Consider This from NPR - How an antisemitic conspiracy theory made its way to a state capitol

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

A New Hampshire Republican. A German Holocaust denier. A suspicious bottle of baby oil. An NPR investigation reveals how the alarming rise of antisemitic conspiracy theories reached a state capitol.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [e-mail] episode was reported and produced by Tom Dreisbach, with help from Karen Zamora. It was edited by Barrie Hardymon with help from Monika Evstatieva, Bob Little, and Kristian Monroe. Audio engineering by Jimmy Keeley.Tony Cavin is NPR’s Managing Editor for Standard and Practices. Legal support from Johannes Doerge.Thanks also to Dan Barrick and our colleagues at New Hampshire Public Radio.Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

It's consider this where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, anti-Semitic bigotry has no place in a civilized society. It has no place in our universities. And it has no place in the United States of America. No place. President Trump says his administration is committed to fighting anti-Semitism. But a growing number of pro-Trump commentators are warning about hatred of Jews on the political right. From charlatans who claim to speak in the United States. the name of principle, but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty. The podcaster Ben Shapiro says he's been shocked to see people he once worked with, like Candace Owens, promote anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Dan Bongino, Trump's former deputy FBI director, calls anti-Semitism a cancer on the MAGA movement. This portion of people who claim to be part of our movement and our cause who think it's edgy or cool to talk about how much they hate the Jews. Now an NPR investigation reveals the story of how a state Republican official tried to turn a conspiracy theory into law and how it all connects with a bizarre criminal case involving a German Holocaust denier and a suspicious bottle of baby oil. Consider this how anti-Semitic extremists took their ideas from the fringes to the halls of a state capital. From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. It's consider this from NPR.

NPR investigative correspondent Tom Dreisbach has today's story. Good morning and welcome to the New Hampshire House Executive Departments and Administration Committee. It was a gray morning in January in a gray committee room for the New Hampshire State Legislature when Representative Lauren Selig started testifying. And I'm here to introduce HB 1162. New Hampshire requires public schools to teach about genocide and the Holocaust. And Selig's on this state commission that sets standards and helps provide lesson plans. to further enhance their ability to teach about Holocaust and genocide.

She's a Democrat and Jewish herself, but the commission includes people of different backgrounds. It's nonpartisan. That morning, Selig was introducing a bill to extend the commission's term for just a few more years. She told me it was literally one sentence long. And we anticipated the hearing for that bill would be very quick,

because we couldn't imagine anyone would have an objection to extending this commission. And that's all I'm asking for has a three-year extension. Thank you. You're like, I'm just going to get through this real quick, and then we'll move on to other things. Absolutely. Except we were wrong. Morning, Madam Chair. Members of the committee, I'm State Representative Matt Saborin de Chuanier. And today I'm an interesting amendment.

Selig watched as a young Republican state representative started testifying. His name is Matt Saborin di Schwanier. And as he himself admits, it's kind of a mouthful. He brought with him a big pile of books with titles, like mischronicling Auschwitz and debating the Holocaust. And as he kept talking, Selig realized that these were not standard history books. They came from an extremist group that calls the murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust a hoax. They ask tough questions and conduct professional research, something that we should all take seriously.

And Saborand Dish one year was proposing that the leader of this group get a seat on the state commission. He requested that the committee accept an amendment from him. to put a member of the specific Holocaust denier group on the commission. If we were going to have Holocaust and genocide education taught in New Hampshire Public Schools, which I think it should be, it needs to be accurate and reliable. And he was then followed by some of his associates. Those associates included a man who leads weekly protests outside a synagogue in Michigan. Another writes for white nationalist websites and is called for the government

to seize the property of Jewish people. And then the group's leader spoke. So my name is Germa Rudolph. Germar Rudolph is a German immigrant and a longtime activist in the Holocaust denial movement. For decades, he has denied the overwhelming evidence that Nazis used gas chambers to commit mass murder. Rudolph said the commission needed someone like him, someone with, quote, unparalleled insight into the Holocaust. But also for courage to tell him. inconvenient facts, which a lot of people don't want to hear, but I think students need to be

told both sides. Thank you for your testimony. Under this proposal, a Holocaust denier would join the commission on equal footing with the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Their testimony lasted less than 20 minutes, but what was supposed to be a quick, non-controversial hearing was suddenly hijacked. The kind of anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that you'd find on a neo-Nazi message board was suddenly put forward at a hearing as if it was.

it were just another legislative proposal. Shocked would be an understatement. I could barely speak. And let me say up front, there was very little suspense about whether this amendment would pass. It did not have public support in the state house. For Selling, that wasn't the problem. Instead, the problem was how do we respond? She had mixed feelings about it.

