er >> gent orchestrated... >> narrator: the alliance between the copiracy theorist. >> he just kept adding more and more outrageous lies to the story. >> narrator: the dirty trickster. >> roger delivers legitimacy to alex jones, and jones delivers to trump a disaffected voter. >> narrator: and the president of the united states. >> i will not let you down. >> now those ideas, which used to be on the fringe, are in the mainstream. >> coniratorial thinking is a feature of this president. >> narrator: now on frontline, "united states of conspiracy". >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pb station from viewers like you.

thank you. and by the corporation for public badcasting. major support is provided by the john d. and catherine t.r macartundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peacefulorld. more information e ford foundation: working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwid at fordfoundation.org. addition support is provided by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism. the park foundation, dedicated to hghtening public awaress of critical issues. mily trust.d helen glessner supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and spires. and by the frontline journalism fund, anth major support from jo jo ann hagler.

♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, it is 10:39 central standard time,:3 eastern. roger stone, who worked in four administrations, been involved in nine campaigns, he's here tonight. >> it's a moment of enormous tension. i'm working the phones very aggressively. woing my contacts. >> but i've gotta shake your hand.on what a sshowing regardless. >> i was in the studio with alex jones and roger on election day. and the metrics were off the charts about how many people were tuning into infowars, numbers that were comparable to the networks. >> narrator: alex jones-- extremist conspiracy theorist-- had rallied his audience behind donald trump.is >> .aying trump is projected to win. >> as the night drew on, it became clearer and cleer that trump was likely to win.

>> it is officially over, pennlvania has been called. >> they had no idea whatsoever that trump was going to win. >> you've talked to the trump campaign... >> all of a sudden everybody was super elated. (people cheering) we had some staff members that was just running around the fice in a big circle. i mean, people werlike, "ahh!" i mean, going crazy that night. >> he's going to be sp momentarily. >> cheers. loveou. love you guys. love all of you. >> there was a combination ofel ion and confusion. and they realized that, "oh mya god, we just playele in making the president of the s unittes." >> here goes trump. turn it up. donald j. trump. >> he's going up to the microphones. he's going to be... >> the golden toad! >> i assume he'll mention the phone call he received... >> get ready, i tell you, hear s into a goblin's nest. >> this is amazing. >> as long as he doesn't... as

long as he doesn't kiss a goblin, goblin's vomit, catch him in bed with a goblin.re >> i don't think t any danger of that. >> no. he defeated the goblins. did it. (cackles) >> stone and jones believed than they had beerumental in getting donald trump elected.ai or that cey they had driven successful narratives that helped to... that helped to get him elected. >> i was exhausted, but euphoric. jones was exhausted, but he was downcast. >> it's almost 3:00 in the morning central time. and we now have president- elect donald trump. >> and i asked him why. and he said, "you don't understand.he this is justeginning." >> now we are bound forever. and if we don't deliver this plan, and free humanity, we will be bound to the ninth circle of hell.

will never stop deliveh and i >> and in that moment it was visible that there was a reaction, because he started crying. i mean his emotions were evident. isthey were streaming down face. >> i've said it. i've already run my course. i already know my entire life purpose has been completed. i will continue on, but now iiz re, i've won. p >> alex jones isart of a bigger phenomenon. what people like alex jones, and othershowed us, is that conspiracy theories aran effective political tool.th work. they help shape elections. they help shape public discussion. they help people decide what to believe. conspiracy theories work. >> all across the country, y will see a lot of conspiracy theories out there. ar >>tor: alex jones helped usher in a new and dangerous era in american politics. >> american conspiracy theories

are entering a dangerous new phase. >>arrator: one where the truth doesn't matter. >> covid-19 is a chi-comm globalist bio-weapon. >> narrator: where political opponts treat each other as mortal enemies. >> hillary clinton is a (bleep) demon! l >> narrator: whes and conspiracies flourish. >> pizzagate is real. sandy hook, it's got inside job written all over it. >> narrator: "the united states of conspiracy." sinformation...eliberate >> disinformation is having a >> ...the same conspir theories... ♪ t >> narrato story of how alex jones helped bring conspiracies into the mainstream began on the fringes of america in the 1990s. >> all right, austin, i... >> narrator: he was a late-night access tv personality voice pedaling outragebscure >> they are trying to make you dysfunctional, they are teaching you false thought systems... >> he began...

