Trump campaign pretends he didn't say QAnon supporters 'love our country' a week ago

On Wednesday, Donald Trump’s campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh claimed that he had “never heard the president even offer an opinion” on the baseless, anti-Semitic QAnon conspiracy theory.

Days earlier, Trump in fact praised supporters of QAnon and offered his help to “save the world from problems” they had supposedly identified.

Murtaugh was asked on Wednesday by MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson if the Trump campaign would distance itself from Republican congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is a QAnon supporter. Greene was endorsed by Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy after winning the Republican primary.

QAnon has been debunked and labeled by the FBI as a domestic terrorism threat. Despite this, Greene has been invited to the White House to attend Trump’s nomination speech at the Republican convention.

“The latest conspiracy theory that the media seems to be focused on, the only ones we ever hear about this from are the media,” Murtaugh claimed during Wednesday’s interview.

He added, “It is not something that we deal with here in the campaign, it’s not something we ever think about, I’ve never heard the president even offer an opinion about it.”

Trump has, in fact, weighed in on the baseless conspiracy, which claims that there is a cabal of elite Democrats involved in a global child sex-trafficking ring, who are also working to undermine Trump’s presidency. (There is no proof whatsoever that supports any of those theories.)

At an Aug. 19 press briefing he was asked about QAnon supporters and replied that they were simply “people that love our country.”

“I’ve heard these are people that love our country, and they just don’t like seeing it,” Trump said. “So I don’t know, really, anything about it, other than they do, supposedly, like me.”

A reporter then explained to Trump that “the crux of the theory is this belief that you are secretly saving the world from this satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals.”

“Well, I haven’t — I haven’t heard that. But is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing?” Trump replied. “I mean, you know, if I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it.  I’m willing to put myself out there.”

Murtaugh’s claim on Wednesday that QAnon “is not something that we deal with here in the campaign” is also unfounded.

In February, when current White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was working for the Trump campaign, she interviewed QAnon supporters at a Trump rally in Phoenix, Arizona.

McEnany promised one supporter that she would pass along their concern about the conspiracy.

From the Aug. 27 edition of “MSNBC Live”:

HALLIE JACKSON, MSNBC: Marjorie Taylor Greene was invited tomorrow night to be on the south lawn with the president, she’s a candidate who has embraced conspiracy theories and these QAnon — in many instances anti-Semitic theories as well. Will she be disinvited?

 

TIM MURTAUGH: I don’t — you know, we hear from the media all the time about this QAnon business, and frankly we don’t have time to and the inclination to — chasing down various conspiracy theories is not —

 

JACKSON: It’s one and the same. If you’re talking about deranged conspiracy theories and pulling a speaker from the lineup, how is this different?

 

MURTAUGH: Because anti-Semitism is something that is clear and everyone understands how foul and repulsive it is.

 

JACKSON: The QAnon conspiracy is anti-Semitic.

 

MURTAUGH: The latest conspiracy theory that the media seems to be focused on, the only ones we ever hear about this from are the media. It is not something that we deal with here in the campaign, it’s not something we ever think about, I’ve never heard the president even offer an opinion about it.

 

It’s always coming from the media side. QAnon is not something that we focus on. We’re focused every single day on drawing from the president’s record to gather support for his reelection.

 

And the latest flavor of the month that the media seems to be obsessed with this one QAnon is not something that we get distracted by.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.