Donald
Trump
Donald Trump makes baseless claim that 'dark
shadows' are controlling Joe Biden
Fox News interviewer says president’s bizarre
suggestion ‘sounds like a conspiracy theory’
David Smith
in Washington
@smithinamerica
Tue 1 Sep
2020 06.26 BSTLast modified on Tue 1 Sep 2020 06.31 BST
Donald
Trump’s appetite for baseless conspiracy theories scaled new heights on Monday
when he alleged that people in “dark shadows” are controlling Democratic rival
Joe Biden.
The US
president made a mysterious claim about “thugs” in “dark uniforms” flying into
Washington and also compared police brutality against African Americans to
golfers cracking under pressure.
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to denounce an accused killer – which comes as little surprise
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With the
presidential election just two months away, Trump was interviewed at the White
House by Laura Ingraham, a host on the conservative Fox News network. “Who do
you think is pulling Biden’s strings?” she asked. “Is it former Obama people?”
The
president replied: “People that you’ve never heard of, people that are in the
dark shadows. People that –”
Even
Ingraham, evidently sympathetic to Trump, interjected: “What does that mean?
That sounds like a conspiracy theory. Dark shadows. What is that?”
Trump
insisted: “There are people that are on the streets, there are people that are
controlling the streets.”
The
conversation then took an even stranger turn. “We had somebody get on a plane
from a certain city this weekend,” the president said. “And in the plane, it
was almost completely loaded with thugs, wearing these dark uniforms, black
uniforms, with gear and this and that.”
A puzzled
Ingraham pressed for details. Trump deflected cryptically: “I’ll tell you some
time. It’s under investigation right now.”
But he
added that his witness, heading to the Republican national convention, had
reported seeing “a lot of people were on the plane to do big damage”. Trump’s
claim appeared baffling in the absence of further evidence.
The
president is notorious for pushing the “birther” conspiracy theory about Barack
Obama and recently declining to denounce the antisemitic QAnon movement.
In the
interview with Ingraham, Trump also continued his racially divisive rhetoric,
describing Black Lives Matter as a “Marxist organisation”. He said: “The first
time I ever heard of Black Lives Matter, I said, ‘That’s a terrible name. It’s
so discriminatory’. It’s bad for Black people. It’s bad for everybody.”
The
president is due to visit Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday despite a warning from
state governor Tony Evers that he is only like to enflame tensions. The city
has witnessed deadly unrest after Jacob Blake, an African American man, was
shot seven times in the back by police and left paralysed from the waist down.
Trump, who
is pushing law and order as a reelection campaign theme, told Ingraham: “The
police are under siege because of things – they can do 10,000 great acts, which
is what they do, and one bad apple, or a choker – you know, a choker. They
choke.”
He added:
“Shooting the guy in the back many times. I mean, couldn’t you have done
something different, couldn’t you have wrestled him? You know, I mean, in the
meantime, he might’ve been going for a weapon. And you know there’s a whole big
thing there. But they choke, just like in a golf tournament, they miss a
three-foot putt.”
Ingraham
hastily interrupted, like a publicist anxious to rescue the president from
disaster. “You’re not comparing it to golf,” she said. “Because of course
that’s what the media would say.”
Democrats
seized on the president’s remark. Chuck Schumer, the minority leader in the
Senate, tweeted: “You know things are bad when Laura Ingraham has to save
President Trump from saying stupid things.
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