BREAKING: Geoff Diehl Receives Lifetime Ban from WRKO for Lying About Howie Carr

Jeff Kuhner placed "under review" by station management.

Photo from the Boston Globe.

Programming Note: We’ve rushed today’s publication under the “Kool-Aid Kult Kronicles” banner started by Carr while a new Substack name is in the works.

Editorial Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that unpaid bills left to Howie Carr by Geoff Diehl were for opposition research. They were for advertisements promoting Diehl’s 2022 campaign for governor. We regret the error.

Station managers at WRKO-AM 680 have made the fateful decision to ban Geoff Diehl for life, citing the perennial candidate’s repeated, baseless claims that Howie Carr is being paid by the MassGOP to attack him and his slate of candidates for Republican State Committee.

The lifetime ban, implemented late Thursday morning, will immediately cost Diehl the loudest microphone afforded to him to promote his candidates in the final days leading up to state committee elections on March 5th.

Appearing on Jeff Kuhner’s program Tuesday, Diehl waxed exasperation at the beating he’s taken for weeks by Carr and teased his appearance as a “big announcement” that turned out to be a simple demand for Carr to debate him about their competing slates and visions for the MassGOP.

“He’s taking money from the state party and promoting candidates that are going to try and undermine people like President Trump,” Diehl said. “He’s got to be held accountable for the people he’s trying to put up.”

Hours later, Diehl followed up that appearance by posting screenshots of payments made by the MassGOP to Carr in November 2023. That prompted MassGOP Chair Amy Carnevale to issue her own public statement that the $500/month expenditures are being made to repay Carr for advertisements his network ran promoting Diehl’s 2022 campaign for governor. Carr, like most vendors who partnered with Diehl and former party chair Jim “Jones” Lyons, was never compensated for his work.

Ironically, Diehl’s former campaign treasurer Desiree Awiszio listed Carr’s ads as an obligation by the Diehl campaign, validating Carnevale’s assertion that she is still paying to clean up the Diehl/Lyons mess.

MassGOP brought the receipts on its Howie Carr payments.

Carr, who isn’t running for office, countered by challenging Diehl to debate his actual opponent for state committee, Larry Novak, and invited the ex-con on his show to talk about how Diehl was nowhere to be seen while he was organizing the Brockton Republican City Committee.

“You’ve paid your debt to society, right Larry? When will Diehl?” Carr asked on his show Tuesday.

Kuhner, who stepped up attacks on Carnevale following Diehl’s appearance, was placed “under review” after referring to Carr’s wife as a “whore” on-air. Station management will now decide whether Kuhner is allowed to talk about Republican State Committee races at all in the final days leading up to March 5th.

But it couldn’t get any worse for Diehl than this, right?

Wrong.

On Thursday, the Office of Campaign and Political Finance initiated yet another investigation into the Kool-Aid Kult, this time for using the Fair and Secure MA Facebook page to promote Diehl’s list of candidates. According to insiders close to OCPF, the investigation centers around posts and potential digital ads posted on the group’s page in the past 24 hours promoting Maureen Maloney, chair of the ballot question and a state committee candidate herself, along with the rest of Diehl’s slate. As head of Fair and Secure MA, Maloney would likely have had to approve the posts.

State campaign finance laws bar ballot question campaigns from supporting or opposing individual candidates.

Howie Carr, meanwhile, is running prominent banners on his own website promoting candidates in support of Carnevale while taking calls from them on his show throughout the week.

We’ll be tuning in this afternoon to hear if there will be another chapter to this sordid tale.