Andrew Breitbart was 'in talks with CNN' over new show with Anthony Weiner before he died aged just 43

Show would have been comeback for ex-congressman forced to quit after campaign from conservative firebrand Breitbart



Andrew Breitbart, the conservative firebrand and new media pioneer who died suddenly at just 43, had told friends he was poised to take his jihad against the Left deeper into the mainstream media with a regular show on CNN.

Last weekend, Breitbart told friends he was in early talks with CNN about a Crossfire-style show in which he would argue from the Right alongside former US House representative Anthony Weiner taking him on from the Left.

Such a show could have been a blockbuster. In what was perhaps his finest hour, Breitbart was the man who ended the political career of Weiner by revealing that the married congressman he had sent lewd photographs sent to young women via Twitter.

Andrew Breitbart, left, told friends he was in talks with CNN to co-host a show with Anthony Weiner



Articulate, outspoken and - before his fall from grace - a darling of the Left, Weiner was one of the few liberals who might have given Breitbart a run for his money.

It would also have been a dramatic move for CNN, which previously brought in disgraced Eliot Spitzer, who resigned as New York governor after his trysts with a high-end prostitute were revealed, for a show that was subsequently dropped.

Separately, Breitbart had been asked last Friday by Hollywood screenwriter ans producer Aaron Sorkin about how he might be portrayed in Sorkin's new HBO series The Newsroom, about the inner workings of a cable news network.

Aaron Sorkin had also recently spoken to Breitbart about portraying him in Sorkin's new show The Newsroom

Sorkin told me via email: 'I e-mailed Andrew last Friday because the episode of The Newsroom I'm currently writing takes place during the week the Anthony Weiner photos were in the news.

'Andrew and I had struck up a friendly e-mail relationship and so I reached out to ask him if he could give me a timeline of the events from his point of view. I got a quick response -'I'm in' - and we were supposed to meet for coffee at the end of the day today [Thursday].'

Sorkin said that the coffee would have been 'about Andrew shedding any new light on the Anthony Weiner incident' and 'we'll likely see shards of Andrew during his various appearances that week' in news footage from that time.

Confidants of Breitbart say he had some reservations about a CNN show but would probably have signed up for it. He was intrigued by the notion of a show with Weiner, believing it could be a vehicle for real discussion of ideas.

Edie Emery, spokeswoman for CNN, said that CNN had no comment.

I first met Breitbart in 2007, when he was still working in relative obscurity for the Drudge Report. Engaging and irrepressible, he had a passion for taking on liberals and delighted in doing so from his native Los Angeles, which he viewed as the belly of the beast.

Working from the basement of his home in Brentwood, he would post stories on the Drudge Report that would be read by millions and help shape the media narrative. In each pretty much each corner of virtually every room was some kind of Apple device so that he would always be connected to the world outside.

He was proud that the house was right next to the LA National Cemetery, where many American troops were buried and military funerals were often held. He told me that his real estate agent had told him the proximity to the cemetery meant the house was worth less but to him it increased its value.

This reporter last saw I last saw Breitbart this past Saturday in Troy, Michigan when he was appearing at the Americans For Prosperity conference after he had uncharacteristically slept in until 10am

Although he saw the mainstream media as the enemy, he understood it and knew many of its main players. This enabled him to use the media, sometimes from with, as well as oppose it. I remember him telling me that the internet had been invented for him because is provided an outlet for his Attention Deficit Disorder, with which he had been diagnosed.

Shortly afterwards, Breitbart burst onto the national scene, leaving Drudge to set up his Big Government websites. Almost overnight, he became a conservative megastar.

The next time I saw him in LA was last September, when we met for drinks at Barney's Beanery in Westwood with mutual friends. By this time, one of the weapons he used to fight the Left was Twitter. As he approached, wearing a t-shirt from a Tea Party group he had spoken to, he was walking and tweeting.

Although he could come across as an angry figure, particularly when on the defensive on television, the reality was that Breitbart loved life and had an immense capacity for humour and mischief. Adopted by a secular Jewish couple, he had grown up holding conventional political views (his natural father was an Irish musician; he knew who his birth parents were but had no interest in meeting them).

