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tv   CNN Special Report  CNN  July 24, 2020 8:00pm-9:00pm PDT

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the following is a cnn special report. >> it's one of the greatest coos of all time. they're spying on me. fighting the deep state. it's a conspiracy, against you the american people and we cannot let this happen. why does the president of the united states of america live in a world of dark, sinister conspiracies? >> he graff stating instinctively to conspiracy theories of the world. >> the world makes sense if you look behind the curtain.
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>> it could be a plot. >> lurking behind the curtain, he sees terrible things. >> joe biden and his son are corrupt. >> hillary clinton, she is a world class liar. >> he sees a plot to steal an election. >> voter fraud, voter fraud. here's the evidence. >> the whole election is being rigged. >> it's a lie. >> and it's dangerous. >> a burn it down strategy. that does not defeat the opponent, it damages democracy. >> covid-19 is a hoax. >> trump has conspiracy theory allies. >> obama and hillary smell like sulfur. >> it's totally nuts. >> even crazier, the conspiracies of trump fans. >> trump is a hero being thwarted by a ring of pedophiles
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and child traffickers. >> how did we get here? >> it's the first time in our history that a conspirasicst holds the highest office in the land. >> a democracy that will soon elect a president. >> this is the first time that i can remember, having a fear or anxiety that a sitting president, if he loses a free and fair election, won't leave. ♪ >> good evening, i'm fareed zakaria, let me begin with a confession, this is not the kind of topic that i usually tackle. and i concerned about repeating false information. but the subject is urgent because the conspiracy theories circulating now are dangerous and the president of the united
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states is trafficking in them. when donald trump tells us that elections are rigged and obama gate is the biggest scandal in history. some know that the ideas are wholly false and others are less certain. especially when they hear a story full of details that seems to explain everything. polls show that at least 50% of americans have believed one of the conspiracy theories. it's a story of how destructive they have become. not just to the people they target. but to the foundations of the democracy. >> why doesn't he give his birth certificate? >> donald trump's rise to power began with the conspiracy theory. >> his relatives don't know which hospital he was born in. >> as he tested the waters to run for the white house. >> people have birth certificates. he doesn't have a birth certificate. if he doesn't, it's one of the greatest scams in the history of politics. >> trump pedalled birtherism.
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like a traveling salesman. >> he was born in hawaii, why are you going through this? >> a lot of people don't think it was an authentic certificate. >> how can you say it -- >> it was a political windfall. >> 55% of the republicans believe in the issue. >> he rode it in to the white house. >> he has brilliant instincts and brilliant intuitions. >> it's time to -- >> donald trump understood how the tap in to an ugly racial under current. the idea of whether he was born in the united states, that's a metaphor, it's is he one of us? answer, no. >> with the birtherism conspiracy theory, donald trump could send a racist message without saying the race part out loud. >> your country was stolen from
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you by barack hussein obama. >> black african father. >> donald trump uses conspiracy theories as weapons against his opponents. >> very suspicious situation. obama gate. i'm fighting the deep state. >> but there's been no bigger trump target than hillary clinton. >> the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency of the united states. [ cheers and applause ] >> the darkest clinton conspiracy theory has a huge following on the internet. trump and his allies have promoted it, even has it has grown increasingly toxic. this is edgar madison welch. he is driving from his north
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carolina home to washington, d.c. recording a message to his two young daughters. >> i love you more than anything in the world. >> he is preparing to risk his life to save children he doesn't even know. >> i have always told you, we have a duty to protect people who can't protect themselves. do for people who can't do for themselves. >> you may consider him a good man. >> i hope you understand. >> but this mission of mercy was actually a dangerous delusion. welch fell prey to a twisted conspiracy theory, called pizza gate. he believed that hillary clinton and other washington elites were running a pedophile ring out of the payment of a pizza restaurant in washington, d.c. just because it's crazy, doesn't mean that people won't believe it. >> in addition to the ar-15, welch was carrying a handgun and
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a shot gun was found in his car. >> he burst in to a crowded restaurant. terrified customers ran for their lives. but there were no abused children. not even a basement. no one was hurt, welch went to prison. the original source of all this? a leaked e-mail to john podesta, hillary clinton's campaign chief, it was from his brother, and it said simply, would love to get a pizza. >> pizza is a well known pedophile code word that has been used by law enforcement to arrest online sexual predators of children. pizza-gate is real. >> now, disturbingly, teenagers have grown obsessed with pizza-gate. they believe celebrities have joined hillary clinton to abuse children. >> you need to search what they don't want us paying attention to. child trafficking. >> the social media site
