The National Rifle Association flat-out denies that it has ever counted MSNBC host Ali Velshi as a member.
“Mr. Velshi is not and has not been a member of the National Rifle Association,” the guns rights group’s media relations manager Jason Brown told the Washington Free Beacon.
This would contradict what the cable news host has asserted on-air on more than one occasion. On Feb. 16, for example, Velshi said in reference to the influence he claims guns rights groups exert over lawmakers that, “The NRA claims to be a membership organization — I guess like a club — but they won’t release their data, leading some to be skeptical about its real purpose and funding.”
The MSNBC host continued, alleging a conspiracy whereby the NRA supposedly sent him membership card even though that he has never signed up for the group, nor has he ever paid any sort of dues.
“I’m a gun owner. Every year I receive a membership card from the NRA with a membership number. I’ve never asked for one. I’ve never paid for one, but I strongly suspect that I am counted in the secret records of the NRA as a member,” Velshi alleged.
Velshi did not at that time produce any sort of documentation or evidence to corroborate his claim.
“The NRA is the gun industry’s lobby,” he continued in that Feb. 16 news segment. “It doesn’t represent gun owners. It represents gun makers and exists to protect their profits — the same as the pharma lobby or the bank lobby or the corn lobby. Strangely, we all use drugs and banks and most of us eat corn, but we don’t have cards that indicate our membership and support of those industries and their lobbies.”
Velshi may just be confused, an NRA spokesman suggested to the Free Beacon.
“It’s possible he may have received membership marketing materials that he confused as a membership card, but we maintain Mr. Velshi is not on our membership rolls,” the spokesman said. The fastest way for Velshi to clear this up would be for him to produce the cards he has referenced. Seems simple enough, really, unless he really is simply confused by the materials he reportedly receives.
If it turns out that Velshi is mistaken and that the NRA has never counted him as a member, it wouldn’t be the first time that the host’s version of reality failed to match up to the facts. Velshi actually has a bad track record of this sort of thing, including the time he falsely accused Florida Gov. Rick Scott of dodging pro-gun control activists. As it turns out, the governor, who was at a funeral at the time of Velshi’s “breaking” news report, was already scheduled to meet with the activists later that same day.
A spokesperson for NBC did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
