The top two candidates vying for the Republican nomination for Pennsylvania governor are both MAGA conspiracy douchebags with names ending in vowels, but only Doug Mastriano was actually at the Capitol riot while rival former Congressman Lou Barletta only signed on as a fake Trump 2020 elector. But like Barletta, Mastriano also struggled with scrutiny applied by mainstream media journalists in a recent interview, abruptly walking away from a podcast chat with the Delaware Valley Journal after being asked one too many questions about his connections with QAnon freaks.

Mastriano started off cheerfully and amiably, cracking jokes with the interviewers, complimenting them on their fairness but things went to shit pretty quickly when host Michael Graham pressed the Trump minion on his bussing MAGA assholes to the riot, at least several of whom were arrested and charged with various crimes. “I resent the fact that you want to castigate anyone who went down to Washington D.C. on January 6th as some kind of enemy of the public. That is dangerous. You’re talking like an East German there,” said Mastriano. When asked about his participation in a QAnon fan fest called “I want you to call out [Dem Pennsylvania Attorney General and gov candidate] Josh Shapiro and scrutinize who’s in his audience or which groups he’s speaking with, or do you give him a free pass? That’s what I always see on the left. And I’m sick and tired of it. If you’re gonna cast judgments and aspersions on people that I associate with, then by God, you better see what Josh Shapiro — I know [Lt. Governor John] Fetterman’s been in a room with some really radical people, especially with his bus tour around the state on recreational use of marijuana. They get a free pass every time. And so we’ve got to tighten this up.” The whole thing’s a shitshow, but an entertaining one at that. We recommend a listen for those who can spare the 21 minutes.