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tik-tok, popular with teenagers has logged more than 18 million views for posts with the pizza-gate hash tag according to the "new york times." pizza-gate began in 2016. and in the last few years, it has grown in to an even bigger conspiracy theory called qanon. >> when nonsense is dangerous is when people believe it to be true. >> a miss had tear i couldn't say character or characters called q supposedly high up in u.s. intelligence give followers hints about deep state conspirators who are out to destroy donald trump. >> donald trump is a hero of the qanon following. >> he is a christ like figure who will save the country and save the world. >> save the world from the deep state. from liberals, from pedophiles. >> there's a ring of high profile -- do you believe that,
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everything that he posts about child pedophilia and what is going on in the country, is coming to light. >> trump is part of the q-team. from what we understand, q plus is his handle. he does a lot of posts and it's part of this. >> crowds of q believers show up at trump rallies. >> i'm tammy, i'm a family doctor and q is about getting to the truth. and by educating people about the truth of what is going on. >> they are anonymous and they are all on the same track, looking for the truth. >> all of us are qanon. >> getting to the truth is a qanon theme, even though its beliefs are fiction. >> the motorcade moves in to the downtown area. death is six minutes away. the biggest conspiracy theory of them all, who really killed jfk
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has now become part of qanon. >> jfk jr. is alive. he is in protective custody, and they tried to kill him like they did his father. >> my father stood before you -- >> the belief is somehow, the late jfk jr. is alive and helping trump clean up the deep state. >> they are not tethered to the truth. so it's easy to make up more and more elaborate stories. >> qanon has morphed to a conspiracy theory into an actual political movement of sorts. >> we have been gathering online and talking together at americans and uniting and -- >> you think it's maybe making you comfortable to talk with other frustrated and sometimes angry people? >> yes, yes. >> what is donald trump's connection to qanon? meet radio host michael lebron. he is one of the chief pushers.
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>> if you have not ventured initially in to the qanon phenomenon, do you have any idea of what you are missing? >> this is qanon, michael lebron, in the oval office with the president. >> eric trump, everybody. >> eric trump, the president's son, posted this instagram. he is promoting qanon, even using one of the slogans. where we go one, we go all. >> what does that mean? >> where we go one, we go all. >> where we go one, we go all. >> general michael flynn, the former national security adviser whom trump as lavishly praised as a fine man wronged by the justice system. took the qanon oath on the fourth of july with family and friends. >> god bless america. >> qanon! >> flynn's lawyers tell cnn, that the oath he took was not
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connected, but in fact that oath is universally recognized by the q movement. >> where we go one, we go all. >> where we go one, we go all. >> president donald trump frequently retweets qanon accounts. on the fourth of july, the same day michael flynn took his oath, while the coronavirus was surging to record levels all over the country, the president retweeted qanon accounts 14 times. nobody is sure how many people are in the group. but according to the "washington post" about 600,000 people have voted for qanon connected political candidates. media matters has documented at least 46 of them are in the current election cycle. >> i'm marjorie green and i approved this ad. >> marjorie green is seeking
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a congressional seat. >> q has put out there that many high level officials will be arrested. is it going to be approved that the child pedophilia and the elites in the washington, d.c., is that what we are going to see come out? is it going to be satanic worship? >> marjorie green is favored to win that seat in the house of representatives. perhaps the biggest question surrounding all of this is why? why would anybody believe any of the conspiracy theories? >> it's so unsettling and i think, authentically terrifying to live in a world that we feel we cannot control. conspiracies become seductive and attractive because it explains that the world is against you and this is the important part. it's not your fault. >> it's not my fault i inherited this mess but we are fixing it. hey, it's not my fault. i didn't put us there. i don't take responsibility at all.
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>> it externalized blame. that is what qanon does for people. >> and it seems to give its followers a kind of emotional support. >> it creates an explanation that comforts, consoles, and there's always this unnamed, unseen, deep state, that is actually responsible for everything. qanon, provides people with the psychological comfort that they need. what it does for donald trump, it provides the fear that keeps his base motivated. >> science is activities from the united kingdom and poland, found that conspiracy minded people have a strong need to feel better and smarter than others. they are narcissistic, if that sounds familiar -- >> i don't think it's the most controversial thing. it's not even by the standard of american politicians, unusually narcissistic.
