An Arizona knife-maker says critics who call him racist are ‘dumb f****ing c***s.’ GOP politicians have lined up to do his podcast.

Knife-maker Greg Medford has no love for those who wish to “cancel” him, and says they need a good “case of lead poisoning.”

The Phoenix-based Medford says the “cancel culture mob” — even within the community of knife enthusiasts — can’t handle his “satirical” and “provocative” nature, but critics say he has a history of racism and a vulgar petulance toward people who object to his racism. 

Earlier this year at the annual Blade Show in Atlanta, Medford drew sharp criticism after his company handed out free shirts with racist Chinese caricatures. Medford defended the shirts as an attempt to make “political commentary,” and he called people who were offended “dumb f****ing c***s” for being too sensitive. 

Another Medford Knife and Tool shirt is Islamaphobic: The front included the text, “Stabbing the Shiite out of the Middle East one terrorist at a time.” On the back it says, “Don’t like it? Then Summi.” Medford boasted about the shirt in a video, saying he included puns about both major sects of the Muslim faith in order to offend both. 

And, yet, Medford has been a campaign stop for many Arizona Republican candidates this year. He has hosted a slew of GOP hopefuls and elected officials on his podcast, where he and his guests rail against liberals, the poor, people of color and the culture war topic of the moment.

Republican attorney general nominee Abe Hamadeh appeared on Medford’s podcast earlier this year. He and Medford discussed a wide variety of topics, including Medford’s belief that the “rise of the welfare state” was detrimental to Black people. A common refrain among conservatives since Ronald Reagan was president, researchers have found that tropes about “welfare queens” and “deadbeat dads” have created long-lasting problems that have blocked the creation of meaningful poverty policy.

“You wonder what happened, you know? How did you have such high literacy rates, such high engagement rates?” Medford said during his discussion with Hamadeh. “You had the communities that made Martin Luther King, and they made Malcolm X.”

“Remember, they used to wear suits, right?” Hamadeh interjected. “They were, like, very proud of — and they — you’re so right where it’s become — they want the government — you want to be dependent on the government. And now it’s not just in the African American community, it’s spreading all over.”

Earlier this month, Hamadeh announced Medford was holding a fund-raiser for his campaign at his company’s headquarters in north Phoenix. The Sept. 23 event was touted as featuring Medford and former U.S. Senate candidate and retired head of the Arizona National Guard Gen. Mick McGuire.

After the Arizona Mirror asked Hamadeh’s campaign about the event and Medford’s use of racism and violent imagery, the campaign deleted the Eventbrite page it was using to register attendees. It is unclear whether the event took place, and the campaign did not answer questions from the Mirror. 

Other politicians and political hopefuls that have appeared on the show include Blake Masters, Jim Lamon, Steve Gaynor, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, Congressman Andy Biggs, Anthony Kern, Shiry Sapir, Phoenix City Council Candidate and Kari Lake policy advisor Sam Stone, Matt Salmon, Rep. Walt Blackman, Sen. Sonny Borrelli, Joe Arpaio and Kari Lake. 

Medford did not respond to the Mirror’s request for comment, but did post a 43-minute long response video titled “Apparently there are people who hate Greg Medford” in which he said he is not racist or homophobic. 

“I am not politically correct. That does not mean I’m a racist or an antisemite,” Medford said. “Anyone who calls me a racist hasn’t hung around me, they’re lying.” 

In the video, Medford uses slurs against the LGBTQ community and says that he uses this language in a satirical sense and as a way to express his anger. 

“I don’t mind saying the word f**, that doesn’t make me a racist,” Medford said, adding that he knows he is “insensitive” and often speaks “off-script.” 

“Am I supposed to sit here quietly?” Meford says to his fans in the video. 

In April, U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters sat down with Medford for his podcast. Among the topics was President Joe Biden’ nomination of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was ultimately confirmed as the first Black woman on the court.

Masters said choosing Jackson was more based on “equity” and her identity rather than based on her credentials, comparing it to backlash aimed at United Airlines from conservative pundits in 2021 for aiming to have 50% of their pilots be either women or people of color. 

“Look, we don’t care if all the pilots are Black if they’re the best pilots but don’t do your diversity, equity and inclusion and your affirmative action stuff to get people who are possibly not the best for the job,” Masters said. “It’s almost unfair to Ketanji Brown Jackson. They should’ve at least pretended she got the job because she was the most qualified.” 

Medford agreed with Masters’ points that Jackson “protected pedophiles” and added that she had a nice family. 

“Her package was good. She’s a nice package, and she was the right color, and all they did is Uncle Tom her ass,” Medford said.

“That’s right,” Masters responded.

In the conversation, Medford said that having to list campaign donors was comparable to Kristallnacht, the Nazi attack on Jews in 1938 — an assertion Masters readily agreed with, the Huffington Post reported in June.

“It’s for hit lists. And AOC said this, one of the first things she said after Joe Biden was inaugurated is, ‘We need to de-Trumpify this country.’ And she said, ‘We’re making lists,’” Masters said, complaining about the need for transparency on $100 donations to political campaigns. Masters appeared to be referring to a tweet by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

The tweet did not say anything about making lists, but asked if anyone was “archiving” as she foresaw the “decent probability of many deleted Tweets, writings, photos in the future.” 

Medford responded to Masters by saying that it was “like Kristallnach.” 

“Yeah, that’s right,” Masters said. “No it’s absolutely wild.” 

Masters hasn’t been the only Arizona Republican to liken their political opponents to Nazis on Medford’s show. Mark Finchem, the GOP nominee for secretary of state whose campaign is anchored by the Big Lie that the 2020 election was fraudulent, appeared on the show in April. 

The pair discussed a lawsuit that sought to remove him from the ballot for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The lawsuit, one of several in Arizona and across the country, aimed to use the Fourteenth Amendment to disqualify candidates because of their support of the Jan. 6 attack, claiming they are “insurrectionists” and thus unable to hold public office. The Arizona Supreme Court rejected the case. 

“They basically want to do what the Nazi party did in the 1930s,” Finchem said of those who brought the lawsuit to Medford. “They want to use the court system as a political hammer.”

Finchem has a history of comparing his political rival’s actions to those of Nazi Germany. He also has filed lawsuits against his political rivals, suing former Rep. Charlene Fernandez for defamation. Finchem also launched a legal defense fund to “fight back” against what Finchem sees as the “weaponization of the ‘free press.’” 

During his appearance on Medford’s podcast, Finchem also praised the book “The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates,” which argues that public officials have a duty to stop enforcement of laws that violate God’s wishes. In particular, the book says, officials are morally bound to obstruct laws that legalize abortion or acceptance of homosexuality. The book’s author has compared mask mandates to the Holocaust and signed onto a public statement that argued the “use of lethal force laws justifiable provided it was carried out for the purpose of defending the lives of unborn children.” 

One Republican candidate said she regretted going on Medford’s podcast after the Mirror sent questions about the knife-maker’s racist and violent comments. State Sen. Nancy Barto, a Phoenix Republican, said she didn’t know anything about them when she appeared on the podcast earlier this month.

“No, I was not aware of that and had I known ahead of time, I would not have appeared on the show,” she said in an email. “We were invited to tour Medford Knife and Tool and discussed issues of importance to voters afterwards on the podcast. Certainly nothing like that occurred during our interview, or I would have walked out.”