White House

Trump alleges Biden controlled by people in ‘dark shadows’

“That sounds like a conspiracy theory,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham told him.

President Donald Trump speaks at a news conference at the White House on Aug. 31, 2020.

President Donald Trump alleged unnamed people in “dark shadows” are controlling Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in an interview with Laura Ingraham that aired Monday night on Fox News.

In discussing what he characterized as anarchists and thugs terrorizing American cities, Trump said, “People that you’ve never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows” are pulling the strings of the former vice president.

Ingraham asked the president to elaborate, saying, “That sounds like a conspiracy theory.”

Trump specified: “There are people that are on the streets, there are people that are controlling the streets.”

The president then offered further description of what he characterized as secret plotters, without providing specifics that could allow for the verification of his story.

“We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend. And in the plane, it was almost completely loaded with thugs, wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms, with gear and this and that,” Trump said.

He added: “A lot of the people were on the plane to do big damage.”

Ingraham asked him for further detail. Saying it was under investigation, Trump replied, “I’ll tell you sometime.”

Symone Sanders, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign, dismissed Trump’s allegation Tuesday, telling MSNBC that she did not know what the president was referencing.

“I can only attribute it to President Trump doesn’t have a plan, he doesn’t have a reelection strategy, and he is intent on making up things. He’s flailing,” she said.

Trump also offered theories Monday about unrest in some American cities, alleging, for instance, that “Portland has been burning for many years, for decades it’s been burning” and repeatedly asserting that protesters there wanted to kill Mayor Ted Wheeler.

The claims by the president come after Trump has made increasingly dire warnings about a potential Biden administration in the final months of the general election campaign.

Trump has repeatedly blamed Biden and Democrats for episodes of rioting and looting that have accompanied some of the nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice this summer.

In his acceptance speech during the Republican National Convention last week, Trump contended that “no one will be safe in Biden’s America.”

The November election, he said, “will decide whether we will defend the American way of life or allow a radical movement to completely dismantle and destroy it.”

Trump has used similarly ominous language to describe Biden, declaring last month that the former vice president — a devout Catholic — is “against the Bible” and would “hurt God” if elected.

On Monday, Biden issued his most forceful rebuke yet against Trump’s attempts to cast him as a “puppet” of “radical left” Democrats who would allow the country to descend into lawlessness.

“He keeps telling us if he were president you would feel safe. Well he is president, whether he knows it or not,” Biden said in a speech in Pittsburgh. “Does anyone think there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected?”

Caitlin Oprysko contributed to this report.