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>> ai alone can fix it. people would say i'm a super genius of all time. the one that matters is me. >> is it possible that trump uses conspiracy theories to gin up his base? maybe. but -- >> he has a conspiracy mind-set. he grave tats instinctively, naturally, to conspiracy understandings of the world. >> there's something going to that we don't know about. >> a lot of people said is they had spies in my campaign. it could be a plot, i don't want to think in terms of conspiracy. it could be a plot. >> his conspiracy theories resonate deeply with the voters. that raises the most trouble aspect of the story. >> our immune system has been weakened to conspiracy thinking. it's why it's so dangerous. >> many americans are vulnerable to conspiracy theories because they don't trust government,
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officials or institutions. listen to what this qanon follower says. >> we can all admit that pretty much knows the government is corrupt. q to me is just showing that it's a lot more corrupt than we thought. >> pugh research shows that the america's trust has been dropping for decades. look at the last 20 years. by the time donald trump was elected president, belief and faith in democracy had reached an all-time low. trust in the media took a similar plunge. and donald trump knows it. >> just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what is happening. >> what is important is to get to disbelieve everything. >> this is the way in which hard demigogary can destroy democracy. >> all of this as we face a president ally election. >> voter fraud, voter fraud. >> the most corrupt election in the history of our country. >> it's a lie. >> coming up next, the biggest conspiracy threat of all.
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>> a few days after the 2016 election. >> i just had a conversation with president elect trump.
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>> an obscure right wing operative named greg phillips tweeted a bombshell, number of noncitizen votes exceeds three million. >> can you prove right now, that 3 million people voted illegally? >> yes. >> but phillips, a voter fraud watchdog was cagey about showing any evidence. >> do you have the proof? >> yes. >> will you provide it? >> yes. >> can i have it? >> no. >> why? >> we are going to release everything to the public. >> when? >> as soon as we get down with the checks. >> hold on, so you are not done checking it yet? >> questions about a possible recount -- >> in fact, when phillips made his outrageous claim -- >> recount votes in michigan, pennsylvania, and wisconsin, states had not certified the election results. >> we are not going to make a mistake. >> you already accused. >> we're doing it. i'm not a politician. i'm a guy.
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>> millions of people voting, millions illegals voting. >> and then alex jones, who said the u.s. government staged 9/11 picked up the story. >> donald j. trump didn't just win the electoral college, he clearly won the popular vote. and after that story ran, president elect trump tweeted for the first time, that he won the popular vote, if you deduct the millions people who voted illegally. greg phillips, still won't show us any evidence. >> the illegal immigrants were voting. illegal immigrants are voting. we don't want noncitizen voters. >> just like that, a voter fraud conspiracy was born. >> voter fraud, voter fraud, here's the evidence. it's a lie. >> trump has made an astounding number of completely unsubstantiated voter fraud claims over the years. as early as the 2012 election,
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he tweeted that president obama's win was a total sham. >> god bless the great state of iowa. >> in the 2016 primaries, he accused ted cruz of stealing iowa and marco rubio of rigging florida. >> new hampshire was taken away. >> he said there were bus loads of out of state voters who stole the state of new hampshire. >> nearly 2 million dead people voted for hillary clinton. >> tens of millions mail-in ballots. >> and in 2020 -- >> will they be forged. >> according to our president. >> will they be stolen from mailboxes? >> -- mail-in ballots will be riddled with fraud. >> will they be taken from the mail men and mail women? >> it's based on a lie, and it's a big, magical trick and it's lethal to american democracy.
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>> it has been investigated by. republicans and democrats. proven cases are less common than someone being struck by lightning. >> from 2000-2014 in one billion votes cast, there were 31 cases of voter fraud. that is not massive or ramp ant. >> voter fraud is virtually nonexistent because it doesn't make sense to risk it. it's unlikely to swing an election and the penalties are severe. >> voter fraud is a felony. so that is a big disincentive. >> they want to try to rig the election. >> thanks to his constant repetition. >> that election will be rigged. that election's going to be rigged. first of all, it's rigged. >> the voter fraud lie has become the truth for many americans. [ chanting usa ]
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>> in one poll, nearly half said that voter fraud occurred often. among trump supporters over 2/3 said it happened a lot. >> the beauty of the lie is if you say it over and over and with conviction, it sounds like the truth. >> we have to protect the integrity of the vote and our voters. >> trump doubled down on his conspiracy theories when he formed a presidential commission to investigate voter fraud. >> criticized as misguided effort to prove the unprovable. >> after a few months of blundering. >> one senior white house adviser telling cnn quote, it was a -- poop show, they used a different word. >> it ended in disgrace. >> in the commissions report when you get to the section marked voter fraud, the pages are blank. >> but the voter fraud lie lives on.
