White House says Trump doesn’t know of QAnon,
despite his tacit endorsement
Conspiracy theory holds that Trump is fighting a group
of ‘global elites’ engaged in ‘satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals’
How QAnon is finding a home in the Republican party
Amanda
Holpuch in New York
@holpuch
Sun 23 Aug
2020 16.48 BSTLast modified on Sun 23 Aug 2020 17.48 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/23/donald-trump-qanon-conspiracy-theory
Donald
Trump does not know what QAnon is, chief of staff Mark Meadows told Fox News
Sunday – despite the president having tacitly endorsed it in the White House
briefing room this week.
The
conspiracy theory – which holds that Trump is fighting a group of “global
elites” engaged in human trafficking, pedophilia and the harvesting of a
supposedly life-extending chemical from the blood of children – has been
identified by the FBI as a potential domestic terrorist threat.
Nonetheless,
Republican candidates for US Senate and the House have expressed sympathy with
and support for QAnon and on Wednesday, during a press conference at the White
House, Trump praised its followers.
“I don’t
know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much,
which I appreciate,” he said.
It was the
president’s first public comment about QAnon, though he has retweeted accounts
which promote it.
A reporter
pointed out that QAnon followers believe Trump is “secretly saving the world
from this satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals”.
The
president replied: “I haven’t heard that but is that supposed to be a good
thing or a bad thing?”
“If I can
help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it,” he said.
Trump’s
comments inspired celebrations among QAnon followers.
Hours
before, Facebook announced it had taken down or restricted more than 10,000
groups, pages and Instagram accounts associated with the rightwing conspiracy
theory.
Asked on
Fox News Sunday if the president condemned the group, Meadows said: “We don’t even
know what it is.”
Meadows
told ABC’s This Week, meanwhile, that he had to “Google” QAnon to figure out
what it was. It was not a “top 20 priority” for the White House, he said.
“You know
when we look at that – there are a number of conspiracies that we ought to be
talking about,” Meadows said.
“We ought
to be talking about the fact that we continue to look at why the FBI spied on
the Trump campaign and what happened there. That was a conspiracy that was real
and one we started to look at.”
Most observers
agree the claim that the FBI and the Obama administration spied on the Trump
campaign in 2016, enthusiastically propagated by the president, is not true.
“If you
look at the top 20 priority,” Meadows said, “QAnon’s not on it. It’s probably
not on the top 50. It’s time that we get serious about questions and move on. I
don’t see that this is a central debate that anybody’s going to decide who the
next president of the United States might be or where we need to deploy the
FBI.”
This week,
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon follower, won the Republican primary for a
House seat in Georgia. Her win, coupled with the president’s comments, prompted
some Republicans to disavow the conspiracy theory.
Representative
Liz Cheney of Wyoming called QAnon “dangerous lunacy that should have no place
in American politics”.
Senator Ben
Sasse of Nebraska said: “QAnon is nuts – and real leaders call conspiracy
theories conspiracy theories.”
Sasse told
the Washington Post: “If Democrats take the Senate, blow up the filibuster and
pack the supreme court – garbage like this will be a big part of why they won.”
Asked about
Taylor Greene, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy said of QAnon: “I do not
agree with their beliefs at all.”
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