Despite his fearlessness, he was also a sensitive soul and a very affectionate husband to Susie and father of four. He gloried in his battles, re-tweeting the vilest things said about him to shame and expose their authors. But he told me that he had wondered about the effect of his public persona when his son had been upset relating how a school friend had said to him: 'My father says that your father is evil'.

Breitbart had joked that after the Occupy protests he'd shaved his face and cut his hair shorter

But Breitbart was happy to have made a hundred new friends for every friend he had lost because of his new celebrity as a Right-winger. That night, he recounted how he had received an agonised - and completely unsolicited - email from a college friend who had explained at great length why he could no longer be his friend. Breitbart laughed at the presumptuousness of the whole thing and how he had replied with two words: 'Oh well.'

He also said that night that he had recently gone to the hospital emergency room with a tightness in his chest. When a nurse had 'freaked out' at how high his blood pressure was, he had responded: 'Don't tell me that - you'll make it even higher.'

Breitbart had looked overweight and stressed that night. I and the others with us told him he needed to ease up on his insane travel schedule and he talked about trying to exercise more, taking downtime with his family and getting a personal assistant to take charge of his diary.

But he always seemed to be on Twitter, on TV, on the phone or on a plane - and sometimes seemingly two or three of these at once. A few months ago, he set up a part-time base on Capitol Hill, spending time in Washington working out of a wonderfully kitsch historic house decorated by a rich Egyptian and right next to the US Supreme Court.

I last saw Breitbart on Saturday in Troy, Michigan. He was appearing at the Tea Party-linked Americans For Prosperity conference, where Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney also spoke. That morning, he had uncharacteristically slept in until 10am and there had been a panic about where he was.

Tragic death: Breitbart leaves behind a wife and four children

Loving father: Breitbart had suffered heart problems a year earlier

During his speech, however, he was on vintage form, describing Barack Obama as 'the metronome' and his allies as 'the alligators'. He declared proudly: 'I'm out there fighting with the metronome. I'm out there fighting with the alligators.' At another point, he said: 'I'm fighting these people as hard as I can. They're totalitarians.'

He urged conservatives to 'stop acting like Leftists' in denouncing those who backed Republican candidates who might not pass this or that purity test and said it was essential to get behind whoever was the nominee.

As usual, he was extremely funny, joking about how he had shaved his stubble and cut his hair after Occupy people said that 'I look like a bum'. In describing an anti-Republican media narrative designed to divert attention from unemployment and gas prices by highlighting social issues, he said: 'I have four children. I took care of the thing down there. Contraception's not in the top two billion things in my world.'

He branded MSNBC 'race card television' and that if a conservative said 'gymnasium' on television, the response would be: ''Gym' originates in antebellum South Carolina. You're all racist!'

The next day, he took a car to Detroit airport with filmmaker Ann McElhinney, another speaker and a close friend. As he got in, he told her: 'I feel awful. I feel really bad.' She put it down to a hangover.

In the car, they discussed Aaron Sorkin - on Friday night, he had shown her the email from Sorkin - and the prospect of a CNN with Weiner. Breitbart felt that such a CNN show would rehabilitate Weiner but he wanted to ensure it would be serious and would involve going out and talking to real people as well as back-and-forth in the studio.

They talked about Fox News, which Breitbart felt was stuck in the past with too many blonde presenters and outdated formats. One of the journalists he admired most, he said, was Dana Loesch, who worked for him as Big Government and is now also CNN contributor. He described her as a 'warrior princess', effective because she was cool and modern.

Breitbart thought that the Left feared people like Loesch most because she was an attractive, engaging, hip person who did not fit the stereotype of dour, fusty conservative. Essentially, the same thing could have been said about him.

One of Breibart's central arguments was that conservatives had allowed themselves to be excluded from popular culture - film, television, music, even art. He was a central figure in the largely undercover world of Hollywood conservatism.

At the end of his speech in Troy, he said that conservatives would have to endure the race card and the 'fairness' card being played against them in the coming election. 'This is warfare. They're at war with you and the very idea that you're still here shows that the Tea Party mindset is alive and kicking.'

Who would have thought that the fiercest and most formidable conservative warrior of all was about to leave the battlefield.