I personally, had I been in a position of power, would have probably sought his censure or some other consequence. But Republicans control the State House. And she wants to work with Republicans to make progress on things like education. I probably would not have drawn additional attention to this issue. I would have let it die a quiet death. And as word got around, their response was pretty muted. There was an op-ed in the newspaper from State House leaders who said Holocaust denial has no place in the legislature. And Selig and another member of the commission gave a speech on the State House floor.

about the importance of genocide education in general. Only by learning history can we work to prevent atrocities from continuing to happen. Though they did not reference the incident with the Holocaust deniers, it hardly made a blip in local media. And as days, then weeks passed, Saboran Dishuanier faced no formal consequences. Jewish leaders in the state were outraged, but there was also a fear that bringing more attention

would mean kicking the hornet's nest of online anti-Semitic. hate at a time of deadly anti-Jewish violence. Two gunmen opened fire at Bondi Beach and Sydney, Australia. Hundreds of people were gathering for an event marking the first night of Hanukkah. Two Israeli embassy staff members were shot and killed overnight while leaving an event at the Capitol Jewish Museum. Suspect is dead after a vehicle rammed through the doors of the Temple Israel Synagogue. And here's where I should say, I've covered domestic extremism for almost a decade, and I was also

torn about whether to cover this incident. On the one hand, Holocaust denial is widely understood as a form of hatred against Jewish people, and extremists showing up at a government hearing is newsworthy. On the other, extremists want attention. Just getting the chance to speak at a state hearing for less than 20 minutes was seen as a breakthrough for their movement. A white supremacist in New England named Ryan Murdo celebrated online. If any candidate ships away at Jewish power or does something that hurts Jewish power, I will support it. There's a danger that reporting on these figures only elevates them. And even though New Hampshire is an important state politically, presidential candidates

campaign there every four years, this was just one state lawmaker who only represents a few thousand people. So I called up someone who's been thinking about these exact questions for decades. Deborah Lipstadt. She's a Holocaust historian at Emory University. She also helped lead the Biden administration's efforts to combat anti-Semitism. And when I mentioned that Gairmar Rudolph had testified in New Hampshire, Oh, an old timer, he's one of the founding fathers.

Turns out, she encountered him a long time ago. And this guy played a outsized role in the 90s in perpetuating all sorts of lies about the Holocaust. Rudolph studied chemistry in Germany, and when German prosecutors brought charges against a former Nazi officer, officer, Rudolph wrote a report for his defense, claiming that his chemical analysis disproved the use of poison gas at the Auschwitz death camp. Rudolph is a hardcore denialist. He says no gas chambers, no plans to kill the Jews. It's all a myth.

His background as a chemist gave the Holocaust denial movement the appearance of legitimacy, even as experts debunked his work as pseudoscientific nonsense. In today's Germany, Holocaust denial is a crime. Rudolph was convicted there and sentenced to two and a half years in prison. After getting out, he came to the U.S. So Lipsat seemed surprised that Rudolph had popped back up. In part, that's because of her personal history with him and his ideas. The argument that the Holocaust did not take place is now at the center of a libel case in London.

British historian and self-described revisionist David Irving filed suit against Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Books. Back in the 90s, the writer David Irving sued Lipstadt because she called him out for deliberately falsifying the historical record of the Holocaust. You might have heard about this case. They made a movie about it several years ago called Denial. Lipstadt fought back and won. The judge said that Irving is an active Holocaust denier, anti-Semitic and racist. Irving had relied on and cited Gairmar Rudolph's report to prove his case.

Lipstadt's team of lawyers and historians ripped it apart. After my trial, we were pretty optimistic that we had shown that every claim they made was based on thin air, putting people at a meeting who weren't there, adding words in their mouths, changing sequence of events, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And we really thought that this had demonstrated what these people were. all about. But now, 26 years later, here was Rudolph again, peddling the same claims, this time with the help of a state lawmaker. It's extremely concerning. Now, one could say it's the New Hampshire state legislature. It wasn't California. It wasn't New York. It wasn't Florida. It doesn't matter. Lipstadt said to ignore the incident would be to treat it as almost normal.

