Alaska Gov. Dunleavy policy adviser who said ‘divorce is worse than rape’ resigns

Alaska Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s adviser on "pro-family” policies resigned Tuesday after revelations that he made incendiary and offensive statements on a podcast.

A review of more than 100 hours of recordings by Alaska Public Media and APM Reports found that Jeremy Cubas defended Adolf Hitler’s views on “living homogeneously,” boasted that he uses a vile racial slur “on a daily basis” and said people should “get violent” in response to aggressive transgender activists.

He also said it’s not possible for a man to rape his wife.

“When you signed the contract, you have already consented,” Cubas said recently.

Cubas aired those and other extreme views on the podcast he co-hosts, Contra Gentiles, whose Latin title translates to “against the non-believers.”

The program, which has been published for the past three years, was available for anyone to hear on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube when Dunleavy, in April, promoted Cubas to a $110,000-a-year job as his policy adviser on “pro-family” issues.

Cubas resigned Tuesday, after Alaska Public Media and APM Reports asked Dunleavy’s office about Cubas' comments, according to Jeff Turner, a spokesman for the governor.

“Gov. Dunleavy sincerely believes that the differences between people are what makes all of us stronger,” Turner said in a prepared statement. “The governor represents all Alaskans, regardless of their faith, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation or gender. Derogatory statements about individuals and groups within our society do not in any way reflect the values of Gov. Dunleavy or his administration and will not be tolerated.”

Cubas declined to comment after his resignation. But in a 50-minute interview Tuesday morning, he stood by his views.

“The podcast is made for people who are more philosophically inclined,” Cubas said. “So if somebody is not looking at it that way, but is just looking to get outraged, there's nothing I can do about that.”

In an interview last month, Dunleavy said Cubas’ primary responsibility was assembling a pro-family website. He said he chose Cubas for the role because of his experience with web development, and because he’d already served as his staff photographer for more than a year. 

Dunleavy and his staff have not said whether they vetted the podcast prior to Cubas’ hiring. But it appears near the top of Google’s search results for his name. 

Cubas said he submitted to a background check and provided access to his social media accounts as part of the hiring process, and he assumes someone checked them. 

“They didn’t really ask me specifically about things,” he said. 

On his podcast, Cubas called Dunleavy a “good friend,” described traveling with the governor and told his listeners that he recently made speeches to a conservative Christian group about his new “office.”

His promotion also coincided with Dunleavy’s push to appeal to social conservatives during his second term as governor — raising questions about whether Cubas’ ideas influenced his agenda.

Juneau Democratic Sen. Jesse Kiehl, who is Jewish, was so alarmed after hearing a selection of Cubas’ comments that he immediately called Dunleavy to alert him. 

“This is horrifying,” Kiehl said in an interview Monday.

‘Women want to be taken by a man’

The podcast was available online for more than a year when Cubas first started working in the governor’s office in March 2022. 

The name, Contra Gentiles, references a landmark religious text written in the 13th century by a Catholic priest and saint, Thomas Aquinas, and Cubas said the show draws on ideas that have been dominant in Western culture.

“I have not said anything in the podcast that has not been held for the majority of our civilization — including in the United States, at least in its early forms,” he said in the Tuesday interview.

Cubas co-hosts the program with Grant Cook, who said on the podcast that he works in a physical therapy clinic, and held jobs at a café and camera shop.

Episodes typically run about two hours, with some stretching on for more than four. The discussions are freewheeling and range from dialogue about Catholic philosophy to sophomoric banter about sex. But Cubas also shares extreme takes on social issues and sometimes expresses racist views.

APM Reports and Alaska Public Media used transcription software to analyze more than 100 episodes of the show and search for keywords. Disturbing themes quickly emerged.

In March, Cubas spoke at length about his belief that modern society has exaggerated the seriousness of rape.

“Rape, in the end, is pretty low on the totem pole of grave immoral actions,” Cubas said. “Because in the end, I mean, if you produce a child through rape, you've ontologically fulfilled the act to a pretty good capacity.”

Cubas said that’s why he believes that “an act like divorce is worse than rape.” While he also argued that rape can be sinful if it involves sex outside of wedlock, he said it’s fine for a man to force himself on his wife.

“I don't think it's possible to rape your wife. I think that that's an impossible act,” he said. “When you signed the contract, you have already consented. You're consenting until the end of time, until you're dead.”

In another episode from 2021, Cubas said that “guys have been told that anything they do is rape,” and as a result have become too cautious around women. “Women,” he said, “want to be taken by a man.”

In the interview, Cubas defended his statements on rape. “This has been the view of the Western world for the majority of its history,” he said. “It's only been in the last 80 to 100 years in which that has changed at all.”

In the discussion on rape and marriage on the podcast, Cubas also says that “sometimes a woman needs to be slapped,” and added “I don’t think there’s any sin there.”

Asked about that, Cubas maintained that he’s never slapped a woman. He said his comments on that subject referenced a 1987 interview by the late TV broadcaster Barbara Walters, in which actor Sean Connery said that slapping women is justified if “all other alternatives fail.” 

