Media Matters for America founder David Brock said Monday that he has no friends who are conservative.
"Do you have any conservative friends?" Politico reporter Hadas Gold asked Brock at a question and answer event at Georgetown University.
"That’s a good question," Brock said. "Uh, it was, uh—no."
Brock, a liberal partisan, said he has conservative relatives and business associates from his days as a conservative partisan in the 1990s, although he does not consider the business relationships "meaningful."
"I have conservative relatives and I maintain some, few relationships with conservatives I worked for back in the 1990s. But I wouldn’t consider those close friendships," Brock said.
Brock’s history of mischaracterizing private encounters with his political enemies may contribute to peoples’ hesitance to befriend him.
Brock underwent a political conversion in the late 1990s after courting controversy for his unflattering, often unsubstantiated reporting on the Clinton family. While his politics have shifted, Brock continues to be criticized for making unsubstantiated claims, now published by the sprawling network of liberal organizations he runs rather than conservative publications.
While Brock has not made any friends across the aisle, he has made close friends with his onetime enemies, the Clintons. Brock was brought into the inner Clinton circle in the early 2000s after publishing a tell-all memoir about his time as a "right-wing hit man." The Clintons were reportedly fascinated by Brock’s explanation of the conspiracy against the Clintons, purchasing dozens of copies and distributing them to friends and coworkers.
Brock, a self-described advocate for Hillary Clinton, now runs much of Clinton’s informal campaign infrastructure. His network, which employ 200 people and soak up $30 million in funding from liberal donors, was founded to push back against Republican and media criticism of Clinton.
Transcript below:
POLITICO: I have a list of, like, 50 questions.
DAVID BROCK: Oh no. How many of these (inaudible).
POLITICO: Do you have any conservative friends?
BROCK: That’s a good question. Uh, it was, uh—no. I have conservative relatives and I maintain some, few relationships with conservatives I worked for back in the 1990s. But I wouldn’t consider those close friendships, those are just relationships (inaudible). Not—not—not in any meaningful way.