>> okay? . as sort of an underground phenomenon. >> society is insane to me, so i'm insane to yourverage dumbbell. >> you know, people in austin would sit home and get high inf the middlee night and watch this crazy guy vent about... crazy stuff. >> hillary clinton is a fascist worker of the rockefeller... >> narrator: unhinged conspiracy theory rants... >> biological attack is imminent. imminent! >> narrator: ...political stunts... >> they took me into custody and were goingo arrest me for disturbing a public meeting. >> he was on the fringe. b it used toyou have to be somebody who waseep, deep into conspiracy culture to know who alex jones was. you'd have to know things about lizard people, or teleportation pads, these crazy, crazy pi cocy theories. >> if you're a lunatic, alex, then i want my sons and th lr sons to atics just le you. >> that's what we need-- lunacy! >> yeah. >> you know the world is flat, didn't you hear? >> narrator: as a boy in texas, nes was known as a

troublemaker. >> alex inherently has a... so i think it appeals to him. that he cod maybe change the wod in his own way. (sirens blaring) t >> te to come out is now. >> narrator: as a teenager... >> david, don't do this to your people. >> narrator: he became obsessed with a government raid on a cult compound in waco, texas. (sirenblaring) >> he says that that opened his eyes. that he came away from that feeling like y weren't getting the truth from mainstream media, and that the truth was out there, but it-- it wasn't being presented in the way it ought to be. and he says that's what started him on his mission. >> from his central texas command center deep behind enemy lines, the information war continues-- 's alex jones and the gcn radio network. >> no longer is the new world order some foggy apparition over the next hill. a at the time infowars was broadcast from a child's bedroom

in his house, with little choo-choo train wallpaper, andik an "empire stres back" poster on the wall. and alex is like, you know, ranting down a little microphone in his child's bedroom. >> what about me? because i'm a woman, i can't stay? n rator: british filmmaker jon ronson is a renowned expert on extremism. he has been following jones for more than 20 years. in>> he was diagnosed as h narcissistic personality disorder. and i think that's a factorth because i thin people with npd don't need to care as much about the truth and aboutso ety as, as other people do. i think they consider themselves more important than the truth. (rustling) ("carmina burana: o fortuna" by carl orff playing)

>> narrator: jones promoted anti-government conspiracy theories in a series of homemade films. he'd also use a growing radio show to allege-- without evidence-- secret plots in crisis after crisis. >> the federal government financed and controlled this attack on the world trad center. >> narrator: the 1993 world trade center bombing... >> multiple bombs ripped through the alfred p. murrah federal building. >> narrator: the 1995 oklahoma city bombing... >> ...and, as usual, federal fingerprints were all over this tragic event. >> narrator: he called them a big element of alex jones' show, and his theorizing generally, is that things are false flag attacks. that is, attackserpetrated by the government or elements within the government to create fear, suspicion, division, or to bring us all under the sinister cont the new world order or the one world government.

>> .to create yet another crisis, this time to ushern a police state... >> narrator: jones' rhetoric resonated with people around thl country who weking for answers. >> conspiracy theory is a theory. it's an attempt to elain an event. and it says that things are not as they seem. right?it and you explaiy picking up the dots, forming a pattern, ana showing that thaern indicates malignant intent by powerful people acting covtly. ♪ >> narrator: then a moment of trauma on live television. >> on this tuesday morning, it's the 11th day of ptember, 2001. >> narrator: as a confused country watched. >> we want to go live right now and show you a picture of thworld trade center, where i understand-- do we have it? no, we do not. we have a breakingtory though. we're going to come back with that in just a moment.rs this is "today" on nbc. >> narrator: that day, broadcasting from texas, jones would seize on the tragedy. ("the imperial march" playing) y

