InfoWars bulldozed into the national spotlight during the 2016 election, when President Donald Trump phoned into Alex Jones’ radio show during the primaries. Since then, InfoWars videos have been aired during Trump rallies, its articles have been tweeted out by Trump campaign operatives, and White House even linked to an InfoWars article in a press release.
Run by Jones, a far-right radio host and renowned conspiracy theorist, InfoWars was once a niche conspiracy site. Today, it receives roughly 4.8 million unique visitors per month. Unlike far-right news sites such as Breitbart that produce occasional journalism, InfoWars specializes in the blatantly unverifiable, purely speculative, and utterly fictitious. Alarmist headlines warning of the dangers of Sudanese migrants or the NFL’s campaign of cultural marxism complement Jones’ regular (and loud) radio broadcasts.
Here are some of the most inane conspiracy theories pushed on InfoWars, typically by a shouting, boisterous Jones.
13 unbelievable InfoWars conspiracy theories
1) 9/11 was an inside job
Alex Jones is the godfather of the 9/11 truther, laying out his vision for an incident like 9/11 even before the actual attack on the Twin Towers. Back in July 2001, Jones aired a segment of InfoWars that argued that the U.S. government was behind a series of false flag operations, including the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, and the Oklahoma City bombing. Jones even mentioned Osama bin Laden on InfoWars prior to 9/11.
On the day of 9/11, Jones began his broadcast by telling listeners that he was “98 percent sure” that the attack was staged by the U.S. government. Jones went on to film a full-length documentary, 9/11: The Road to Backlash which accused George W. Bush of being an “intimate partner” with Osama bin Laden and argued both could stand to profit from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The resulting backlash from his 9/11 coverage caused Jones to lose most of his radio affiliates and legions of devoted listeners. What he lost, however, he only gained in the following years as public outrage over the wars in the Middle East grew and suspicions over the cause of the attack became more widespread.
2) The U.S. government staged the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting
In the aftermath of the shooting attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando that left 49 dead, Jones posted a YouTube video in which he claimed the U.S. government allowed the attack to happen so it could gain support for gun restriction laws. He also claimed the attack was a consequence of Muslim immigration, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the Orlando shooter was a U.S. citizen.
“Our government and the governments of Europe allowed these huge hoards of radical jihadis in, and even allowed them in without vetting them on record, landing in airports and not even checking their passports, IDs or visas,” Jones said in the video.
3) Sandy Hook never happened
Jones not only believes that the U.S. government was behind the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, he thinks it was a staged event with child actors. HIs listeners went as far as to harass the parents and family of Sandy Hook victims, accusing them of participating in a hoax.
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4) The Air Force is creating tornadoes in the Midwest
Jones believes that the U.S. government has the power to create tornadoes and floods to use as weapons against the public. Following a 2013 Oklahoma tornado, Jones said on his show that the government could create and steer tornadoes.
“Of course there’s weather weapon stuff going on—we had floods in Texas like 15 years ago, killed 30-something people in one night. Turned out it was the Air Force,” said Jones.
5) FBI was behind Boston bombing
Jones claimed that the FBI planned the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three in order to expand the power of the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security. After news of the bombing broke, Jones quickly took to Twitter to spread his unlikely theory.
6) Antonin Scalia was murdered
The death of renowned conservative Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia in 2016 lead to speculation among conspiracy theorists over whether his death was a liberal plot to appoint one of their own on the esteemed court. Jones posted a Facebook video where he said all evidence pointed to Scalia’s cause of death being murder.
“I wish it was natural causes,” Jones said of Scalia’s death. “But my gut tells me no. If this is an assassination, it signifies that they’re dropping the hammer. That’s the canary in the coal mine.”
7) Barack Obama is the global head of Al Qaeda
Jones insists that the terrorist group known as Al Qaeda was created by western intelligence and calls it one of the “greatest ongoing hoaxes in world history.” He points to the Obama administration’s funding and training of Syrian rebels that went on to secretly collude with Al-Qaeda as evidence that Barack Obama is bankrolling terrorist groups all over the world.
“[I]t’s important to note that President Barack Obama himself is nothing more than a global crime syndicate mercenary front man for criminal interests that have seized control of the national security apparatus,” Jones wrote.
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8) The U.S. government is using juice boxes to “make children gay”
Jones is deeply paranoid about the chemicals in our water and food. He’s convinced that the government is injecting harmful substances into everything Americans eat and drink.
“There’s so many gay people now—that’s because it’s a chemical warfare operation,” Jones said on a segment of InfoWars. “I have the government documents where they said they’re going to encourage homosexuality with chemicals so that people don’t have children.”
9) The “New World Order” of global elites is planning to euthanize most of the world’s population
As far as Jones is concerned, the “global elite” have a master plan to exterminate 80 percent of the world’s population, which will enable them to live forever with advanced technology. Jones’ obsession with this so-called “New World Order” of globalists spurned a full-length documentary, Operation ENDGAME, in which he chronicles the rise of the Bilderberg Group, a conference of roughly 150 global elites chaired by the Prince of Norway. Jones claims they have documented plans to take over the world through a “one world” government.
10) The Clintons are running a child sex ring out of a pizza restaurant
Jones frequently calls out his targets for being secret pedophiles. The internet rumor that Comet Ping Pong, a popular pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C., was the site of a child sex ring run by top Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Clinton campaign chairman James Podesta, was too good for Jones to pass up. Jones devoted numerous broadcasts to the Pizzagate theory, which lead to Comet Ping Pong gaining national attention and sparking numerous protests calling out the local restaurant for its alleged illicit practices.
When a gunman enraged by the Pizzagate rumors paid a visit to the restaurant in 2016, Jones and his legions of Pizzagate truthers faced public outrage. The resulting backlash prompted Jones to issue a very rare apology.
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11) Glenn Beck is a CIA operative
Jones has a long-running feud with conservative pundit Glenn Beck, who he accuses of stealing his ideas and claims is a secret CIA operative. Jones claims that Beck isn’t a real conservative, and his attacks of Obama and other Democrats are orchestrated by the CIA and the FBI.
“The guy is the government. Glenn Beck is the government,” said Jones on one segment of InfoWars.
Jones also insists that Beck’s staff is filled with former CIA and FBI agents, pointing to Buck Sexton, a former CIA intelligence agent who served as national security editor of the Blaze, Beck’s news site.
12) Trump’s national security advisor, H.R. McMaster, is an operative of George Soros
Conservative punching bag and Trump national security advisor H.R. McMaster is also a favorite target of Jones. Jones claimed that McMaster is on George Soros’ payroll and is “a big globalist”. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when McMaster fired Rich Higgins, the National Security Council staffer who authored an Islamophobic White House memo, as well as two other Flynn hires. Along with other alt-right media sites such as Breitbart, InfoWars helped spread the #FireMcMaster hashtag on Twitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2TFtKY20Xs
13) Donald Trump is on drugs
Not even ally Donald Trump is safe from Jones’ web of insidious lies and speculation. Jones said that “high-level sources” told him that globalists are lacing the president’s Diet Cokes with a slow sedative that is accelerating his mental decline.
“I talk to people who talk to the president now at nine at night. He is slurring his words,” said Jones.
Editor’s note: This article is regularly updated for relevance.
