Trump Celebrates an Endorsement from Antisemitic QAnon Conspiracy Theorist

Donald Trump shared a set of new endorsements from a list of “former Republican national security and senior officials.”

As Media Matters uncovered, the list included Paul Vallely, a retired U.S. Army major general who has since become a right-wing commentator and QAnon conspiracy theorist. Vallely has made it clear in interviews that he fully believes that “Q” is leaking real, covert intelligence.

QAnon is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that originated on the right-wing extremist message board 4chan, when an anonymous poster named “Q” claimed to have insider knowledge of high-level government plans. The conspiracy’s basic premise is that Donald Trump is secretly executing an ingenious plan to take down the “deep state” by ridding the government and media of his enemies, who, according to QAnon believers, are: pedophiles trafficking children and taking their blood; George Soros; elites in Hollywood; and a similar vague cast of characters. 

Other notable names on the list of endorsements were Matt Schlapp, Rudy Giuliani, and Michael Anton. Schlapp and Giuliani have both made antisemitic statements about Jewish philanthropist George Soros in the past few years. In 2019, Anton wrote a lengthy review of the fascist and white supremacist manifesto, Bronze Age Mindset. He called the book “important.”