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>> we are not going to lose. the only way we can lose is if cheating goes on. >> the fraud conspiracy theories have gone on long before donald trump. >> vote fraud threatens the integrity of our process. >> in the 2000s, some republicans began spinning tales of widespread voter fraud. >> there's many ways to jimmy the system. >> those concerning the nation's demographics. that more people of color who traditionally voted democrat were going to the polls. >> certain republicans came to believe that the republican party had an interest in depressing voter turn out and that's when they invented the fiction of voter fraud. >> requiring people to show photo i.d. in order to vote. >> some in the party used the
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myth of rampant voter fraud. >> pushing more voters out of the ballot box. >> to justify new voting restrictions. >> it's terrible. it's so many people that don't have i.d., and they are not going to be able to vote. >> that made it harder for black americans to vote. >> we are ready to march on ballot boxes. >> a shameful echo. >> you are ordered to disperse. >> of the jim crow south. >> we are taking a close look at wisconsin. >> in 2016, these measures had a real impact. >> donald trump continues to maintain his lead of about 90,000 votes. >> tens of thousands of people were deterred from voting in wisconsin because of that state's i.d. law. >> the question is, are the democratic votes out there somewhere. it's just not enough. >> black voter turn out plummeted. >> donald trump will carry the state of wisconsin. >> trump won the state by less than 23,000 ballots. great voter fraud does not
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change an election result. voter suppression does. >> millions and millions of ballots. >> trump doubling down on the ballot box conspiracy theory in 2020. >> will they be counterfeited by groups inside our nation? >> from rigged mail-in ballots. >> will they be counterfeited by the millions by foreign powers? >> to votes being air mailed from china. there's growing fear that trump's disinformation campaign will cast doubt on the outcome of the election. democrats and republicans are gaming out worse case scenarios. >> this president is going to try to steal the election. >> this will be in my opinion, the most corrupt election in the history of our country. >> donald trump may be saving his most dangerous conspiracy theory for last. >> i think of all the conspiracies this one is one i worry about the most.
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iredefined the wordng th'school' this year. visit tdameritrade.com/learn it's why, at xfinity, we're committed to helping kids keep learning through the summer. and help college students studying at home stay connected through our university program.
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we're providing affordable internet access to low income families through our internet essentials program. and this summer, xfinity is creating a virtual summer camp for kids at home- all on xfinity x1. we're committed to helping all families stay connected. learn more at xfinity.com/education. it's all coming up. on the live global sunday transmission. >> while this may look like your average cable news show, it is anything but. >> leading assault on the lies of new world order. >> i don't like them putting chemicals in the water, turned the frogs gay. i believe they are possessed by entities, space aliens.
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>> this is alex jones. host and founder of info wars. a leading conspiracy talk show. >> hillary and obama want to make you poor. >> he screams and rants on air. >> they hate you, they hate god, >> spewing hate. >> they hate children. and god damn them to hell. >> he has also been a principal news source for the president. >> it is surreal to talk about issues here on air and then word for word hear trump say it two days later. >> his real name is barry satara. >> he was born barry satara, somewhere along the line, he changed his name. >> he is going to show up and on drugs though. he is going to be blacked out. >> i think we will take a drug test prior to the debate. >> to have conspiracy move in to the white house and have the
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president welcome it, amplify it, and recognize it, utterly unprecedented. >> thank you for joining us. >> thank you, alex. >> donald trump first aligned himself with jones in 2015. >> your reputation is amazing. i will not let you down. >> donald trump basically said to alex jones, i love your work. it totally nuts. >> the democrats are the kkk. >> so nuts that it begs the question how did we get here? >> we love you, alex jones. >> for what some are calling the info wars presidency. >> alex jones, he is a nice guy actually. >> they are even getting our gods -- >> you may remember alex jones for spreading the most gross lie. >> sandyhook is the most synthetic lie, manufactured. >> since saying that the murder of the first graders and faculty was a hoax.
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he has been ordered to pay at lead $100,000 in legal fees. >> i thought everything was staged. >> in a deposition he said that a former psychosis made him believe this. >> that's what alex jones does. the world he lives in. there is no true of false where anything can be believed except the official account of anything. >> buying product -- >> all the lies have proven to be a lucrative business for journalism. >> introducing -- >> this stuff is incredible. >> available at info wars store.com. >> i want just can't express how serious the situation is. >> and part of the way he has been able to do that is by continually scaring his audience in to telling them that disaster is approaching and then selling them products to mitigate the disaster. >> if you don't buy the products we will not be able to fund this operation. >> his online store sells everything from freeze dryers to survival gear.