As I began reporting, I found that Germar Rudolf had been taking the same message from the 1990s and bringing it to new audiences online. Our friend Garmar Rudolph is one of the world's foremost Holocaust historians. Rudolph has appeared several times on a show hosted by the far-right extremist, Stu Peters. And even though Peters is pretty fringe and overtly anti-Semitic, he has a significant reach on the right. Before Trump's reelection, Peters hosted the future Trump Health Secretary, We had the opportunity to sit down with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a top Trump trade advisor. Peter Navarro, thank you so much. Appreciate it. God bless you.

Stu, God bless you. And Trump's FBI director. Cash Patel, thank you so much for being here. Cash Patel. Thank you so much for being here. Cash Patel, we always enjoy it. He appeared on Peter's show eight times. Thanks, Stu. Appreciate it. Happy new. Thanks, Stu. Always love coming on your show. Thanks so much, Stu. Appreciate it. You've got a great show.

Thank you. So that's all to say, Gairmar Rudolph, a hardcore Holocaust denier, has been reaching the same audience as some top officials in the Trump administration. At the same time, Online anti-Semitic extremists like Nick Fuentes have gone increasingly mainstream, so mainstream that Fuentes has been praised by major figures like Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly. And of course, he even got the chance to have dinner with President Trump back in 2022. And it appeared Rudolph was trying to seize that momentum too. So first, could you just introduce yourself, what's your name and what's the title you like to go by these days?

Oh, my name is going to rule. There's no title. attached to it. Rudolph responded to my email quickly and agreed to an interview over Zoom. He had one condition. He would record the interview for his own purposes, too. My goal was not to get bogged down in a debate about his various false claims, about how the Nazis didn't use gas chambers, or how he's insulted survivors of the Holocaust

and called them liars, including Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize winner. But I did want to know how and why Rudolph's movement seemed to be gaining traction. In his telling, it's about October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel leading to the war in Gaza, followed by growing criticism of how Israel conducted that war. More people are willing to listen and to hear us make our case than has been the case before October 7th. So there's a link between what has happened in Gaza and people being willing to hear about people who have. have a different take on historical events than the mainstream media and mainstream academia. And let me just say you do not have to take the word of a Holocaust denier at face value.

Experts told me that extremists have been trying to co-opt criticism of Israel's government with blatantly anti-Semitic conspiracies. And there's survey data from Yale University and the Conservative Manhattan Institute, which suggests that anti-Semitism is now growing on both the left and the right, but that overt anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial is gaining momentum, particularly among young conservatives. Rudolph claimed to me he is not personally bigoted toward Jewish people. But while I was digging into his background, it was clear he makes common cause with open anti-Semites. I mean, you spoke at a conference in 2024 called the Jewish problem.

I think any reasonable person would say that participants in a conference like that are clearly anti-Jewish. Well, most of them probably are, yeah. But you are not. I just said, some aspects, I'm opposed to the Jewish religion. I'm not opposed to a person just because they're Jewish. My reporting also turned up something else in Rudolph's background. A criminal record, not just in Germany, but also in the United States. I contacted a court in Pennsylvania, got the full trial transcript.

And what I found raised even more questions about this proposal to add him to a commission on children's education. Back in 2019, Germar Rudolph was living in Pennsylvania. And one day, a police officer found him around 4 a.m. at a children's playground, naked from the waist down. Rudolph claimed it was a misunderstanding. He's an active triathlete. He's actually written about how he once got workout tips from David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader. That morning, he said he was just at the playground to exercise. and he was not naked, he said, just wearing a pair of what he called skimpy tiger print shorts.

At one point, the police officer asked, aren't you the person that was arrested for being naked in this park in the past? And Rudolph said, yes. In fact, he had been stopped by police several years before for swimming in the river naked, but he resolved the case without charges. The police officer also said, well, if you're just working out, what are you using that bottle of baseball? baby oil for.

