Trump’s speech at Fort Bragg contained lies and conspiracy theories about LA
In his deeply partisan speech at Fort Bragg, Trump made the baseless claim that the protests against immigration raids in LA are being led by paid “rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion”.
The comments echoed accusations by top Trump adviser and speechwriter Stephen Miller, who on Sunday wrote on social media that “foreign nationals, waving foreign flags” were “rioting”, and an unfounded allegation by Kristi Noem, Donald Trump’s homeland security secretary, who earlier this week accused the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, of “encouraging violent protests”.
Sheinbaum on Tuesday said the allegation is “absolutely false”.
Some protesters in recent days have waved the flags of Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador – as well as flags that combine the banners of those nations with the US flag – in a show of ethnic pride and solidarity with immigrants in their community now targeted by immigration officials.
Trump also referenced a viral conspiracy theory that pallets of bricks were left out for protesters to hurl at police officers in LA. “They came in with bricks,” Trump said.
This claim was made repeatedly in 2020, during the Black Lives Matter protests that followed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
In June 2020, the week after Floyd was murdered, the Trump White House boosted the viral conspiracy theory by releasing a compilation of video clips posted on social media by people who believed, wrongly, that piles of bricks they came across had been planted there by “Antifa and professional anarchists” to inspire violence at protests.
Trump also claimed California’s Democratic elected officials paid protesters to attack federal officers, something for which there is no evidence at all.
“In Los Angeles, the governor of California, the mayor of Los Angeles, they’re incompetent and they paid troublemakers, agitators and insurrectionists. They’re engaged in this willful attempt to nullify federal law, and aid the occupation of the city by criminal invaders,” the president said without reference to reality.
That conspiracy theory was later repeated as fact in a social media post from the Department of Homeland Security with the text: “California politicians must call off their rioting mob.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...fort-bragg
In his deeply partisan speech at Fort Bragg, Trump made the baseless claim that the protests against immigration raids in LA are being led by paid “rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion”.
The comments echoed accusations by top Trump adviser and speechwriter Stephen Miller, who on Sunday wrote on social media that “foreign nationals, waving foreign flags” were “rioting”, and an unfounded allegation by Kristi Noem, Donald Trump’s homeland security secretary, who earlier this week accused the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, of “encouraging violent protests”.
Sheinbaum on Tuesday said the allegation is “absolutely false”.
Some protesters in recent days have waved the flags of Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador – as well as flags that combine the banners of those nations with the US flag – in a show of ethnic pride and solidarity with immigrants in their community now targeted by immigration officials.
Trump also referenced a viral conspiracy theory that pallets of bricks were left out for protesters to hurl at police officers in LA. “They came in with bricks,” Trump said.
This claim was made repeatedly in 2020, during the Black Lives Matter protests that followed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
In June 2020, the week after Floyd was murdered, the Trump White House boosted the viral conspiracy theory by releasing a compilation of video clips posted on social media by people who believed, wrongly, that piles of bricks they came across had been planted there by “Antifa and professional anarchists” to inspire violence at protests.
Trump also claimed California’s Democratic elected officials paid protesters to attack federal officers, something for which there is no evidence at all.
“In Los Angeles, the governor of California, the mayor of Los Angeles, they’re incompetent and they paid troublemakers, agitators and insurrectionists. They’re engaged in this willful attempt to nullify federal law, and aid the occupation of the city by criminal invaders,” the president said without reference to reality.
That conspiracy theory was later repeated as fact in a social media post from the Department of Homeland Security with the text: “California politicians must call off their rioting mob.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...fort-bragg
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
