Donald Trump Jr. Treats the Nation’s Top Conspiracy Theorist as a Legitimate News Source

He’s promoting the latest Clinton conspiracy from Alex Jones’ InfoWars.

Mark Reinstein/ZUMA Wire

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


On Thursday morning, Donald Trump Jr., the son and adviser of the Republican presidential nominee, shared the latest Clinton conspiracy theory with his 637,000 Twitter followers: Hillary Clinton may have been wearing an earpiece during the candidates forum held the previous night. Just as surprising was Trump’s source for this latest news flash: the website of Alex Jones, the nation’s top conspiracy theorist. Jones is a 9/11 truther who has suggested that the Sandy Hook massacre never happened and that the government is deliberately turning kids gay by sneaking estrogen into juice boxes.

The article that Trump Jr. promoted cited conservative actor James Woods for drawing attention to the supposed earpiece, and it suggested that Clinton needed the earpiece for secret coaching or to receive lines she might forget.

Trump Jr.’s tweet is the latest evidence that the Trump clan views Jones as a legitimate news source and a media figure who deserves courting. Jones was a special guest at the Republican convention in Cleveland. In December, candidate Trump called into Jones’ radio show and said to the host, “Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.” The older Trump has cited Jones to support his claim that thousands of Muslim Americans danced on rooftops in New Jersey after 9/11. (They didn’t.) Many of Trump’s recent talking points, such as his questions about Clinton’s health and his warnings of a “rigged” election, were first raised by Jones, who has collaborated with Roger Stone, a longtime adviser for the senior Trump and a well-established conspiracy theorist in his own right. (Stone wrote a book saying that LBJ killed JFK.) Jones has told listeners that he recently spoke with Trump—an assertion the Trump campaign did not deny. As Jones put it in a segment last month, “It is surreal to talk about issues here on air and then word-for-word hear Trump say it two days later.”

The earpiece theory quickly took hold among Trump loyalists, including senior adviser AJ Delgado, who asked Clinton on Twitter, “When will you stop cheating the public?” (The tweet was later deleted.)

Trump backer John Nolte, a former editor at Breitbart News, tweeted, “”What do YOU think was in her ear? Maybe the sniper fire damaged her hearing.”

By the way, Jones’ Infowars website has long claimed that the Bilderberg Group, a collection of government and business leaders whose annual confab is a favorite target of conspiracy-mongers, is a key part of a covert scheme to create a “scientific dictatorship” that will exterminate the “useless eaters,” that is, 80 percent of the human population—and that in 2008 this cabal hand-picked Barack Obama to become president, “with the plan being that Hillary would essentially pick up as president for a third Obama term.”

Back on Earth, the Clinton campaign quickly shot down the earpiece rumors:

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate