March 28, 2024

Vladimir Putin Makes MAGA Cult Swoon


Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Photo: WikiMedia Commons)


His press conference with Trump in Helsinki thrilled the MAGA Cult and gave warm fuzzies to radical right conspiracy theorists.


By Jared Holt / 07.16.2018


Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters at a joint press conference with President Donald Trump today that his government did not interfere with the 2016 general election in the United States and name-dropped billionaire philanthropist George Soros during his denial, thrilling right-wing conspiracy theorists.

When a reporter asked Trump whether he believed Putin, who denies attempting to interfere in American elections, or American intelligence agencies who unanimously agree that Russia did attempt to interfere, Trump responded, in a roundabout way, that he was more inclined to believe Putin.

Putin added to Trump’s response, saying, “The Concord company is being accused of interference but this company does not institute the Russia state, does not represent the Russia state, and I brought several examples before. You have a lot of individuals in the United States—take George Soros, for instance, with multi-billion capitals—but it doesn’t make his position, his posture, the posture of the United States.”

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones took to Infowars shortly after the press conference to excitedly present a video of Putin’s statement:

Anna Khait, a former contestant on the CBS show Survivor who has been welcomed into self-dubbed “New Right” internet circles after she declared herself to be “red pilled,” expressed joy that Putin mentioned Soros. Khait is a conspiracy theorist who affiliates with unabashed conspiracy theorist Liz Crokin and shares some of Crokin’s same beliefs about the alleged existence of a global satanic pedophile ring.

One America News correspondent of “Pizzagate” fame Jack Posobiec declared it was time to investigate George Soros.

Anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer fawned over Putin’s mention of Soros, writing that she was “seriously impressed by his Chutzpah.”

In response to Yahoo News reporter Alexander Nazaryan’s remark that by mentioning Soros during the press conference, Putin had effectively satiated an itch among “the conspiratorial, anti-Semitic fringe in the United States,” Loomer seemed to prove his point by rehashing the debunked conspiracy theory that Soros collaborated with Nazis.

Jim Hoft, the owner of the right-wing blog Gateway Pundit, responded with a declarative, “OMG!”

The moderation team running the Twitter account for “The Donald,” which is Reddit’s most popular pro-Trump forum board, wrote that Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Convention, Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Soros had been “BTFO”—an acronym that stands for the phrase “blown the fuck out”—during the press conference.

Joshua Caplan at Breitbart dedicated a standalone article on the site to Putin’s name-dropping.

Additionally, Putin’s remarks will almost certainly resonate with Religious Right groups like International Organization for the Family, which have worked with the likes of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán to “stop the evil machinations of liberal philanthropist George Soros around the world.”


Originally published by Right Wing Watch, a project of People for the American Way, a program of Open Society Foundations, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license.