Michael Malice

Michael Krechmer (born July 12, 1976), better known as Michael Malice, is a Ukrainian-American anarchist, author, and podcaster. He is the host of "YOUR WELCOME" with Michael Malice, a video podcast which airs on Podcast One. He has also been a ghostwriter and a Fox News commentator.

Early life and education
Malice was born in Lviv, a city in the former Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Malice has a sister and two nephews. He is of Jewish heritage and grew up speaking Russian.

When he was two years old, he moved with his parents to the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. His father originally worked as a courier and attended Baruch College to study computer science. He later worked for Merrill Lynch. Malice attended Bucknell University. Malice also worked for Goldman Sachs before quitting.

Blog and talk shows
Malice is the co-creator and founding editor of the humor blog Overheard in New York that posts submissions of conversations allegedly heard by eavesdroppers in New York City. Launched in 2003, the site was inspired by a conversation overheard by co-creator S. Morgan Friedman. A book based on some of the site's submissions was published in 2006. In 2017, Malice joined Compound Media as the host of the weekly talk show "YOUR WELCOME" with Michael Malice, whose title Malice has described as trolling. The Guardian described him as "a fixture of the alternative media sphere" in a 2018 article about a right-wing gala in New York City called "A Night for Freedom" where he was a speaker.

Writings
Malice has co-authored and ghostwritten books for celebrities. He co-wrote MMA fighter Matt Hughes's 2008 autobiography Made in America: The Most Dominant Champion in UFC History. He co-wrote ''Concierge Confidential: The Gloves Come Off – and the Secrets Come Out! Tales from the Man Who Serves Millionaires, Moguls, and Madmen (2011) with Michael Fazio, a concierge to New York City's rich and famous, Malice also co-wrote comedian D. L. Hughley's 2012 book I Want You to Shut the F#ck Up: How the Audacity of Dopes Is Ruining America and his 2016 book Black Man, White House: An Oral History of the Obama Years. His own 2014 book Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il'' was crowdfunded through Kickstarter and published through Amazon's CreateSpace program. It is written from the hypothetical first-person view of Kim and is a semi-farcical commentary on how he is portrayed to the North Korean people. Much of it was based on English language propaganda that Malice collected while on a week-long trip to Pyongyang, North Korea in 2012. He had previously recounted the trip in a 2013 article for Reason. In a generally positive review for NK News, Rob York described Dear Reader as "informative, and surprisingly earnest." Malice's 2019 book The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics says that the American New Right movement should not be equated to Nazis and that some members are acting out in response to progressivism. Kirkus Reviews doubted some of his reasoning, noting that many of his interviewees "are disturbingly assured that Hitler, if not Jefferson Davis, had it right".

Other appearances
Since 2014, Malice has been a regular guest on the Fox News and Fox Business Network shows The Independents, Kennedy, Red Eye, The Greg Gutfeld Show, The Story with Martha MacCallum, and Tucker Carlson Tonight. He is also a regular guest on The Tom Woods Show podcast and has appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience and The Rubin Report. Malice is also a regular columnist at Observer.

Tantaros lawsuit
Malice sued former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros in October 2016, saying that he was owed $150,000 for ghostwriting her book Tied Up in Knots: How Getting What We Wanted Made Women Miserable. Tantaros disputed that Malice wrote her book, instead describing him as an editor. In an argument to keep the lawsuit under seal, lawyers for Tantaros said that revealing Malice's claim to have ghost-written the book "would severely undermine her credibility in the eyes of her colleagues, fans, publisher, and the wider news-media world." Tantaros countersued Malice for defamation, saying that he had submitted fabricated evidence and colluded with Fox News to harm her reputation. Malice's lawsuit was dismissed; he appealed the dismissal and lost the appeal as well.

Reception
Malice's early life was the subject of Harvey Pekar's 2006 biographical graphic novel Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story, illustrated by Gary Dumm. As the title suggests, the biography deals with the development of Malice's egoic personality, a characteristic that Malice does not dispute.

Views
Malice describes himself as an anarchist or anarchist without adjectives. Reason described his politics as a combination of anarchism, objectivism, and libertarianism in 2006. In 2014, he wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian explaining why he does not vote.

Malice is known for trolling others on social media, according to The American Conservative. He has said his pseudonymous surname was inspired by nicknames such as Sid Vicious and Poly Styrene that were common within the punk movement and Andy Warhol's circle, which he has cited as influences.

Personal life
Malice, formerly of New York City,  resides in Austin, Texas.