Trump says Biden is controlled by ‘people in dark shadows’ and compares police violence to golf

Vague conspiracy theory revolved around ‘people you’ve never even heard of’

Donald Trump used a by-turns bizarre and inflammatory interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Monday to repeat numerous falsehoods – and to push a vague conspiracy theory about shadowy people supposedly pulling Joe Biden’s strings.

In a discussion about Joe Biden, Mr Trump claimed that his opponent was under someone else’s thumb. “He’s not controlling anything,” said the president.

“Who do you think is pulling Biden’s strings?” Asked Ms Ingraham. “Is it former Obama officials?”

Mr Trump declined to elaborate. “People that you’ve never heard of. People that are in the dark shadows. People that are…”

Ms Ingraham pressed him for further details: “What does that mean? That sounds like conspiracy theory, dark shadows, what is that?”

“People that you haven’t heard of. They’re people that are on the streets, they’re people that are controlling the streets. We had someone 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, with black uniforms, with gear and this and that. They’re on a plane.”

“Where is this?” Ms Ingraham asked.

“I’ll tell you sometime, but it’s under investigation right now,” Mr Trump hinted. “But they came from a certain city, and this person was coming to the Republican National Convention, and there were like seven people on the plane like this person, and there were a lot of people were on the plane to do big damage.”

He then suggested that riots and Black Lives Matter protests were being funded by “some very stupid rich people” who do not realise that “if their thing succeeded, which it won’t, they will be thrown to the wolves”.

The conspiracy theory as expounded by Mr Trump tracks closely with a range of viral posts from this summer that warned of planes and buses full of “antifa” descending on American cities to attack their residents.

The misinformation posts have been chronicled by Marty Kelley, who has covered far-right groups for online magazine Wonkette under the name Doktor Zoom.

There is no evidence of planeloads of left-wing “thugs” organised by Joe Biden’s alleged puppetmasters flying to American cities to burn them down and wreak havoc.

Mr Trump’s dark vision appears to echo QAnon, a sprawling conspiracy theory movement whose followers believe in a shadowy, powerful cabal whose members – said to include everyone from Hillary Clinton to Oprah Winfrey – have for decades been trafficking in children to sexually abuse them and harvest chemicals from their brains.

This cabal is said to control the American “deep state”, with which Donald Trump is locked in secret combat. Mr Trump has not endorsed the theory, but when asked about it at a recent White House press conference he said he liked its followers to the extent they supported him.

The Ingraham interview as a whole has been received by the president’s critics as another in a series of disastrous sit-downs with usually sympathetic Fox News hosts who have given him space to expound at length on slippery, false or insubstantial claims.

Fletcher School professor Daniel W. Drezner compared Mr Trump to his opponent. "So to wrap up today: 1) Biden gave a good speech on social unrest; 2) Trump sounded like a crazy person on national television." And leading QAnon-watcher Travis View wrote that the president is "a hairsbreadth away from just pushing Illumanti, Freemasonry, and Rothschild conspiracy theories".

At one point in the interview, Ms Ingraham – a dogged Trump supporter who takes a harsh law-and-order line on the Black Lives Matter protests that have seen rioting and violence between both protesters and police – raised the issue of danger to police officers.

Mr Trump said the police are “under siege”, then compared police shootings of black Americans to “choking” on the putting green.

“They can do 10,000 great acts, which is what they do. And one bad apple, or a choker – you know, a choker, they choke …

“Just like in a golf tournament, they miss a three-foot putt.”

Ms Ingraham intervened. “You’re not comparing it to golf, because that’s what the media will say.”

“I’m saying people choke, people choke. Bad people are bad people. You have some bad people, and they choke!”