Truthers in the briefing room? Alex Jones claims Infowars has been offered White House credentials

Donald Trump has long been cozy with the notorious conspiracy theorist, and now it seems to be paying off

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published January 26, 2017 3:05PM (EST)

 (Reuters/Lucas Jackson)
(Reuters/Lucas Jackson)

Alex Jones, the oft-discredited conspiracy theorist who runs the popular website Infowars, is claiming that he has White House press credentials from the Trump administration.

"He keeps saying CNN is fake, and I'm not going to any of your fake news," Jones said during an monologue on Wednesday.

What's CNN doing in the front row, when [White House press secretary Sean] Spicer keeps going to them? And then the reporter yesterday goes, "Oh, maybe Trump wasn’t even elected. That’s why you say there’s fraud." So they're like little kids up there. These aren't real journalists. Meanwhile, it's just crazy, you should see Breitbart and Drudge, and also just reporters that are known to tell the truth from mainstream, whatever, promoted and put up at the front of those briefings, to bring up real questions, not just a battle where they're just attacking with fricking lies. . .

Here's the deal, I know I get White House credentials, we've already been offered them, we're going to get them, but I've just got to spend the money to send somebody there. I want to make sure it's even worth it. I don't want to just sit there up there like 'm in the media, look our people are there.' People don't understand this paradigm, we're devolving in a good way, power from the federal government back to the people, back from the centralized MSM [mainstream media] to the people, just like Trump said in his speech.

Trump and Jones have a relationship going back a long time. Despite being notorious for claiming that major American tragedies were actually part of sinister government-orchestrated conspiracies — including the Oklahoma City bombings, the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Sandy Hook elementary school shootings and the Boston Marathon bombing — Trump has appeared on Jones' show, even saying, "Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down."

Trump has also adopted many of Jones' own beliefs when they're politically convenient for him, such as his current claim that he would have won the popular vote had it not been for undocumented immigrants.

UPDATE (12:00 PM): A White House Deputy Press Secretary has told BuzzFeed News that Jones "is not credentialed for the White House."

 


By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

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