Rudolph testified that he gets dry skin when he works out, and his go-to lotion ever since having kids is baby oil. I haven't bought any other lotion ever since. I use baby oil as my lotion to this day. Which he brought with him to the playground. Here's what he told me. So that's the lubricant, the lotion that I have been using ever since. That's all there is to it.

You know, people have perverted fantasies because of whatever they watch online, and then they project their fantasies and what they are watching on me. That's all there is to it. The jury in his case did not buy his explanation. They found him guilty of open lewdness and indecent exposure, and he was sentenced to probation. Rudolph appealed and lost. And then, two years later, he was charged twice in one month, for trespassing on school grounds and disorderly conduct. He later pleaded guilty to those charges.

None of that was mentioned when he testified in New Hampshire. Do you understand why a reasonable person would look at these charges in recent years that took place at a school and a children's playground and have concerns that you would be involved in children's education through the Holocaust Commission? No, I don't see the connection. You don't? No. As an immigrant, a green card holder, Rudolph's criminal convictions could complicate his legal status in the U.S.

He got that green card in part because of his marriage to an American woman, but they have since divorced. And the Trump administration has tried to deport pro-Palestinian activists on green cards because it argued that they promoted anti-Semitism. But at least so far, it appears the administration has taken no action against Rudolph. So how did a German Holocaust? with a criminal record both here and in Germany end up testifying to the New Hampshire State Legislature, Rudolph said Representative Saboran Dishuanir reached out. I don't know how he stumbled over what we were doing, but he wanted to contribute. He wanted to help out with various projects we have.

He invited Rudolph to testify at this hearing, and Rudolph invited the two other speakers. He said getting that platform to speak was big for his movement. So I consider that a success, yes. And it turns out, Sabor and Dishuanier was also watching how everyone else would react. He expected a lot of backlash that has not materialized to the degree here at fear. And he is rather relieved about that. He's right that Saboran Dishanir is far from a pariah in New Hampshire politics. While I was reporting, a Republican candidate for Congress, Brian Cole, said he was honored to receive

Subur and Dishuanier's endorsement. For decades, outright Holocaust denial has been a taboo. The kind of thing basically no elected politician would pursue. Before now, one of the few open Holocaust deniers in office was actually David Duke. He served in the Louisiana state legislature back in the early 90s. But if Holocaust denial is now having a resurgence, New Hampshire politics might be the first place you'd see it. As one activist told me like 25 years ago, anybody can play politics in New Hampshire. Dante Scala is a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire, and he explained what sets the state legislature apart.

The state's House of Representatives is massive. It has 400 members. They each represent just a few thousand people. People can win a state house seat without much money, experience, or vetting. And there's a positive to that. You can also imagine, you know, some negatives to that. One negative, it tends to attract people with intense ideological views. You could really think of it in a lot of ways as a legislature of activists. And with that intensity, sometimes comes extremism. In a way, I came to think of it like an early warning system for where some strands of political activism are headed.

Digging into Suburand Dish one year's biography helped fill in some more details. He's young in his mid-30s and served in the Air Force, but said he left because he thought the military was getting too progressive. A few years ago, he moved to New Hampshire to join the Free State Movement, an influential group of libertarian activists. And since getting elected in 2024, he's pushed for expanding gun rights. The firearms freedom and federalism act. outlong Sharia law.

This is a resolution condemning Sharia law and political Islam. And on his Facebook page, he posted this video. The Jews are Antichrist. Which featured a traditionalist Catholic priest calling Jews the Antichrist. They are the Antichrist people. And therefore, we don't hate them, but we don't want them to have power in a Christian society. Still, publicly, he said very little about his proposal on Holocaust denial. In part, it seems, because not many people were out.

asking. So I emailed him to ask for an interview. No answer. A week later, I emailed again. No answer. I called, left a voicemail, and emailed again. Still no answer. Check one two, one two, three, four, check one two. So I went to the New Hampshire State House myself. Okay, I just arrived and I'm going to see if I can talk to Representative Suborin Dishuan in person. I made an educated guess about what committee here. he would go to. Then I saw him coming up a big set of stairs. I was at the top when I approached him.

Representative Sabor and Dishwin-Ir, and I think Tom Dreisbach. I'm a reporter with NPR. I've been trying to reach you about the testimony by Holocaust deniers. Yeah. Yeah. Could I talk to you for a moment?

