Pizzagate conspiracy theorist thanks Trump for the retweet, brags about his appearance on network Trump touted

A far-right troll who heavily pushed the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory told The Boston Globe in an interview published August 29 that President Donald Trump’s retweet of him earlier this month was “almost like an endorsement.” According to NBC News, Trump has previously said that “he 'retweets for a reason and 'to a certain extent' his retweets are endorsements.” The conspiracy theorist, Jack Posobiec, also recently pushed an interview he did with One America News Network (OANN) after Trump praised the network at a joint press conference on August 28. At the news conference, Trump said to an OANN reporter, “I want to congratulate you on the network, it's a great network.” Later that evening, Posobiec tweeted a link to an interview he did with OANN in which he and the host discussed whether the “deep state” was “preventing the Trump administration from moving forward with [Trump’s] agenda,” continued the far-right attacks on national security adviser H.R. McMaster, and alleged that former President Barack Obama has a “shadow presidency.” OANN has previously pushed conspiracy theories that suggest the Clintons were behind the deaths of multiple individuals, including former Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, a GOP operative, and a former Haitian government official. From the August 24 edition of One America News Network’s The Daily Ledger:

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STEPHANIE HAMILL (HOST): The president is also promising to continue working with the American Legion to overhaul the [Veterans Affairs’] outdated systems. It's another major victory for the Trump administration, but these types of victories are difficult for team Trump, as deep state actors are working overtime to undermine his pro-growth, America First agenda. Joining me now from our bureau in Washington, D.C., conservative activist and author of the new book Citizens For Trump: The Inside Story Of The People's Movement To Take Back America, Jack Posobiec. Jack, there are real questions about whether or not the deep state is actually a thing. Now the deep state would be people in government that are secretly manipulating the things that are happening or have some sort of control over government policy. Now this is an issue that you've been following closely, so, in your words, explain to us what the deep state is and how it's preventing the Trump administration from moving forward with his agenda?

JACK POSOBIEC: Thanks so much for having me on again, Stephanie. And the deep state is something I've absolutely been studying a lot. Myself, a lot of people have been out there on this. Roger Stone, Mike Cernovich. One of the key things that we're seeing now is I've had people tell me as many as 80 percent of the staff of this current White House was in the White House under George W. Bush. They're pushing the same types of policies, the same type of sort of neoconservative line that we saw, especially in terms of national security and especially in terms of foreign policy, that we saw under Hillary Clinton, that we saw under Mitt Romney, and that we saw under George W. Bush. This same sort of pro-interventionist, globalist, if you will, in an inspiration, this type of ideology of looking at the world from what's good from an international perspective rather than America First. And a lot of people are pointing fingers at none other than the national security adviser to the president, Mr. H.R. McMaster.

HAMILL: Yeah, there is a lot of focus on H.R. McMaster. And there's even a website exposing who he is and some of the things that he supports. It's called, and this was put together by Mike Cernovich, who you mentioned. And on the website, they highlight his refusal to get rid of Obama holdovers, the fact that he's been insulting President Trump in front of foreign leaders, and his effort to get rid of Trump loyalists, which is probably one of the most alarming things is the amount of people that have been booted out of the White House that actually support Donald Trump's agenda.

POSOBIEC: That's right. For example, Mr. Rich Higgins, who's an Army veteran, he was kicked out after writing a memo talking about the problems of radical Islamic terrorism not only abroad but here at home within the United States. He wrote a memo about this. This guy was working in strategic policy, so he wrote a memo about radical Islamic terrorism, but H.R. McMaster came around and said we're not supposed to say “radical Islamic terrorism. That's not a helpful phrase. That was the quote. So because of this, because of this memo, because of Mr. Higgins simply thinking strategically about what threats there are that the United States faces abroad and at home -- he labeled one of those out to be radical Islamic terrorism -- he was fired. The president didn't even know about this. This was done without the president's knowledge. Other people were fired. Ezra [Cohen-Watnick], Derek Harvey, they were let go from the White House without even the approval or acknowledgment of the president. This was done wholly without regard because of their pro-Trump, pro-America First values. And these are the same type of values, Stephanie, that the president himself outlined on the campaign trail. Those sort of anti-war, anti-interventionist measures that he promised he would take when he enacted office in the White House. Now we're seeing more of that. We saw this Afghanistan speech that was given on Monday night, and a lot of people saying that that was a speech that was written by “Washington, D.C.,” the deep state itself, yet delivered to us by President Trump.