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>> we have the full supply this stuff kills the whole sars coronavirus family at point blank range. >> most recently, the fda ordered jones to stop selling fake cures for covid-19. >> it kills every virus. >> there's money to be made in this. >> i only promote what i believe in. >> it is this conspiracy riddled path that connected donald trump to alex jones. >> my audience, i would say 90% supports you. >> trump knows where his bread is buttered and he makes his piece with someone like alex jones to keep power and to win in the next election. >> come here president trump speak! >> both know how to reach an audience and propel themselves in to the mainstream. >> i doubt i would be here if it were not for social media. i am able to go bing, bing, bing and i take care of it. i would never be able to get the world out. >> it's information wars. >> like trump, jones used all
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kinds of media to push his word. >> machine gunned children. >> he migrated from public access tv to radio, to the internet. >> i have listened to you for 30 years. >> that unrestrained freedom combined with the algorithms that is amplifying what is most shocking, meant he is perfectly adapted to the internet. >> but that all came to a crashing halt in 2018. >> apple facebook, youtube, spotify, pintrest and linked in have removed jones material. >> the deplatforming of jones -- >> google is evil! >> especially by youtube, it diminished him. >> they lie about me in court. >> his viewership fell by half. >> the president himself has also been policed for promoting violence and spreading false claims. >> twitter has flagged several of his tweets over accuracy and copyright issues. >> while we may never know
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whether jones or trump truly believe in the crazy conspiracies they spread. >> this is the first time in our history that a conspiracist holds the highest office in the land. >> what happens next is up to us. embrace it a second time? >> will the american public embrace it a second time? the test is in november. with scam protection built into its core. introducing, scamshield, free from t-mobile. get fewer scam calls. period. with t-mobile's supercharged network, you can say goodbye to annoying scam calls, and feel free to answer your phone again. hello
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♪ we caught them.
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this is actually treason. they for spying on our campaign. >> long before he became conspiracy in chief, there was joseph mccarthy. >> even if our only one communist mistake is one, it's too. >> in the early 1950s, the republican senator accused of all kinds of americans of treason, it was largely without any evidence. it was what joe mccarthy called a vast communist conspiracy. >> activities may well determine whether had this nation will live or die. >> what he did was to drum up this incredible fear. >> yes, they are traitors to america. >> they are communists. >> but they could not find as he
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said, a conspiracy so menace, they could not find it because it was not there. >> at the height of the cold war, many americans have legitimate fears about communism. >> in 1949, you had the soviet union explode a nuclear device. >> then, communists over threw the chinese government. overnight, now you have 500 million new communists in the world. it felt like america was losing. how could america be losing? >> enter joseph mccarthy. who claimed he had the answer. a list of 205 employees in the state department who he said were known communists. >> that simple is answer just was like, boom!
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>> he didn't have the goods to prove this monster conspiracy. >> mccarthy presided over hearings that were little more than trial by accusation. >> senator, would like to hear this, it's about you. >> he would just badger witnesses. where they would not have a chance to answer. he was not about nuance, he was about gotcha. >> answer that, yes or no. do you know this man? >> mccarthy made baseless charges against the truman administration, including a man who served as the secretary of state and defense. >> george c marshal. a man who helped defeat the nazis. >> a venerated five-star general who helped orchestrate the allied victory in world war ii, they did not speak up because they were afraid of losing their base.
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sound familiar? by 1952, republicans had been out of power for two decades. >> the american people have spoken with a resounding voice at the polls. victory is here. >> mccarthy helped win back the white house and both houses of congress. >> with the bigger platform, he became even more reckless. he went after the army. claiming it had been infiltrated by communists. >> you're not fooling anyone at all, i tell thaw. >> let me tell you something. >> the chair believes, the american people had to look at you for six weeks. you are not fooling anybody either. >> the senator was called out as a bully in front of 20 million viewers. >> you have done enough. have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? have you left no sense of decency. >> finally congress said, enough. >> the republican senate,
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censured one of their own. >> the con spspiritorial world w and tactics however, would live on. >> that fight to expose those who would destroy this nation will go on and on. >> nearly one decade later. >> from dallas, texas, president kennedy died at 1:00 p.m. central standard time. >> a tragic event became the catalyst for a new wave of conspiracies. >> to this day, people think how does a lone gunman successfully assassinate the most protected person on the face of the earth. >> there was plenty of evidence linking lee harvey oswald to the shooting. but america did not buy the firm storery. >> the idea that one person, alone, without a government or a conspiracy behind, in the course of history, seemed impossible.
