In an examination of how Donald Trump went from self-promoting New York city developer to reality show star to the Oval Office, the Washington Post's Phillip Bump documented 19 separate conspiracy theories the president has either embraced or pushed into the news cycle that helped not only fuel his rise, but have kept his supporters in his corner despite evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
As Bump notes, at best some of the theories Trump has taken to the heart, remain unproven, while others are complete fabrications that appeal to a public eager to latch onto fictitious stories that validate their worldview.
According to the report, "This is someone, after all, who spent decades selling real estate in New York City, an enterprise that is not generally known for its dedicated commitment to accuracy. If you need to tweak the truth to make the sale, well, you wouldn’t be the first person to do so. The differences between that and what Trump often does as president are ones of scale and import."
"With his theories about Ukraine becoming suddenly central to the viability of his presidency (thanks to the House impeachment inquiry), we were curious if he’d ever embraced a conspiracy theory that actually turned out to be true," Bump writes before defining his terms.
"Some definitions are probably useful. “Conspiracy theory” is generally a pejorative term, applied to something for which there isn’t any evidence. But conspiracy theories aren’t necessarily wrong; they only necessarily involve conspiracies.," he wrote. "That’s an important consideration when evaluating claims by Trump, which are often misrepresentations or lies."
With that in mind, here is a sampling of the most egregious of Trump's attempts at recasting reality that he has used to his political advantage.
Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States
Trump was a promoted of so-called "birtherism" which was used as a cudgel to delegitimize the Obama presidency, once saying on Good Morning America, "The reason I have a little doubt — just a little! — is because he grew up and nobody knew him. When you interview people — if I ever got the nomination, if I ever decide to run — you may go back and interview people from my kindergarten, they’ll remember me. Nobody ever comes forward. Nobody knows who he is until later in his life. Very strange. The whole thing is very strange.”
Vaccines are related to autism
Trump dipped his toe into anti-science conspiracy-mongering in June 2015, by stating, in a tweet: "Lots of autism and vaccine response. Stop these massive doses immediately. Go back to single, spread out shots! What do we have to lose.”
The Centers for Disease Control begs to differ, stating "There is no link between vaccines and autism."
Immigrants bring higher crime to the U.S.
Long a staple at Trump's MAGA rallies, the Post reports, "It took less than 24 hours for Trump’s insistence that immigrants from Mexico brought crime to the U.S. to be disproved. Immigrants, as you’ve likely heard by now, are less like to commit crime than native-born Americans. It’s similarly unfounded to claim that immigrants who come to the United States illegally are more likely to engage in criminal activity."
Trump saw a television broadcast of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating on Sept. 11
While the president has insisted, "I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering. So something’s going on," no video appears to exist.
Foul play might have been involved in the death of Justice Antonin Scalia
In a radio interview, the president asserted, "They’re saying they found the pillow on his face, which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow.”
With Bump stating there didn't seem to be any political reason for Trump behind the claim, he also noted that no such evidence existed and that the story went nowhere except among the most hardcore conspiracy kooks.
Ted Cruz’s father was linked to the Kennedy assassination
In an interview on the Today show before he nailed down the GOP nomination, Trump took an oddball shot at Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) who was competing with him to head the Republican ticket.
“I just asked about stories that were appearing all over the place, not just in the National Enquirer, about the fact that a picture was taken of him and Lee Harvey Oswald. They didn’t deny that picture. And I just asked, what was that all about?” Trump suggested, with the Post pointing out the" baffling" claim was given a boost by the National Enquirer that was later revealed to be in Trump's corner by helping to spike stories that could have crippled Trump's campaign.
Ukraine was somehow involved in 2016 hacks targeting Trump’s opponents
This is currently an ongoing Trump conspiracy theory that has the president's supporters have turned onto as their central argument while trying to deflect from the president's real scandal of attempting to bribe Ukraine's president using military aid as a condition for dirt on political opponents.
As the Post points out, "This particularly theory, that Ukraine had a hand in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee in 2016, is obviously unfounded. Trump’s been raising it for years and, as we noted earlier, even brought it up with Ukraine’s president. But there’s simply no evidence that Ukraine-the-country or even any Ukrainians in particular had any role in the hack or in investigations into that hacking."
Wind turbines cause cancer
“If you — if you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations your house just went down 75 percent in value. And they say the noise causes cancer," he claimed in a speech in 2019.
Bump made short work of Trump's claim by writing: "The claim that the noise of turbines causes cancer is not only unproven, it’s fairly obviously ridiculous."
You can read the whole list here.