want answers? well, so does he. he's alex jones on the gcn radio network. and now, live from austin, texas... >> alex was immediately on the radio onll of his syndicated shows. >> to bring you up to speed on what's happened. at 8:50 a.m. e.d.t. a plane hits the world trade center. to the world trade center.rashes >> ...saying that, "thisttack is an inside job. yes, the towers fell. but they were not felled by terrorists. they were destroyed by the united states government as a pretext tompose martial law." >> narrator: jones and other believers became known as the "9/1truther movement." >> alex became the world's leading 9/11 truther. and actually, everything just got worse and darker. 9/11 conspiracy theorists were viciouand brutal. >> they're either usingpr them to do it or this is full

complicity with e federal government, the evidence is overwhelming to bring you up top speed on what's ed. >> narrator: en for the radio stations that had hosted jones over the years, he'd gone too far thisime. >> what you e after 9/11 is a lycountry that is really, hurting. people were grieving.as where it moment where people wouldn't have imagined that you were going to take thah moment national moment of mourning, and turn it into a conspiracy theory. >> i'll tell you the bottom line. 98% chance this was a government orches controlled bombing. i've been telling you this was going to happen. just two weeks ago i..., >> ovesomething like two-thirds of all the genesis stations dumped him. and it seemed like it was going to be a disaster for his career, and at first it was. ♪ >> narrator: but it was 2001 and alex jones quickly found a new

outlet, a new way to reach a like-minded audience-- the anarchy of the web. >> more terrorism is on the way. september 11 was only the latest in a long line... >> narrato where the 9/11 truther movement was alive and well. >> it wathe manipulation of that national tragedy that really, really opened an eye for jones about how he could get a hook into his audience. (keyboard keys clacking) infowars.com-- became for- conspiracy theories. >> we all know a conspiracy twitter or facebook.days bore and those people were sort of isolated and shunned. and everybody felt like they h their number. but with socl media and the internet, they find each other. >> you know why the bush crime t family a c.i.a... >> and they can push that message to mlions of people. >> you know why e big cfr takeover isn't going to work? >> the interesting thing about the inteet is that it builds community. you can find people who feed in to your negativity, or your

fears, or your bigotry. anso that's what alex jone has been able to do. i mean, he's been able to mobilize people based their ars. for many their ignorance. >> narrator: as the tech giants grew-- facebook, twitter, spotify, instagram, google's youtube-- soid alex nes. >> information that you wouldve een very hard to get before and suddenly became easy. >> we're on the right side of history. tea; it was young men who liked him because he was wild and he was funny. >> nellies, going, "ah, kill everybody." >> nrator: his audience was memostly white men-- it be known as "dude radio." every week millions watched his programs... >> i mean, it's just like scum, nazi filth...d >> narrator: ...s conspiracy movies. ("carma burana: o fortuna" by carl orff playing)

it was the type of controversial contenthat generated clicks. the more outrageous the better; e bigger the lie, the mo clicks he got. and youtube's gorithms recommended his videos billions of times. >> in the near future, earth is dominated by a powerful worldme gove. >> his films got out to millionn millions and millions of ople. >> the dawn of a new dark age is upon mankind. >> when we put out a film, i remember "endgame,within like something like six or seven dayl receiving like 30 n views. it was ridiculous. i just remember constantlyhi thousands every time i'd refreshed. >> but charlie's tired of being held up like the devil. we've got tsa putting their hands down people's pants, infowars.com covers it all.th we've gobanks bankrupting the u.s. >> narrator: spreading wild conspiracy theories had madejo s a celebrity, but one question would not go away.

>> how much of what alex says on the radio does he really believe? and is alex really crazy if he's not crazy, and he says crazy things on the radio, and on tv d on youtube every day in order to exploit other people who are crazy, to make money for himself, then that doesn't look good at all. >> to announce dna forceladies and gentlemen... >> narrator: but it didn't matter to jones or his audience. he had found a winning formula. >> he is the emplar of a conspiracy entrepreneur. there's a whole new industry that's grown up. that's my second dose of that. i need to take it easy. >> he sells, you know, potency pis. he's into virility. and he sells body armor, and gold, and other things. >> narrator: at infowars.com, they sold gold, pills, and fear. >> radioactive conmination... >> he was smart, because he correctly realized that he had to sell a produc >> wars are not cheap...