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implausible. >> i deny this charges. >> i'm just a patsy. >> and only two days later, he was fatally shot on live television by a nightclub owner jack ruby. >> many americans when jack ruby killed oswald, began to believe something was amiss. >> the week that president kennedy was killed, a gallup poll revealed the majority of americans believed that it was a conspiracy. the kennedy assassination, immediately became a national obsession. by the mid 70s, the percentage of americans who believed it was a conspiracy, sky-rocketed over 80%. americans had seen the release of the pentagon papers and the escalate in vietnam, watergate. >> a series of misfortunes for
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this country and you begin to wonder, did it all start with the jfk assassination. >> enabled the cia to use the poison. >> senate investigations in to secret government programs opened the door to even more conspiracy theories. >> the more americans mistrusted government, the more they believed that john f. kennedy had been assassinated by a secret group of officials who did not like his policies. >> soon an entire cottage industry was created around the jfk assassination. books, board games, video games and of course, a hollywood block buster. >> one of the grossest lies ever forced on the american people. we have come to know it as the magic bullet theory. >> great cinemtography and terrible history. >> but it was the internet age of the '90s and 2000s that helped to rocket a conspiracy theorists right to the presidency. [♪]
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the president of the united states is an ardent fan of conspiracy theories.
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he repeats them, retweets them, and embraces the crazy people who promulgate them. in doing so, he is bringing together three different strands of history, in a profoundly dangerous way. first, we all share some basic propensity to believe in these kinds of theories. why? well, human beings can't stand the uncertainty. we want to know why things happen. we used to rely on religion and manic to expla magic to explain things. after, that faith was transferred to science. but still, there's so much we don't understand. the world is, in william james's phrase, a blooming, buzzing confusion. so we want to find ways to make sense of it, ascribe meaning, and assign blame. in particular, when we confront huge events, with great consequences, like john f. kennedy's assassination, we can't accept that they might have happened because of a small
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cause, a single gunman, a chance or confusion, or an accident. there must have been a cause commensurate with the outcome. so we search for that larger, grandeur conspiracy. the second strand is particular to america. america has always had a rich history of conspiracy theories. what one historian called the paranoid style in american politics. it's easy to understand how this developed, in a vast country, with new immigrants coming from everywhere. often, living on sparsely populated land, far from centers of power. and when people felt threatened or in danger, say, at the height of the cold war, the theories get more alarmist. that's why the pandemic has given rise to a new wave of conspiracy theories, that explain how something so devastating must have had, behind it, an evil genius. the third strand is even more specific, to donald trump.
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for people who believe that they are at the center of the world. narcissists. conspiracy theories are especially compelling. you are so important. the world is irate against you. if something goes wrong, of course, it was not your fault but, rather, dark and deep forces that plot against you. and trump has decided that there are vast and powerful forces that plot against him, daily. they include his own bureaucrats, reporters, urban elites, minority activists. if he were to lose this election, he has already set in motion conspiracy theories that will claim it was because of voter fraud or mail-in ballot irregularities. or the work of the chinese communist party. but, in doing so, trump is taking an axe to american democracy, and a wrecking ball to the workings of the american constitution. america's election of 1800 was an historic moment for the world. because, for the first time, after a contest at the ballot box, political power changed
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hands, from one party to another, peacefully. that is america's legacy to the world. and it has endured for 220 years. but now, by creating doubts about the 2020 election, by setting up possible obstacles to that peaceful transfer of power, donald trump is doing something more insidious, more dangerous, than anything he has done, a presideas president, so far. i'm fareed zakaria. thank you for watching.
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get the security, unlimited data and wifi coverage you need. plus, xfi customers can add xfi complete for only $11 a month. call or visit a store today. so for all the talk of the president's change of attitude about the pandemic, more than 145,000 american lives into it, the president's spokesperson, now, says change? what change? he's been totally consistent. john berman here in for anderson. there is a lot to get to tonight, after a week that saw the 4 millionth confirmed coronavirus infection. we start with a spin that would be comical except to anyone grieving the loss of a loved one. except for doctors making agonizing decisions about who gets treated. except for parents worried aut

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