“Who is funding these protestors?”: Gabbard, Trump spread conspiracy theory about paid demonstrators

Anyone who has been to a Donald Trump rally can attest that the president loves playing the hits. He’s trotting out a golden oldie of MAGA conspiracists to wave away the ongoing protests in Los Angeles: the demonstrators were paid to b there.

Both Trump and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard spread the theory that Los Angeles protestors were paid actors while speaking to the press on Wednesday. Trump, attending a performance of “Les Miserables” at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., floated the fringe belief on the red carpet.

“These are radical left lunatics that you’re dealing with,” he said. “They’re tough. They’re smart. They’re probably paid many of them. As you know, they’re professionals.”

Gabbard echoed that idea on Fox News, telling host Jesse Watters that Trump admin will be investigating the boogeyman that far-right pundits have made up.

“This is something that the Department of Justice and the FBI are looking into. Who is funding these protestors?” she said. “We’ve seen the ads put up on Craigslist offering people thousands of dollars a week to go out and conduct these violent and dangerous riots.”

The paid protestor theory has drifted from the antisemitic fringes of the right, where it took the form of specific allegations against billionaire and Democratic Party donor George Soros. It’s since become a common complaint under the GOP’s big tent for nativists of all stripes.

Even four years after thousands of Republican supporters stormed the Capitol on nothing more than a mistaken belief in a rigged election, GOP voters and politicians can’t imagine an organic response to ICE raids in Los Angeles (which has the benefit of being something that is actually happening).

That Republicans have themselves been caught paying actors to appear at GOP events has done little to stop the conspiracy-mongering. And that Craigslist ad mentioned by Gabbard? It was a prank posted by a podcaster who goes by the name “Goofcon1.”

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