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List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump
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Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of the United States, has created or promoted many deceptive or disproven conspiracy theories, to a degree unprecedented in American politics.[2][3][4][5]
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Conspiracy theories
Attacks on political opponents
Barack Obama
- Obama citizenship conspiracy theories, aka "Birtherism", later retracted[6][7][8][9]
- Conspiracy that Bill Ayers wrote Obama's memoir Dreams from My Father[10]
- False claims of fraud in the 2012 election[11]
- Pushed conspiracy theory that Obama supported ISIS[12][13]
- Claim that Obama secretly controlled the Biden administration[14]
- Claim that Obama and other officials committed "treason" against him[15]
Bill and Hillary Clinton
- False claim that Hillary Clinton started the birther conspiracy theory[16]
- Clinton body count conspiracy theory[2][17]
- Retweeted the false claim that Jeffrey Epstein's death was arranged by Bill Clinton.[18]
- Said at CPAC on February 27, 2015, when asked about his thoughts about Bill Clinton: "Nice guy, got a lot of problems coming up in my opinion with the famous island with Jeffrey Epstein, a lot of problems."[19][20] (Remarks start at 22:50)
- Pizzagate conspiracy theory and portrayals of the Clintons as pedophiles[21]
- Suicide of Vince Foster[2]
- Murder of Seth Rich[22]
- Insinuated that payments to Hillary Clinton were linked to the approval of the Uranium One deal with Russia
- Claim that Hillary Clinton "meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty"[23]
Ted Cruz
- Assassination of John F. Kennedy – alleged Rafael Cruz, the father of Texas Senator and Republican presidential candidate for the 2016 elections Ted Cruz, had ties to Lee Harvey Oswald.[24][25] Trump later stated that he did not actually believe the story.[26]
Joe and Hunter Biden
- Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory[27]
- Osama bin Laden death conspiracy theories, explicitly claiming Biden and Obama staged killing with body double, and may have had SEAL Team 6 killed[28]
- Hunter Biden laptop controversy and China business dealings conspiracy theory[29]
- Hunter Biden cocaine conspiracy theory, specifically relating to the cocaine found in the White House in July 2023[30]
- Asserted that Joe Biden is being controlled by "People that you've never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows."[31]
- Claimed that the Biden administration had been ready to kill him during the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago[32]
- Claimed that FEMA spent money on housing illegal immigrants leaving none left for the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season
- Claimed that the Biden administration directed federal agencies to bribe news organizations for positive coverage[33]
- Shared a post that Biden was executed in 2020 and replaced by a robotic clone[34]
- Claimed that the Epstein files are falsified documents created by his political opponents, such as the Biden Administration.[35]
Kamala Harris
- Harris citizenship conspiracy theories
- Accused Harris of paying celebrities for endorsements, including Bruce Springsteen, Oprah Winfrey, Bono and $11 million paid to Beyoncé[36]
Joe Scarborough
Others
- Claimed that Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was secretly the son of Cuban leader Fidel Castro[39]
- Posted a screenshot of a story claiming that Nikki Haley was disqualified from being president[40]
- Spread false conspiracy theories about the attack on Paul Pelosi, suggesting it could have been staged[41]
- Suggested that Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dying wish may have been manufactured by the Democratic political leadership in Congress[42]
- Claimed that the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack had "deleted and destroyed all the evidence"[43]
- Said that James Comey "was calling for the assassination of the president" when he posted an image of seashells spelling "86 47"[44]
Claims about clandestine opposition
Deep State
- Accusations against a "deep state" resisting Trump administration objectives and proper prosecution of Trump foes[45]
QAnon
Antifa
- Claiming those resisting authoritarianism and fascism in the USA are led by an organization identified as "Antifa", an abbreviation for anti-fascism
- Attribution of Buffalo police shoving incident to antifa
- Claimed that a plane full of "thugs in dark uniforms", implying antifa, had recently flown from one unidentified city to another with the intention of fomenting riots[46][47]
Anarchists
- Retweeted a One America News Network tweet that ongoing George Floyd protests constituted a "coup attempt" that was "led by a well funded network of anarchists".[48]
Russian interference, Robert Mueller investigation deflections
- Allegations of Obama spying on Trump,[49][50] including Spygate[4][51] and Trump Tower wiretapping allegations[2][3]
- Allegations of Hillary Clinton spying on Trump[52][53][54]
- Russiagate hoax. Trump and his defenders have used terms like "Russia hoax",[a] "Russian collusion hoax",[55] and "Russiagate hoax"[65] to delegitimize accusations and investigations of alleged impropriety, cooperation, collusion, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the government, officials, and intelligence agencies of Russia. They assert that such accusations are a hoax perpetrated against Trump by his critics and that he is the victim of a witch hunt.[60][66] Trump and his supporters have produced no evidence of such a hoax.