HAMILL: Interesting. And there are calls for H.R. McMaster to be fired, mostly from the right. And we have the left that's coming in to defend him. And I think there are many reasons for that. Now, when Trump -- he's actually described H.R. McMaster as “highly respected by everyone in the military,” that he's “honored to have him,” and that he has “deep combat experience.” So he has a great work record, I believe, but then you have to look deep, and what some of the things that he represents. And he is one of the biggest advocates for the Iran nuke deal that is totally against everything that our country stands for. This is going to give Iran the pathway to a nuclear weapon. It puts us at risk. I mean, this is happening in North Korea, which was the deal in the 1990s, so it's history repeating itself. And if you look at McMaster and the dealings that he's had with Iran, he was working for a corporation that was taking in millions and millions of dollars from Iran.

POSOBIEC: Exactly. So why are there these ties from H.R. McMaster, our national security adviser, to these large global organizations? These organizations many say have ties to George Soros. Many times that he's given endorsements to different writings that were by people on radical Islamic terrorism itself, or Islamic extremism. But views that don't seem to align with the President Trump, or the Donald Trump, I should say, that we saw on the campaign trail. It's much more that Washington, D.C., insider view that's now penetrating the White House and is now coloring the way that our White House is looking at things. We also heard news today -- Politico and Axios reporting that they are now going to be “filtering” any documents that President Trump sees on his desk. So any documents that come to him from news, they are going to be, quote, unquote, “filtering out” anything they see as an alternative narrative to what they're trying to push. So I wonder, does that includes places like OAN, places like things that I'm writing, stuff that would go out that would be counter narrative to this stuff, because again, they are trying to filter what our president sees and because they want to force his hand and only present him options that are seen from one side, one worldview. H.R. McMaster, he's a three-star active U.S. general. He has served our country admirably, he's an American patriot and an American hero. That being said, he has a certain worldview that needs to be acknowledged. A way that he looks at the world that is different.

HAMILL: Absolutely. And I never got to your reaction to [White House chief strategist] Steve Bannon's resignation. He played a very important role at the White House, and a lot of conservatives are concerned that he's gone. And there was a war between H.R. McMaster and Steve Bannon and it looks like Bannon lost the war. So now people are wondering if the deep state has won because of this.

POSOBIEC: I think that there was definitely -- what I would say -- Steve Bannon leaving the White House is more of a strategic withdrawal than a victory for McMaster because what he's doing now is that he's coming out and going on the political warpath. There are going to be more exposés, more operations, more information coming out on who exactly these people are that are being put into the White House. Who are these staff that have been hired that have nothing to do with the Trump campaign, nothing to do with the America First agenda? So with Steve Bannon outside of the White House, I believe his quote is that “Bannon the Barbarian is back,” and from what I've heard, he's now taking meetings, he's now putting together operations, he's going to be doing just that. And we're going to be seeing a lot coming out in the coming days, weeks, and months regarding this operation, because what we're seeing now, Stephanie, is it's not so much specific White House policies, it's information. What information is out there that's allowing the president to make or change any decision that he's making within the White House? And with Bannon outside, he may have the ability to provide better information to what's going on.

HAMILL: Yeah and also there's a lot of things that we didn't get to, which was the fact that McMaster had given [former national security adviser] Susan Rice a security clearance after they found out the illegal spying that was going on. So there's a reason why he's keeping these people around, getting rid of these Trump loyalists, and there's a reason for that. And you're right, there is a war as well, and that's the war with the media. They have the media in their hands. And so when they're leaking all of this classified information, that information is coming from somewhere. And some of the people are blaming McMaster for these leaks.

POSOBIEC: Yeah, some people have said that the reason that he kept Susan Rice, who's been accused of unmasking names such as [former national security adviser] Gen. [Michael] Flynn to the press while leaking classified information. They're saying, “Oh, he only gave her her clearance so that she could testify.” Well, why hasn't she testified then? Why haven't we seen her ask those questions? Why hasn't that come out? Also, these holdovers from Barack Obama, these people that he's holding over. These aren't just people who had regular staff jobs. These were people who were called direct reports, so directly reporting to Ben Rhodes, the Obama national security adviser, people that he had put in place, people that are potentially still in connection with Ben Rhodes. We've heard Barack Obama establishing what he calls a “shadow presidency,” what many call a “shadow presidency,” meeting with world leaders. Now we find that his people are still on the National Security Council. And if H.R. McMaster is truly the one that's letting this all happen while kicking out Trump loyalists, I think there's a lot of questions that I'd love for him to get to answer. I actually asked McMaster once at the White House point blank about the Saudi nuclear deal that he was trying to push. Didn't even answer me. Wouldn't even -- looked at me right in the eye, saw my question, heard my question, wouldn't even give me a straight answer, yes or no, Stephanie.