Presidential scion Donald Trump Jr. said this week that adherents of the unhinged conspiracy theory QAnon have “probably been right about a lot of things” and that his father “nailed it” when he expressed support for the group because “they are against pedophiles.”
Trump Jr.’s seeming endorsement of the far-right conspiracy theory movement, which believes that there is an elite cabal of Satanic child molesters that Donald Trump would some day bring to justice, comes as the president has spent years courting QAnon supporters and his handpicked FBI director Kash Patel has claimed the Q community has done some good.
During Monday’s broadcast of his podcast Triggered, Trump Jr. spent much of the episode praising Patel and his incoming deputy director, MAGA podcaster and former Fox News host Dan Bongino. After celebrating the two Trump loyalists as the “FBI dream team,” the president’s eldest son then took online questions from his listeners.
At one point, Trump Jr. was asked by an audience member about his previous statement on the show that John F. Kennedy Jr. was deceased, something that runs counter to the QAnon community’s beliefs. Many within the movement believe that JFK Jr., who was killed in a 1999 plane crash, is actually secretly alive and working with Trump to bring down the evil pedophile cabal.
“How does that work?” Trump wondered. “I never followed the Q thing all that much. I was busy sort of – when all that started I was busy fighting for my life, quite literally, in the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ nonsense. So I never followed too much of it. But if they said it, I guess that was one of the tenets of all of it in the beginning, so maybe they’re coming to that realization. I’m not sure.”
Referencing the president claiming ignorance about QAnon in 2020 while simultaneously heaping praise on its supporters, Trump Jr. said his “father nailed it best” when he replied to reporters’ questions about QAnon by saying “aren’t they against pedophiles” and that he’s “for it” if so.
“And they went nuts! I’m like, I don’t know, we can all agree on all these things,” he continued. “You don’t have to know about everything. I’m usually pretty good, but there are definitely some of the conspiracy theories that people ask me and they’re like, ‘What do you think about XYZ?’ And I’m like, I really don’t know.”
After reiterating that he isn’t very attuned to QAnon’s wild claims and doesn’t pay much attention to them, the presidential son went on to credit them for being largely correct.
“I wish I had the time to chase… go down every rabbit hole, but I don’t,” he added. “But who knows? Listen, they’ve probably been right about a lot of things. I definitely agree on the pedophile thing, and hopefully with the Epstein report, a lot of those guys go to jail or at least get exposed. And I think that will be a really big deal!”
Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Wednesday night that files related to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein should be released on Thursday, branding the documents as “pretty sick.” Despite Trump’s lengthy friendship with the disgraced financier, the president promised on the campaign trail to release Epstein’s “client list” if elected.
While Republicans have pushed for the release of the documents, author Michael Wolff released audio tapes prior to the election that featured Epstein claiming he was “Donald Trump’s closest friend for 10 years” and making a host of other claims about the president, such as him flying on the “Lolita Express” and cuckolding his best friends. Trump, who had a falling out with Epstein in 2004, has repeatedly attacked Wolff over his new book and recently suggested passing a “NICE NEW LAW” to sue writers over their sources.
Meanwhile, following his first term as president and after social media companies banned his accounts due to the January 6 insurrection, Trump went “full QAnon” and flooded his Truth Social account with overt references to the conspiracy theory, including using the movement’s slogans like “WWG1WGA” and “the storm is coming.”
After Facebook and Twitter (now X) reinstated his accounts, Trump has continued to openly embrace the conspiracy theory, sharing posts that are either from QAnon sources or include phrases related to the group.
“It’s not that Trump has meaningfully changed the way he behaves online. In fact, he’s grown more extreme,” extremism expert Jared Holt told the New York Times in 2023. “I don’t think anybody should reasonably expect him to be any different if he’s back on Facebook and Twitter. And when it comes to spreading conspiracy theories, Trump is the big tuna.”
.jpg?width=1200&height=800&crop=1200:800 "Trump’s biggest MAGA fans seen holding ‘Phase 1’ of the Epstein files – but it’s still secret from public and Congress – UK Times")