Actually, I don't have time. You don't have time. Okay. When would you might have time? I'll let you know. Thank you. Saboran Dishueneer had been walking up the stairs, but all of a sudden he turned around.

went back down. Okay, and he just walked out of the building. Now he's going to the parking lot. Appears he's leaving the state capital. Later that day, I emailed him again, and he finally agreed to answer questions in writing. He basically doubled down. He praised Germar Rudolf as a, quote,

world authority on the Holocaust, and he said Rudolph's criminal record was irrelevant to his testimony. He said he wanted students to, quote, distinguish truth from taboo, and said, my position is not hatred. Later, on Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 14th, he posted on Facebook. It was a picture of himself presenting his Holocaust denial proposal to the legislature. He added a caption, ahead of our time. At one point, while I was reporting, I learned that I was not the only one to try to talk to Sabor and Dishuonir about a support for Holocaust denial.

I saw him in the cafeteria and I said, are you Matt? And he said, yeah. That's Anita Burroughs. She's a Democratic state representative from the White Mountains region of New Hampshire. She told me just a few days after his testimony, she walked right up to him in the cafeteria. And I said, I just want to let you know that my grandpa's entire family was wiped out in Dachau in Auschwitz. He just walked away from me. Just turned and walked away. He didn't say a word? Didn't say a word to me. What would you have liked to say?

I wish I had had this picture. I wish I had had this picture of my grandma and grandpa. She showed me an old picture of her grandpa, Max. It was black and white. The corners turned up. Max came to the U.S. from Poland before the war, and his whole family back home was killed. So this is why this stuff really hits me hard. Burroughs was first elected to the state legislature in 2018. Now, she said she feels like she's on the front line of watching bigotry become normalized. Because I never experienced any kind of anti-Semitism until I came to the New Hampshire State House. Really? Yes.

In response to our reporting, Governor Kelly Ayat, a Republican, sent a statement. She denounced hate and anti-Semitism and added, criminal Holocaust deniers have no business serving on state commissions. I also contacted Brian Cole, the candidate for Congress who was honored to get Subur and Dish one year's endorsement. He said he had no idea about his support for Holocaust denial and subsequently rejected that endorsement. The state Republican Party did not respond to our requests for comment. Versions of what's happening in New Hampshire are reflected around the country. Just in the last year, multiple group chats among young Republican activists have been exposed using racist and anti-Semitic slurs. Politico reported that a Trump appointee said he had a, quote,

Nazi streak. Now, some other conservatives call anti-Semitism a cancer, destroying the MAGA movement. I have seen more anti-Semitism in the last 18 months on the right than at any point in my lifetime. Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas spoke at a Republican Jewish coalition conference earlier this year. And it is growing and it is gaining real purchase, especially with young people. Deborah Lipstadt, a Holocaust historian, was initially cautiously supportive of the Trump administration's efforts to counter anti-Semitism. But she's also been disturbed by the number of administration officials with ties to anti-Semitic extremists. You know, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. This is a lot. But Lipstadt also has a longer view. She has been fighting Holocaust denial for decades.

As you look at the world now, how do you feel about what kind of difference you've made? If I weren't inherently an optimistic person, I would be very depressed. I have come to recognize hate and prejudice. It's not something that you solve and it goes away. It's a fight that you have to continue every day. Continue fighting. Continue fighting. That's right.

There's no end to this. There may be no end, but there are different phases. And right now, things that would have gotten people thrown out of politics or elected office or even led to some sort of censure seemed to have little to no effect. Last year, I reported on how a young Trump administration official shared a talking point that you mostly hear from the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis. She posted that Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was lynched by an anti-Semitic mob in 1915, was actually a murderer and a rapist.

The American Jewish Committee said her comments made clear that she was unfit for office, but she denied that she was anti-Semitic and faced no consequences. Actually, she was promoted. Her name is Kingsley Wilson, and she's now the Pentagon Press Secretary. This episode was reported and produced by Tom Dreisbach with help from Karen Zamora. It was edited by Barry Hardiman with help from Monica F. Satieva, Little and Christian Monroe. Audio engineering by Jimmy Keely. Tony Kavana is NPR's managing editor for standards and practices. Legal support from Johannes Durge. Thanks also to Dan Barrick and our

colleagues at New Hampshire Public Radio. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Wana Summers.