President Donald Trump spent his Saturday morning retweeting fringe far-right figures, racists, conspiracy theorists, and QAnon followers.
Trump kicked the Twitter storm off by retweeting a video posted by a prominent QAnon follower.
“The ‘elite’ proclaim America must submit to Islam or else!!!” the caption reads, and the video posted by the anonymous account appears to suggest that Muslims are looking to conquer America and convert Americans to Islam.
As Media Matters editor-at-large Parker Molloy noted, the person — clearly an avid QAnon follower, and an ardent Trump supporter — has already been retweeted by the president a number of times.
Trump also retweeted a series of messages posted by Paul Joseph Watson, a far-right conspiracy theorist associated with Info Wars . As BuzzFeed News reported, Watson was recently banned from Facebook. The social media company revealed the reasons for the ban in a statement, saying that it has “always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology.”
As Talking Points Memo wrote, Paul Joseph Watson has claimed that there are IQ differences between races, spread bizarre conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton, suggested that the Virginia Tech shooting was a false flag attack, and endorsed the idea of “Islam control.”
Trump also shared one of Paul Joseph Watson’s latest videos, in which the pundit claims to have been banned from Facebook because he is a “conservative.”
The president also retweeted Lauren Southern, a white supremacist known for peddling racist conspiracy theories. As journalist Mehdi Hasan pointed out, Southern openly supports the white identitarian movement and claims that the Canadian Nazi Party was created by Jews in order to increase hate crimes.
This is the white nationalist anti-Semite who Trump retweeted this morning https://t.co/4uyscBrzaq
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) May 4, 2019
The president also retweeted and praised an Info Wars video, which features a host interviewing two female Trump supporters.
So great to watch this! https://t.co/pYoiLjM0pz
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 4, 2019
Yesterday, Trump expressed support for de-platformed right-wing figures. He took to Twitter to suggest that social media platforms censor American citizens and are anti-free speech. It’s worth noting that Paul Joseph Watson is British, and Lauren Southern is Canadian.
“I am continuing to monitor the censorship of AMERICAN CITIZENS on social media platforms. This is the United States of America — and we have what’s known as FREEDOM OF SPEECH! We are monitoring and watching, closely!!” he wrote.
Trump’s tweets about “censorship” marked his latest broadside against Silicon Valley, which he has repeatedly accused of unfairly targeting conservative views. https://t.co/LX1GzBnYU7
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 4, 2019
It comes as no surprise that Donald Trump is promoting conspiracy theorists, racists, and prominent far-right figures — he has done so on numerous occasions. In March, as reported by The Inquisitr , the president promoted content created by QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theorists.
