RNC speaker pulled from schedule hours after she tweeted anti-Semitic conspiracy thread referring to QAnon
Immigration Reform Advocate Mary Ann Mendoza speaks as U.S. President Donald Trump listens during a veto signing in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, March 15, 2019.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images
One of President Donald Trump’s supporters set to speak at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday was cut from the lineup after she promoted anti-Semitic and QAnon conspiracy theories on Twitter.
The conspiracies, contained in a Twitter thread dozens of tweets long, were shared earlier Tuesday by Mary Ann Mendoza, an “angel mom” and advocate for stricter immigration policies who has previously appeared alongside Trump.
Mendoza was set to appear in a video to praise Trump’s efforts on immigration policy and criticize the record of Democratic nominee Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama.
But Mendoza’s RNC appearance was axed hours after she shared the long thread of conspiracy theories, urging her 40,000-plus Twitter followers in a tweet to “do yourself a favor and read this thread.” Her tweet appears to have been removed.
“We have removed the scheduled video from the convention lineup and it will no longer run this week,” Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said in a statement to CNBC when asked why Mendoza had been removed from the schedule. He did not cite a reason for removing the video.
The thread, which began in May from the unverified account @WarNuse, claimed “‘The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion’ Is Not A Fabrication. And, It Certainly Is Not Anti-Semetic [sic] To Point Out This Fact.”
One of the tweets in the thread also includes the hashtag #QAnon – a reference to the baseless pro-Trump internet conspiracy that imagines the president as being locked in clandestine battle against “deep state” factions of powerful Satanic pedophiles who are plotting against him and his supporters.
Trump, asked about QAnon at the White House last week, said he doesn’t know much about the theory or its followers, but added, “I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate.”
The thread also claimed there are “Unanswered Questions In Regards To The Sinking Of The Titanic” and the 1937 crash of the Hindenburg airship.
Before the RNC speeches began Tuesday evening, Mendoza tweeted, “I retweeted a very long thread earlier without reading every post within the thread. My apologies for not paying attention to the intent of the whole message. That does not reflect my feelings or personal thoughts whatsoever.”
