Video raises new questions about governor’s oversight of aide

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s office says it didn’t review an incendiary video address prepared by the adviser he put in charge of the state’s new Office of Family & Life.

In the video presented May 11 to the Alaska Family Council, Dunleavy’s then-Pro-Family Policy Advisor Jeremy Cubas described supporters of abortion rights as “seemingly demonically possessed” and claimed they were motivated by a “primal urge” to “sacrifice a child at the altar of their false idols.”

The video, obtained earlier this month in response to a public records request, raises new questions about Dunleavy’s oversight of Cubas, whom he hired last year. Dunleavy promoted Cubas in April in spite of an easy-to-find podcast Cubas co-hosted where he downplayed rape, defended Adolf Hitler, casually used the N-word and denigrated transgender people.

Cubas resigned late last month after Alaska Public Media and APM Reports confronted him and the governor about those statements.

Dunleavy recorded a comparatively unremarkable video for the Alaska Family Council fundraiser. In it, he touted the newly formed Office of Family & Life, which Cubas led. The office, Dunleavy said, would “research the best practices, programs and approaches to support families — especially young families — and children in all stages of life.”

In Cubas’ five-minute address to the group, he bemoaned the “insidious worship of the self” and said the political left “has been infiltrating our culture with its surreptitiously evil agenda” for more than 60 years. Cubas recorded his remarks in front of Alaska’s state seal.

Reached by phone this week, Cubas said he stood by his comments about “pro-abortionists” sacrificing children “at the altar of their false idols.” The false idol, he explained, is selfishness.

“The contemporary world, especially in the West, we do have a very self-centered, self-worshiping society,” Cubas said. He added: “Nobody really says that they have an abortion because it is better for something outside of themselves. It’s always geared toward the self.”

Cubas said his video had been uploaded to a site where staff from the governor’s office “could have watched it.”

“But I don’t think anybody did,” he added.

Grant Robinson, a spokesman for Dunleavy, declined to comment about the substance of Cubas’ video.

Dunleavy hired Cubas in 2022 as a photographer and later promoted him to pro-family adviser. Cubas’s podcast, Contra Gentiles, was available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and other platforms at the time, and was among the top Google results for his name.

Cubas said last month that he provided his social media accounts to the governor’s office before he was hired and assumed someone would have checked them out.

[Earlier coverage: Alaska Gov. Dunleavy’s policy adviser who said ‘divorce is worse than rape’ resigns]

There were “rumblings” about the charged language in Cubas’ video among attendees at the Alaska Family Council’s dinner, Jim Minnery, the group’s executive director said.

“That’s certainly not anything we’ve ever articulated, or ever would. So, I think that’s just a reflection of what ultimately came out of his podcast,” said Minnery, who denounced Cubas’ comments from his podcast in a recent email to his members. “It was probably the beginning of, ‘Wow, this guy seems off.’”

Minnery said he’s hoping to schedule a meeting with the governor’s office soon to discuss the future of the Office of Family & Life.

A website Cubas had been developing to promote the office remains unpublished and his position is vacant.

“Final decisions on if and when to publish the website and hiring a pro-family adviser have not been made at this time,” said Robinson, the governor’s spokesman.