which draws migrants from no-go zones,” which do not exist in Sweden. Her vitriolic xenophobia has made her a favorite of the "alt-right."

Fox has a pattern of hosting anti-Muslim guests to fear-monger about refugees and immigration, and, since the election of President Donald Trump, attempting to justify his anti-Muslim policy proposals in the wake of terror attacks, even when it doesn't make sense. Most recently, after the terror attack in Manchester, Fox hosted the architect of the post-9/11 torture program to blame civil rights and invited Farage to use the attack (which was committed by a U.K. native) to justify Trump's Muslim ban. One Fox & Friends host has even admitted that the show only covers terror attacks when they appear to implicate Muslims.

This is not the first time the idea of internment camps to deal with Islamist terrorism has been floated on a Fox show. In 2016, Fox guest Carl Higbie cited Japanese internment camps as a precedent for Trump’s calls for a Muslim registry. And in 2010, then-Fox contributor Liz Trotta seemed to defend the use of Japanese internment camps when discussing outrage over a blog post by Martin Peretz about Muslims.

“Alt-right” personality Jack Posobiec has taken his trolling to the New York City human rights commission by filing a complaint against a movie theater and NBC Today show host Carson Daly. In his complaint, Posobiec -- formerly employed by The Rebel media -- alleges that the theater is discriminating against him by not allowing him to purchase a ticket to watch an all-female screening of Wonder Woman, and that during his show, Daly advocated for “the business” -- a “clear violation” of his civil rights.

During the May 31 edition of NBC’s Today show, Daly reported on the internet backlash that Posobiec was receiving on Twitter by proposing “men only screenings of Star Wars” for “the entire first week” as a response to some theaters offering all-female screenings of Wonder Woman.

Posobiec announced he had filed a complaint against Daly and one of the movie theaters holding such screeners. The complaint is just the latest stunt in Posobiec’s career as a far-right internet troll, which includes promoting emails and forged documents with the purpose of smearing French President Emmanuel Macron, pushing the debunked “Pizzagate” conspiracy theories, as well as screaming about the baseless Seth Rich conspiracy theory after a press conference on the White House lawn. As reported by BuzzFeed, Posobiec was also “the brainchild behind a ‘rape Melania’ sign that appeared at an anti-Trump rally in an effort to make the protesters look bad.”

It’s tempting to discount Posobiec’s stunt as another absurd prank levied by a pro-Trump, "alt-right" internet personality with the purpose of advancing a political point. But the effects of these acts of trolling could have negative real-life consequences as they distort the true purpose of civil rights legislation and undermine legitimate institutions, like the press. His complaint could be diverting attention and resources -- a real issue when the Trump administration has vowed to defund government programs that protect civil rights -- from the serious discrimination that many people face. Other "alt-right" figures have publicly acknowledged their intent in trolling democratic institutions including the free press. Institutions protecting civil rights are clearly also not safe from becoming targets.