Donald Trump shocked many during an interview with Fox News on Monday night when he claimed that Joe Biden wouldn’t quell the unrest in the country if he is elected and that he was being controlled by mysterious individuals in the “shadows.”
As the video posted by Fox News on YouTube shows, Trump spoke with Laura Ingraham about the violence the country is facing and his opponent in the upcoming election.
“I don’t even like to mention Biden because he’s not controlling anything,” Trump said.
When the host pushed the president to reveal who he thought was controlling the former vice president, he replied “people you’ve never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows.”
Ingraham responded that his statement sounded like a conspiracy theory.
“They’re people you haven’t heard of. They’re people that are on the streets, people that are controlling the streets,” he said.
Trump went on to claim that over the weekend, several people boarded a plane in a city that he declined to name to fly to the Republican National Convention in Washington D.C. and that the flight was “almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that.” He explained that these individuals intended to cause trouble at the event.
Ingraham asked for more details, to which Trump replied that he would tell her at some other point, “but it’s under investigation right now.”
While it isn’t clear what Trump was talking about, it appears his statement echoes a conspiracy made in a Facebook post that went viral months ago, which has since been debunked.
As NBC News reported, a post on June 1 pushed the idea that at least a dozen men boarded a plane in Seattle headed to Boise, dressed all in black. Allegedly, they were Antifa activists intending to attack the city. Within a few days, the Payette County Sheriff’s Office was forced to release a statement debunking the rumor.
On Twitter, comedian Patton Oswalt facetiously advised citizens to take the threat being conveyed by Trump seriously. Joy Reid mused about whether or not the president was doing alright.
Alice Evans echoed several other commenters in pointing out that Trump was claiming that these shadowy individuals armed with their gear were traveling very publicly by airplane, which echoed the plot of a 1970s action movie.
Others weren’t so amused by Trump’s statements, saying that the leader of the country shouldn’t be pushing ideas that can’t be verified and that could be used to encourage vigilante justice. The backlash comes just days after he was accused of attempting to fan the flames of violence in order to help promote his reelection bid, as The Inquisitr previously reported.