President Donald Trump doesn't know much about QAnon because there are more important things to focus on, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Sunday.
Trump last week declined to condemn supporters of QAnon, the baseless far right conspiracy theorists who allege the president is secretly fighting an underground child sex ring, among other things. The president has portrayed QAnon supporters as patriotic Americans concerned with law and order, though the FBI has labeled QAnon a potential domestic terrorist threat.
“I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand that they like me very much, which I appreciate,” Trump said during a news briefing at the White House.
On "Fox News Sunday," Meadows seconded Trump's claim of lacking information on QAnon, saying, "We don't even know what it is." And he pushed back against media coverage of the group, arguing there are more pressing issues to focus on.
"I find it appalling that the media when we have all of the important things going on, a list of Top 20s, that the first question at a press briefing would be about QAnon, which I had to actually Google to figure out what it is," Meadows said. "It's not an essential part of what the president is talking about. I don't know anything about it — I don't even know that it's credible."
"If you want to talk about conspiracies, let's get back to talking about how the FBI and others within the FBI spied on the Trump campaign. I'll be glad to speak about that," Meadows said.
Fox News host' Chris Wallace pushed back, saying QAnon is "a hate group."
"If it's a hate group, I can tell you that this president is not for hate," Meadows responded. "So, I can tell you that if it's a hate group that is there, let's look at domestic terrorism and look at antifa and a number of other areas, and quit spending time on something that 81 percent of Republicans don't even know what you're talking about."
Several open supporters of QAnon have won Republican primaries, including Laura Loomer in Florida, who Trump congratulated on Twitter. Other Republicans have denounced the followers, including Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.
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