2016, 2020 and 2024 election claims
- Trump's false claim of a stolen election
- Italygate[72]
- Stop the Steal and conspiracy theories[73]
- Voter conspiracy theories[2][3]
- Claimed he won the popular vote during the 2016 presidential election, saying "I think there was tremendous cheating in California, there was tremendous cheating in New York and other places".[74]
- Claimed that Google manipulated votes in the 2016 election[75]
- Tweeted that Google results were "RIGGED" against him.[76]
- Tweeted about a conspiracy theory that voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems had deleted millions of Trump votes.[77]
- Referred to the first release of Twitter Files as proof of "Big Tech companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party" rigging the 2020 United States presidential election against him, declaring that "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" was necessary.[78]
- Cited a study that between three and five million non-citizens voted in the 2016 elections[79]
- Claimed that videos produced by James O'Keefe proved Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had "hired people" and "paid them $1,500" to "be violent, cause fights, [and] do bad things" at Trump rallies.[80]
- Claimed that Vladimir Putin said the 2020 presidential election was rigged by mail-in voting and that there would not have been a war in Ukraine if Trump had won.[81]
Claims of corrupt science, medicine, and statistics
- COVID-19 deaths systematically overcounted
- Allegations of collusion between Anthony Fauci and the pharmaceutical industry[82]
- Claims that Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci profited from COVID-19 vaccinations[82]
- Global warming conspiracy theory, claimed that "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."[83]
- Hurricane Maria death toll controversy[2][3]
- Mob responsible for movement against asbestos[84][85]
- Vaccines cause autism, tweeted "Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!"[86] Tweeted, "I am being proven right about massive vaccinations—the doctors lied. Save our children & their future" and that parents "know far better than fudged-up reports."[87] At Republican debate, claimed " Just the other day, two years old, 2½ years old, a child, a beautiful child went to have the vaccine, and came back, and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is auto."[88]
- Wind turbines cause cancer[2][3]
- Accused Erika McEntarfer of rigging labor statistics numbers for political reasons to make him look bad, and had her fired.[89]
Claims about national, ethnic, religious or racial groups
- Great replacement conspiracy theory, alleging that non-white immigrants from Latin America are seeking to displace American citizens in areas of employment, housing, and education.[90]
- Tweeted infographic falsely stating that whites killed by blacks constitute 81% of crime, citing the nonexistent "Crime Statistics Bureau — San Francisco"[91]
- Alleged actions by Muslims as claimed by Britain First[2][92]
- Claimed to have witnessed Muslims in Jersey City cheering the 9/11 terrorist attack[93]
- Endorsement of counter-jihad themes, as well as individuals associated with the movement[94][95]
- Syrian refugee as ISIS members conspiracy[2]
- Mexican government forces criminals across border[96]
- White genocide conspiracy theory[97][98]
- Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio eating cats and dogs[99]
- Claimed that ISIS members were hiding within the Central American migrant caravans[100][101]
Claims of paid protestors
Claims about George Soros
- That Soros was backing the protests against Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination.[103]
- That Soros funded the Central American migrant caravans heading toward the United States.[104]
- That district attorney Alvin Bragg was "bought and paid for" by Soros.[105]
Questioning terrorism
- 9/11 conspiracy theories[106]
- Denialism and whitewashing regarding the January 6 Capitol attack[107]
- Claim that Hamas terrorists are "pouring into our once beautiful USA, through our TOTALLY OPEN SOUTHERN BORDER"[108]
Other
- Referenced a conspiracy theory about Antonin Scalia's death, saying "they say they found a pillow on his face, which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow."[109]
- Claimed that the FBI knows the identity of the individual who placed two pipe bombs outside the DNC and RNC on January 6th.[110]
- Claimed that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro controls Tren de Aragua, which Trump says is invading the U.S.[111]
- Cast doubt on whether the U.S. gold reserves were still at Fort Knox.[112]
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Conspiracy theorists endorsed by Trump
Summarize
Perspective
Donald Trump has encouraged individuals who spread conspiracy theories.
- Had dinner with Kanye West after he had promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and had vowed to go "death [sic] con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE" on his Twitter account. His dinner guest was Nick Fuentes, a well-known Holocaust denier.[113][114][115]
- Alex Jones,[116] publisher of InfoWars, a climate change denialist who has said that the World Bank invented the "hoax" of climate change,[117] falsely claims that vaccines cause autism[118][119] and who encouraged his listeners to harass the victims of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, which he called a "hoax".[120][121] Trump appeared on InfoWars, where he praised Jones's "amazing reputation", and repeated Jones's claims on the campaign trail.[11][122]
- Paul Joseph Watson, who worked for Alex Jones' InfoWars and whose conspiracy theory interests include chemtrails, the New World Order and the Illuminati.[123]
- Laura Loomer,[124] who has made false claims about several U.S. mass shootings, including that they were affiliated with ISIS or that the shootings were entirely staged[125][126][127]
- Jack Posobiec, known for promoting the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.
