Trump's Conspiracies
Those in power tend to exercise a
degree of paranoia and conspiracy themselves, seeing as they are essentially
swimming in dangerous waters with people around them looking to their exploit
weaknesses or their secrets. Donald Trump, the 45th United States
president, is no different. He holds many labels, and among these is the one of
“conspiracy theorist.”
Here is a list of some of his
notable claims.
1. Vaccines Lead to Autism
Trump himself is a strong believer that vaccinations lead to autism in
children. His Twitter is a strong statement to this (“Healthy young child goes
to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good
and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!”, “"@OnlineOnTheAir: My friend's
son, immediate #autism after #vaccines 10 yrs ago. So sad. Keep up good work
Nay-sayers will understand soon.” And so on). Trump has also consulted Robert
Kennedy Jr., a staunch anti-vaccination advocate, on immunizations. It was
Kennedy himself stated that Trump had “selected him to lead a commission
looking into ‘vaccine safety.’” While Trump’s legal team has stated that he was
not formally selected for the commission, they did not deny the chance of the commission
even existing.
Below is a link to his Twitter archive with a specificity on his vaccination
views.
2. Barack Obama’s Birth Certificate is Fake
Starting in 2011, Trump became an outspoken advocate that Barack Obama,
the 44th U.S. president, indeed had a fake birth certificate. This
ensured that the birther movement (a person who doubts the legitimacy of Barack
Obama's presidency because of a conspiracy theory that Obama is not a
natural-born US citizen) gained mainstream coverage and attention. Notable tweets
include, “An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and told me that
@BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud,” and “Attention all hackers: You
are hacking everything else so please hack Obama's college records (destroyed?)
and check ‘place of birth’.” When Obama released his certificate in 2011, Trump
proudly claimed that he was the cause (“Always remember, I was the one who got
Obama to release his birth certificate, or whatever that was! Hilary couldn't,
McCain couldn't.”). In 2016, Trump admitted that Barack Obama was born in the United
States at the end of one of the U.S. presidential debates. However, reports
from as recent as November 2017 discuss that Trump continues to question the
legitimacy of Obama’s certificate, allegedly telling his aides that “he would
have done better in the polls had he continued to stand his ground on the birth
certificate issue.”
3. Climate Change is not Real
In November 2012, Trump tweeted that, “The concept of global warming was
created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing
non-competitive.” Using what he saw outside of his window (“Ice storm rolls
from Texas to Tennessee - I'm in Los Angeles and it's freezing. Global warming
is a total, and very expensive, hoax!”), Trump now claims that climate change
is “naturally occurring,” and thus, it should be left alone. This is in light
of his recently pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement, which
stems from the United Nations with the primary goal of combatting greenhouse
gas emissions. Fun fact: Trump has tweeted about climate change skepticism 115
times since 2011.
4. Joe Scarborough Killed one of his Interns
Trump believes that Joe Scarborough, a former U.S. representative and
current co-host of a show on MSNBC, killed one of his interns in 2001. Lori
Klausutis, the intern, was found to have died after a heart problem caused her
to fall and hit her head on Scarborough’s desk. Conspiracy theorists quickly
jumped to saying that the Florida representative had killed her, even creating
the website “JoeScarboroughKilledHisIntern.com.” While the conspiracy died down
within the year of Klausutis’ death (as there was no evidence that Scarborough
had done it), Trump revived it in a tweet on November 29, 2017, pictured below.
Scarborough was quick to a rebuttal, tweeting back, “Looks like I picked a good
day to stop responding to Trump's bizarre tweets. He is not well.”
5. Ted Cruz’s Father has Ties to John F. Kennedy’s
Assassin
National
Enquirer, a news source that is arguably unreliable, posted a photo of what
they said was Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael, with Lee Harvey Oswald, the two of
them handing out “pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963.” Cruz’s spokespeople
were quick to point out that the image had no relation to Rafael. Amazingly
enough, there are no Trump tweets about this, but instead, a phone interview
with Fox News. He said, “His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald's
being, you know, shot… What is this, right prior to his being shot, and nobody
even brings it up. They don't even talk about that. That was reported, and
nobody talks about it. I mean, what was he doing — what was he doing with Lee
Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting?” This was the
night before the Indiana primary. After Ted Cruz cited this incident as being
one of the main reasons why he did not endorse Trump, Trump replied, “All I did
is point out the fact that on the cover of the National Enquirer, there’s a
picture of Rafael Cruz and crazy Lee Harvey Oswald having breakfast… I had
nothing to do with it. This was a magazine that frankly in many respects,
should be very respected. They got O.J. They got Edwards. They got this.”
Works Cited
Delkic, Melina. “Trump Suggests Joe Scarborough Murdered His Intern in Florida.” Newsweek, 29 Nov. 2017, www.newsweek.com/trump-suggests-scarborough-murdered- intern-725653.
“Did Donald Trump Claim Global Warming Is a Hoax?” Snopes.com, 31 May 2017, www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-global-warming-hoax/.
Farley, Robert. “Trump Defends Oswald Claim.” FactCheck.org, 26 July 2016, www.factcheck.org/2016/07/trump-defends-oswald-claim/.
Matthews, Dylan. “Donald Trump Has Tweeted Climate Change Skepticism 115 Times. Here's All of It.” Vox, Vox, 1 June 2017, www.vox.com/policy-and- politics/2017/6/1/15726472/trump-tweets-global-warming-paris-climate-agreement.
McCaskill, Nolan D. “Trump Accuses Cruz's Father of Helping JFK's Assassin.” Politico, 3 May 2016, www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and- results/2016/05/trump-ted-cruz-father-222730.
Mirkinson, Jack. “Remember When a Dead Intern Was Found in Joe Scarborough's Office?” Gawker, gawker.com/remember-when-a-dead-intern-was-found-in-joe- scarboroug-1711985081.
Tatum, Sophie, and Jim Acosta. “Report: Trump Continues to Question Obama's Birth Certificate.” CNN, Cable News Network, 30 Nov. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/11/28/politics/donald-trump-barack-obama-birth-certificate- nyt/index.html.
Lopez. “Trump Is Still Reportedly Pushing His Racist ‘Birther’ Conspiracy Theory about Obama.” Vox, Vox, 29 Nov. 2017, www.vox.com/policy-a ndpolitics/2017/11/29/16713664/trump-obama-birth-certificate.
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