go check out the amazing specials... >> especially a survivalist product that people thought they would need under the coming, you know, nightmarish new world government, was very prescient. >> alex, overnight, made a huge amount of money. s i meanebody told me that he was bringing in like $100,000 a day. i ill only give you the maximum... >> narrator: it was rock star money.he >>aximum truth. >> narrator: he decided to live like one. >> we went from the littlee, hoo the slightly bigger house, to a really nice house to multiple houses. and you get all this money, and alex always wanted more and more and more. and i was like, "ale what are you doing, we don't even do these things?" >> somewhere along the line heng started man awful lot of money. and so once that started happening, even if he had stopped becoming a believer, there was a very powerful incentive to continue doing whad he wng. >> i will go to... i will go to hell before sit here and i watch this country and the world turned over to these savages. >> narrator: jones' audience was

insatiable and he delivered. >> let me tell me something, you filthy traitorof the government, you pieces of crap. >> narrator: more conspiracy, more controversy, more crisi >> i've had enough of these people. okay, so i've been containing this since last week, that's why i'm in here sweating. o >> if you are alwathe radio, if you are always on television, you always have tose top yo. you have to create a more wild, more extreme conspacy theory, to keep your audience engaged. you can't just keep coming out with the same linevery single day. and so you force-- you are compelled to push yourself to ever greater extres. (phone dialing out, heavy breathing) >> 9-1-1. state your emergency. >> sandyook school, i think there's somebody shooting in here. >> narrator: for alex jones, there seemed to no boundary to his increasingly extreme theories. >> they're still shooting. (siren blaring) >> nartor: no tragedy too awful to exploit. >> sandy hook elementary school.

i believe there's shooting at the front. >> ladies and gentlemen, it is friday. thank you so much for joining us. the 14th day of december 2012. and there is a reported school shooting iconnecticut. >> please! >> i need assistance here immediately! >> this is going to be a lot bigger than columbine. and this is already 18 dead children. >> narrator: in the end, 27 killed, 20 of them elementary school children. jones seized on the deaths. ou >> boy, wouldn't ynow, i mean, it's sick. you can go back in the last month, and i've said over andyo over again, anwatch, there's going to be giant school shootings. >> the momenyou see a mass shooting event, the mindset inside is, it's obably a false flag operation. it mht not be, but it probab is. >> if we start seeing tell-tale signs of it being staged, we'll let you ow.

you know, it has now come out that... um... it w a government program an that person was in a mind control program. and this is conspiracy without the theory that dispenses with... blatantly dispenses with any evidence or it lives by sheer asse no evidence. no argument. >> ...and the doctor he wasun r was a head air force mind control doctor, and he was involved in darpa brainrf ine programs, and told people he was under mind control in the jail. >> he just kept adding more and more and more outrageous lieto the story. all the pictures of the children inside of it were fake it was all a cgi construction. for jones, it didn't matter how absurd each new layer got. he would put anythg on the air, as long as it kept driving the sandy hook story. >> newtown destroys suspected sandy hook shooter's home... >> narrator: eveinside infowars, some of jones' own staff worried about what he was

saying.ti >> but the media ls and says he did. >> jones had no evidence whatsoever to ove that that didn't happen. and he said it many mes because that's just what fit intois worldview. that's what, i mean, on some level feel like that's what he wanted it to be. >> narrator: one of jones' employees, longtime editor rob jacobson, brought his concerns directly to jones. >> i stopped him. i was like, "alex, man, they're going to come after you for sandy hook," you know? i was like, "look, man, you... this is crazy." and he just stopped and looked at me with no reaction. he had nothing to say to me. like he just stopped like a deer in headlights. ♪ >> narrator: and he wasn't alone. >> i think it's important to note the top editorial person inside of infowars desperately employees to help warn alext jones that what he was doing was ry, very bad. he didn't listen. it >> i've looked and

undoubtedly there's a cover up, there's actors, they're manipulating, they've been caught lying, and they were pre- planning bore it and rolled out with it...r: >> narraones spared no one. he even went after the families. >> and alex jones looks at those tiny caskets... ♪ ...and tse grieving parents... ♪ ...and decides that he's going to make their lives a living hell by selling this cspiracy thry that newtown is all a fraud, and that these... all ofa these people aors. ♪ >> narrator: six-year-old noah pozner was killed by the sandy hook shooter, but his family became a victim of alex jones. >> my wife at the time, noah's

