President Donald Trump declined to take a firm stance against QAnon on Friday, refusing to say whether he believes in the deranged conspiracy theory that will likely find a voice in Congress come November. At a White House briefing, Trump twice remained silent when asked whether he supports QAnon—which the FBI has flagged as a potential domestic terror threat—but readily spoke to his endorsement of Marjorie Taylor Greene, a vocal proponent of QAnon who was all but guaranteed a seat in Congress earlier this week by winning a Republican primary runoff in Georgia. The once-fringe group has emerged as a political movement under the president and his allies, who have helped amplify the baseless claims that QAnon runs on—including a secret “deep state” plot against Trump by a group of evil, child-molesting elites. Following her win, the president congratulated Greene on Twitter, calling her a “future Republican star.”
Noting Trump’s Twitter endorsement, a reporter at Friday’s briefing asked the president if he shares Greene’s belief in the conspiracy theory. As the Washington Post reported, Trump was unwilling to disavow the group, dodging the question and offering praise for Greene—who has made headlines for propagating racist and anti-Semitic views on social media—instead.
“Well, she did very well in the election. She won by a lot. She was very popular,” he replied. “She comes from a great state and she had a tremendous victory so absolutely, I did congratulate her.” He ignored the reporter’s follow-up question about whether he believes in the baseless theories Greene has embraced, turning instead to another journalist in the room who changed the subject.
“By not specifically denying or rejecting the theory, he gave it oxygen, intentionally or not,” the Post’s Philip Bump writes. Deflecting a reporter’s question is not necessarily new behavior from Trump—Bump notes he did so on Thursday when asked about his tendency to spew false claims and lie to the public. But in the case of QAnon, Trump’s silence holds a different weight. “QAnon adherents who parse punctuation in his tweets, the background of images he posts on Twitter or track where he points during speeches for signals that he is part of ‘the plan’ are not going to understand Trump’s silence as a mark of restraint,” Bump writes. “They are, instead, going to apply the same pareidoliac sensibility that guides the rest of their absorption of Q material and see in his silence a wink.”
CNN’s Oliver Darcy also noted that Trump’s silence “appeared to serve as a confirmation for many in the movement,” with QAnon supporters reportedly longing for the moment when Trump would be faced with such a question. On Twitter, NBC’s Ben Collins said “Q folks will find a way to spin this into a win” and the New York Times’s Kevin Roose added that “his non-disavowal is going to be a big deal in their world.”
The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer called on White House reporters to “press Trump on this more, and come better prepared,” noting that he was “glad someone finally asked Trump about QAnon” but that “this isn’t some zany, harmless thing. This is a domestic terrorism movement getting a wink and a nod from the White House.”
More Great Stories From Vanity Fair
— How Jared Kushner’s Secret Coronavirus Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”
— Why Trump’s Black Lives Matter Protest Response Could Cost Him 2020
— Behind the Scenes of the NBA’s Dystopian COVID-Free Bubble
— Experts Worry Trump’s DHS Crackdowns Ignore the Real Threat
— How Carlos Ghosn Escaped Japan, According to the Ex-Soldier Who Snuck Him Out
— Former Pandemic Officials Call Trump’s Coronavirus Response a National Disaster
— From the Archive: The Untold Story of Dallas’s Heroic Ebola Response
Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hive newsletter and never miss a story.