Biden tells QAnon followers to seek mental health counseling before the Affordable Care Act is repealed
Joe Biden offered some advice to the followers of QAnon, the loose-knit band of believers in the conspiracy theory that holds that the so-called “deep state” is out to get President Trump: Get help.
At a press conference in Wilmington, Del., where Biden, in unusually forceful and emotional terms, denounced Trump over his reported disparagement of U.S. service members killed in combat as “losers,” the former vice president was asked about Trump’s relationship to QAnon followers.
“I’ve been a big supporter of mental health. I’d recommend people who believe it should take advantage of it while it still exists under the Affordable Care Act,” Biden said drily. “It’s bizarre, totally bizarre.”
QAnon embraces the idea that a worldwide cabal of elites has engaged for years in trafficking children for sex and cannibalism, and that Trump is trying to expose them.
Trump has at times retweeted posts by QAnon followers. He has endorsed at least one Republican congressional candidate who is publicly aligned with the movement, and when asked directly about the group said he appreciates their support of him.
“This can’t go on,” Biden said about QAnon. “It’s a deconstruction of a democratic system. They know it. ... The words of a president matter, even a lousy president. It gives succor, it gives encouragement to people who are spouting irrational views that no one has come even close to ever presuming or showing even existed.”
Trump has not been specifically asked, or expressed a view, on whether the supposed conspiracy of pedophiles and cannibals actually exists, and as far as is known his administration has not launched any investigations or made any arrests in connection with it.
But he has dabbled in conspiracy theories himself, as recently as Monday, in an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, when he opined that “people that you’ve never heard of” are controlling Biden. “People that are in the dark shadows.”
“What does that mean?” Ingraham asked. “That sounds like conspiracy theory.”
“No,” Trump responded. “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 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. They’re on a plane.”
Biden referenced those comments Friday.
“Have you guys found that planeload of people in uniforms and weapons flying around? Have you found them yet? ... What in God’s name are we doing?
“Look at how it makes us look around the world. It’s mortifying. It’s embarrassing and it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous. If the president doesn’t know better, which he has to know better, then, my Lord, we’re in much more trouble than I ever thought we were. It’s bizarre.”
Friday’s press conference marked the third straight day that Biden went on the attack against Trump while campaigning. During a visit to Kenosha, Wis., on Thursday, he said Trump’s rhetoric “legitimizes the dark side of human nature.” He turned up the volume on his attacks on Trump in Wilmington, specifically in reference to a claim made in the Atlantic magazine that Trump had referred to fallen U.S. soldiers as “losers” and “suckers.”
“When my son was an assistant U.S. attorney and he volunteered to go to Kosovo while the war was going on, as a civilian, he wasn’t a sucker. When my son volunteered and joined the United States military as the attorney general [of Delaware] and went to Iraq for a year, won the Bronze Star and other commendations, he wasn’t a sucker.”
Trump has vehemently denied the claims in the Atlantic article.
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