.ther, did a few intervie and she became a... a target.he ccused her of being an actor. >> i'm grieving, that'all. >> that became one of the cornerstone conspiracy points for sandy hook. >> thankou, i'm going to need it. >> the whole thing was fake. i mean, even i couldn't believe it. i knew they jumped on it. used the crisis. hyped it up. but then i did deep resear, and my gosh, it just pretty much didn't happen. >> narrator: as jones added fuel to the fire... >> we've sent reporters up there, man, and that place is like "children of the corn" or sothing. >> narrator: online conspiracy theorists were attacking the families. th >> fro on it was an absolute quest to destroy these parents. >> "what a loser!" "crisis actotrash." "oh lenny... you poseur." "take your life!" >> narrator: it spread on the web-- youtube, reddit and 4chane >> "what kind of ( name is noah pozner?" >> "probably to a (bleep) kibbutz just outside of..."

>> they're haters. they're fools. they're trolls. anything they can do to trigger trouble in my life they have done. >> narrator: pozner changed adesses many times, tried hide his identity, still they found him. >> i got a call from someone and i had just moved into new... aar new ent. he read me the address that i had just moved into and he read me my social securmber. >> a woman began stalking mr.in pozner and his familouth central florida, started threatening their lives. >> narrator: she was an avidd follower of jones fowars. >> and she was soon sent to federal prison for what she was doin mr. jones knew this, he understood this, he absolutely knew what was happening. he wanted lenny pozner to suffer harm. >> narrator: pozner now lives in hiding. >> whatever is happening to these families, clearly it didn't mean anything to him.

ismorseful or apologeticnest for any of the things that those families had to endure from the words that he dispelled or the ideas that he spread. i genuinely don't think he cares. ♪ >> narrator: people close to he had done.ppalled about what it was the last straw for his wife kelly. >> i was very disgusted by what he said. i definitely told him, like, "what are you doing? why are you doing this?"ex and they were just sted that they were getting so many views or whatever that they continued to do this. >> narrator: they filed for divorce in 2013 and have been ii er sometimes public feud ever since. isn't it fortuitous... >> the king of conspiracy radio >> alex jones the king of all internet conspiracies... >> narrator: the controversyha over sandy hoomade jones bigger than ever.

>> alex jones is pushing lot of buttons... >> narrator: he was now tapping into not just the conspiracy world, b the country culture wars and growing populist anger. >> and the answer to their 1984 slavery! >> narrator: in hard-rig politics, he was becoming a player. >> ...total fraud, and the p minuple are aware of it, it's over for you. >> i, barack hussein obama, do s solemnar... >> narrator: and in the country's first black president, jones had another target. >> and, you know, the first born in kenya.t from kenya, boom. >> narrator: jones pushed the discredited birther theory, questioning president obama'sci zenship. >> in birtherism what you see is a group of americans who resent the fact that there is an african american president in the white house.>> oom. we're told there is no long-form, it doesn't exist. oh yeah, here it is-- it's fak >> and alex jones, and all sorts of other people, they hand them this excuse that it's, "well, he wasn't born in this country, and this is really all a lie, and that he actually not who he

says he is." >> this is how they try to start the revolution. >> alex jos appeals to the worsparts of society-- and h looks for all the terrible things in society, racism, sexism, misogyny, and he exploits them for his own benefit. >> this is what they'rehi trying to get going,is a race war. this is exactly what we predicted...ba >> narrator: jones uedly exploited race, stoking fear... >> of nothing but white peops' cars being stopped by mobs of black people. >> narrator: sounding alarms... >> record numbers of muslims are being brought in from countries known to be radicalized and whok want to at. >> ax jones is able to tap into some real deep, dark fears that white americans explicitlyf have about ture of their country, who's in it, who's controlling it, and their placement in it. >> narrator: he was promoting a politi of conspiracy and lies that would find its moment in 2015...