- Sidney Powell, an attorney who joined the Trump legal team in 2020, although the team distanced itself from her after she publicly claimed that the 2020 election had been rigged by an elaborate international communist plot.[128] She filed and lost four federal cases, alleging voter fraud of "biblical" proportions and claiming that voting machines had been secretly programmed to switch votes from Trump to Biden.[129][130][131]
- Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York City during the September 11 attacks, best known in more recent years for his role as Donald Trump's attorney in various lawsuits pertaining to and a leading proponent of conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, such as that between 65,000 and 165,000 ballots in Georgia were illegally cast by underage voters, that between 32,000 and "a few hundred thousand" illegal immigrants voted in Arizona, and that from 8,021 to 30,000 votes in Pennsylvania were cast fraudulently by people voting in the names of deceased persons whose names had yet to be purged from voter rolls.[132]
- L. Lin Wood, an attorney who promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, claiming that Trump had won the election with 70% of the vote, and that a secret cabal of international communists, Chinese intelligence, and Republican officials had contrived to steal the election from Trump.[133][134] Wood also claims that "no planes" hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and that planes visible in the footage are "CGI".[135] He announced that he had "entered the public debate around the 'flat earth' issue", endorsing the belief that it is flat.[136]
- Kelly Townsend, an Arizona Senator sought out Trump in 2011 pushing the Obama birther conspiracy.[137][138][139] Townsend along with Roger Stone associate Jerome Corsi, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and 2020 Maricopa County Sheriff candidate and then chief Arpaio staffer Jerry Sheridan, worked with informant Dennis Montgomery.[138][140] In 2020, Townsend worked again with Jerome Corsi claiming the election was stolen from Donald Trump and emailed Corsi a document of Arizona Senators endorsing Trump electors for Vice President Pence, in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election.[141] In November 2020, Townsend assisted Sidney Powell along with her birther conspiracy associate Dennis Montgomery who back in 2011 alleged Hammer and Scorecard was spying and used to hack into government computers and change Obamas birth certificate, and in 2020 with Townsend and Powell shifted his claims stating the supercomputer was being used to hack and flip votes in favor of Biden in 2020, and Townsend was listed as a key witness in Powell's Arizona election fraud case.[142][141][143][144] In the lead up to January 6, 2021, Townsend sponsored a bill that would designate Trump electors to Arizona and promoted the Arizona audit and stolen election claims.[145][146] Townsend has also been a leader of the anti-vax movement claiming in 2019 that all vaccines are communist.[147]
- Rick Wiles, founder of TruNews was granted press credentials by the Trump administration.[148][149] Wiles is known for pushing homophobic and anti-semitic conspiracy theories, including that the Jews seek to take control of the United States to "kill millions of Christians" and stated, "9/11 wasn't done by the Muslims. It was done by a wildcard, the Israeli Mossad, that's cunning and ruthless and can carry out attacks on Americans and make it look like Arabs did it."[148][150] In July 2018, during the Trump administration, he claimed that Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow were going to lead a "homosexual coup on the White House" that would result in the nationally televised decapitation of the Trump family on the White House lawn.[151]
- Roger Stone, long-term political advisor to Donald Trump. Popularized the Seth Rich murder conspiracy theory. Claimed that Nikki Haley was not a natural born citizen. Pardoned by Trump in connection with the Mueller investigation.
- Michael Flynn, retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former National Security Advisor to Donald Trump. Pledged an oath to the QAnon movement. Asserted the COVID-19 pandemic was fabricated as "a distraction to what happened on 3 November," referring to the 2020 presidential election which he maintains was stolen from Trump.
- Lou Dobbs, political commentator, author, and television host. Early promoter of birtherism. One of three Fox Corporation program hosts named in a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit by Smartmatic. Among the hosts named in the Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network defamation lawsuit.
- Mike Lindell, businessman and political activist. Claimed that voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion conspired with foreign powers to rig voting machines to steal the 2020 election from Trump. Advanced the theory that people associated with antifa were responsible for the January 6th Capitol attack.
- Christina Bobb, lawyer, television personality and Republican Party official. Named in a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against OANN. Promoted the 2021 Maricopa County presidential ballot audit. Said during a podcast that she believed the political left sought to "normalize pedophilia."
Conspiracy theorists in the second Trump administration
- Donald Trump, President of the United States
- Kash Patel, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation[152]
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services[153]
- Peter Navarro, senior counselor for trade and manufacturing[154]
- Elon Musk, de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency[155]
- Laura Loomer, influenced President Trump to dismiss more than half a dozen national security officials[156][157]
- Devin Nunes, Chair of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board[158]
- Dan Bongino, deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation[159]
- Darren Beattie, acting Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs[160]
- Kingsley Wilson, Department of Defense press secretary[161]
- Joe Kent, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center[162]
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See also
Notes
References
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