President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he “appreciates” that supporters of QAnon, the far-right conspiracy movement, “like me very much.”
“I don’t know much about the movement, other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate,” he told a reporter in response to a question about QAnon. “I have heard that it is gaining in popularity … I’ve heard these are people that love our country.”
Supporters of QAnon, which has been identified by the FBI as a potential domestic terrorism threat, believe that an individual dubbed “Q” has been leaving “breadcrumbs” of information online about Trump and others.
Among the baseless conspiracy theories touted by QAnon followers — some of whom have been implicated in multiple crimes in recent years, including armed standoffs, kidnappings and murder — include the claim that Trump has been working to dismantle a “deep state” cabal of liberal and Hollywood elites who traffic children and worship Satan.
When asked directly by a reporter about this claim — that Trump is “secretly saving the world” from a “Satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals,” the president wondered aloud as to whether that was a “bad thing or a good thing.”
“I haven’t heard that, but is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing?” he said. “If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it.”
A Twitter account associated with the Democratic National Convention, underway this week, condemned Trump’s remarks.
“Trump is flirting with the dangerous and unhinged QAnon conspiracy theory,” DNC War Room said in a post.