Far-right radio show host and Infowars founder Alex Jones advocates a range of preposterous and deplorable conspiracy theories. He doesn’t usually get airtime in the mainstream media.
But NBC News’ Megyn Kelly sat down with him and over the weekend she teased a portion of their conversation, set to be aired next Sunday. She explained the interview as an attempt to “shine a light” on a man whom President Donald Trump has praised but many others know little about.
Many who do know about Jones responded to the clip with fury, reminding Kelly of all the questionable things he’s said over the years.
Here’s a little refresher of just what Jones puts out there:
1. The Sandy Hook Shooting Was A Hoax To Promote Gun Control
“The whole thing was fake,” Jones has claimed. He’s accused the parents of the 20 students who were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 of being actors who pretended to mourn their children’s deaths.
“I looked at all the angles of Newtown. We didn’t even get any of the really important stuff,” he told Kelly.
These parents are angry at his claims, Kelly said.
“They don’t get angry about the half a million dead Iraqis from the sanctions,” he responded.
2. Clinton’s Campaign Team Ran A Sex Ring From A Pizza Parlor
A conspiracy theory claiming that presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff was operating a child sex trafficking ring out of Comet Ping Pong, a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C., made waves last year. The fake news spread to such an extent that a North Carolina man went there with an assault-style rifle in December to investigate the situation for himself. He fired the gun, although no one was hurt.
Jones peddled the Pizzagate theory on his radio show. “Hillary Clinton has personally murdered children,” he said in November. “I just can’t hold back the truth anymore.”
After the shooting, he dissociated himself from the idea and later apologized when Comet Ping Pong’s owner personally asked Infowars to retract some of its statements.
“We were participating in a discussion that was being written about by scores of media outlets, in one of the most hotly contested and disputed political environments our country has ever seen,” Jones wrote in March. “We relied on third party accounts of alleged activities and conduct at the restaurant.”
3. 9/11 Was An ‘Inside Job’
“I mean criminal elements in our government working with Saudi Arabia and others wanted to frame Iraq for it,” he told Kelly. “Just a fact.”
4. The Government Was Responsible For The Oklahoma City Bombing
The 1995 attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, in which 168 people died, was another inside job that U.S. government officials orchestrated, Jones contends.
“They needed to go after the states’ rights movement,” he said in 2011. “They needed to demonize the growing militia movement.”
5. Obama Is A Muslim
President Barack Obama prays facing Mecca five times per day and is a “radical Muslim,” Jones said last year. “Thank God Donald Trump has come out and pointed all of this out.”
The radio host has also claimed that Obama is responsible for the creation of the so-called Islamic State, along with Clinton.
6. ‘Chemical Warfare’ Is Turning People Gay
“The reason there are so many gay people now is because it’s a chemical warfare operation,” Jones said in March. “Folks, it’s making the frogs gay.”
Chemicals and industrial runoff “have estrogen mimickers and you name it,” he added. “It’s changing our sex, killing our sperm count, causing all sorts of deformities.”
7. The NASA Moon Landing Was Fake
“I have sources inside NASA — they put on some fake stuff for you — see, there was a lie,” Jones said. “It’s not just ‘Did we go or didn’t we go.’ You were shown the Tinkertoy stuff because you’re not supposed to see what they really got. You’re not supposed to know the thousands of astronauts that have died. Oh, yeah. In fact, I should do a whole show on that. This is the kind of stuff that will get you killed. I shouldn’t even get into things I know, because I don’t have the absolute proof in front of me ― I just have sources and evidence that backs it up, but I’m digressing.”