Cubas’ comments directly conflict with Dunleavy’s political platform. While Cubas legitimized unwanted sex on his podcast, Dunleavy has prioritized domestic violence and sexual assault prevention during his time as governor.  

In this year’s State of the State speech, Dunleavy said that ending the "scourge of sexual assault and domestic violence" is a "moral imperative." And last month, in an executive proclamation, Dunleavy said "no one has the right to force, threaten, or manipulate anyone into sexual activity."

Cubas defended Hitler, called MLK ‘a loser’

In addition to his extreme views on rape, Cubas repeatedly defended Adolf Hitler. He sometimes jokingly celebrated Hitler’s birthday, downplayed his role in the slaughter of 6 million Jews and spoke favorably about his views on keeping people of different racial backgrounds apart.

“He wasn't just a lunatic who wanted to kill Jews. I think he was somebody who recognized the virtues of living homogeneously,” Cubas said in January — a few months before he was promoted. He added: “I think some of the principles are worth talking about.”

At the prompting of Cook, his co-host, Cubas agreed that he was not defending the Holocaust, but he argued that other Nazi leaders bore more responsibility for killing Jews than Hitler did. He also argued that Hitler accomplished much more than Martin Luther King Jr., who he called a “loser” who “accomplished nothing.”

On the same episode, Cubas argued that “anti-semitism is not a real thing,” saying that Hitler targeted Jews not because of their race but because they were “homeless people just taking over the country.” 

“He wanted the races in their respective areas to remain pure, so Europe remains Europe,” Cubas added.

Cubas and Cook referenced Hitler in at least two dozen episodes, according to an analysis of the recordings. In the interview, Cubas stood by his statements about the Nazi leader. 

“Many people promote the virtues of homogenous living,” he said. “I don't see why that would be necessarily offensive, simply by virtue of Hitler approving of it.”

While Cubas frequently notes that his parents are from Peru and that his maternal grandmother was Black, he’s also called himself a “white Latino” and a “race realist.” And he invoked ugly racial stereotypes about minority groups. In several episodes Cubas also casually used the N-word.

“I say it on a daily basis,” Cubas said on an episode in 2021 where he used the racial epithet. “The more they tell me not to say it, the more I want to say it.”

In a March episode called “Satanic Gender Demons” Cubas also called for violence in response to transgender activists who are “yelling at people’s faces” and “forcing you to comply to their demands.”

“Just get violent on them,” he said. “If somebody yells at your face, there’s no reason to yell back any more. You just take your fist and you start beating them.” 

Andrew Gray, the first openly gay man elected to the Alaska Legislature, said that Cubas’ comments are “absurd” and “beyond imagination.”

“If it were a movie, you wouldn’t believe it,” Gray, an Anchorage Democratic state House member, said in an interview Monday. “You would not believe that somebody working for the governor would record this in any sort of public forum — or any sort of private forum.”

Who is Jeremy Cubas?

Cubas, 40, has nine dependent children, according to a financial disclosure he filed with the state, and he owns an Anchorage photography business called MadMen Studios. 

Between 2017 and 2021, he taught philosophy classes at the University of Alaska Anchorage Mat-Su campus, and he also did graduate work in philosophy at a Catholic research university in Belgium.

On his podcast, Cubas said he was raised in a Democratic household but didn’t become interested in politics until Donald Trump ran for president. He said in the interview that he was hired into his initial position in the governor’s office after applying through normal channels. 

Cubas attends Wasilla’s Sacred Heart Church with Dunleavy, and his undergraduate degree came from the same Catholic university as the governor: Misericordia University, two hours north of Philadelphia. 

As Dunleavy’s photographer, Cubas cut a low profile; he initially took pictures at events and helped set up audiovisual equipment for news conferences.

His promotion in April came amid Dunleavy’s renewed emphasis on social issues during his second term. 

Dunleavy’s office did not announce Cubas’ promotion to the policy adviser position last month; the only public indication came through the financial disclosure that state law required Cubas to file when he was named to the higher-level job.

In an interview shortly after Cubas’ promotion, Dunleavy said Cubas’ main job duty was to set up a pro-life, pro-family web page for the state.

“All Jeremy’s doing is putting the website together. I’m the policy guy behind this approach. So, I’ll answer any questions you’ve got on that,” Dunleavy said, in response to a question about Cubas’ job description and why he was hired.

But Cubas, on his podcast, implied that his portfolio is broader than Dunleavy indicated.

In an episode earlier this month, Cubas referenced leading an “office of family life.” And he said he’d been asked to introduce “the office” at two dinners hosted by the Alaska Family Council, a prominent group promoting conservative Christian ideas.

Before Dunleavy hired him, Cubas predicted, on his podcast, that espousing controversial views like his would be career-ending.

“Try to get a professional job and walk in there and be like, ‘You know what, I think Black people are kind of genetically lazy.’ And see how long you could survive in that job,” Cubas said in 2021. “From the moment that leaves your mouth, you're done.”

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