>> resistance to tyrants is obedience to god. it's alex jones. >> narrator: ...when he invited a specest on his program. >> he's written the "new york times" bestselling book, "the men who ed kennedy," you've probably heard of, rogerstone.com, good to see you again, buddy. >> alex, great to e you,thanks for having me. point that this is somthatthat would be coming back again and again and again... >> wel alex, first of all, i want to thank you because nobody has been more effective in terms of revealing the secret game plan of the party kingmakers. >> narrator: roger stone was a notorious political operator. og >> stone is a self-described dirty trickster. >> narrator: a career dating back to richard nixo >> he haa tattoo of nixon on his back... >> that's the purpose of my tattoo... >> roger is singular in the political landscape. he is a body-buildin pot-spoking dandy swinger, whoa

has haofound impact upon shaping all of our lives through his savvy and cunning as a political consultant. >> he was the chairman of donal' trexploratory campaign. he talked to trump this morning, you we telling me >> narrator: in 2015, stone had an insight-- that alex jones' dience could help donald trump. >> you can't buy trump, you can't bully trump... >> alex jones, um, is a character. and he has a very, very, large, very, very loyal following out there in thelogosphere. >> and speak of the devil-- "hillary clinton for prison" shirts, we're only selling it, limited edition. >> his people are very dedicated, they're very loyal. >> it just looks like a campaign shirt, "hillary for prison 2016." >> stone was getting a big platform out of jones. >> where do you want to start, mr. stone? >> stone could come on jones'

shly and talk to what ultima be millions of people. i thinthat jones was getting some type validation from stone. >> they can call us conspiracy theorists, as you know that's ac way to try to dit us. all we are is truth-tellers. we speak from the heart like donald trump, we speak from the art and let the chips fa where they may. histles, cheers) >> narrator: as the firstri republican pries approached dona trump was a longshot. stone wanted h to ma an important connection. >> well, i don't usually get butterflies about a guest on the show. nald trump is our guest, ladies and gentlemen, for the next 30 minutes or so. he is the leading 2016 republican presidential contender, donald trump. >> it was a signal to jones' that trump was the manfollowers support in the republican primary.so

>> and i've goany questions but, but first off, donald, thank you for joining us >> thank you, alex, great. great to be with you. >> trump recognized the power of alex jones' audience and alex jones' base and had mirrored a lot of alex jones' policies and rhetoric in achieving... in getting to that frontrunner status in the first place. >> i know now from top people that you actuallare for real. >> alex was only too happy to play sycophant. >> ...is epic, it's george washington level, and you understand that office.ru >> and basked in the glow of his adulation. and so i think it was purely transactional, and it workedth out great for both o. >> i just want to finish by saying your reputation's amazing, i will not let you down, you will be very, very impressed, i hope. >> he said, "i have so much "admiration for you, you have such an audience." i mean, this is what trump cared about, you have such-- you have such influence. we're going to be talking a lot.

i'm going to be relying on you. >> i hope you can help uncripple america, thank you so much, sir. that you will be attacked for coming on, we know you know that, thank you. >> thank you very much. >> alex jones, like presidentum they come from thise fringe, they com a place that people maybe poked fun of ere people mbe didn't takeplace them seriously. but they've, they claw their way to the center of american politics. >> they've destroyed our economy... >> roger delivers legitimacy to alex jones, and alex jones delivers to truma disaffected voter that trump desperatelyed to bring to the polls in order to win.in and that was, i in a lot of ways, the difference maker. >> narrator: jones boasted about his impact on the candidate. surreal to talk about issues here on air and then, word for word, hear trump say it two days later. >> i mean, sometimes it was likl verbatim, like, trump,

really? you're taking his word for it?u n't have anybody else around you? >> as we've been saying for three years, hillary is the founder of isis along with obama. >> he founded isis andould say the co-fnder would be ooked hillary clinton. >> "was cruz's father linked to jfk assassation? cuban hired by lee harvey resemblance to cruz... >> you know, his father was with lee harvey oswald prior o ald being, uh, you know shot, i mean, the whole thingou is ridic >> i think it was a super power trip for alex that was irresistible.e >> so he's going to executive orders to go after our guns. >> the president's thinking about signing an exetive order where he wants take your guns away, you hear this one? >> uh, someone imathe stream, trump, using the words that jones had been using for decades, um... i think that emboldened jones and it changed him as a personality. >> these people e not frickin' humans, okay?

hillary clinton is a demon damned to hell! >> he made a deal with the made a deal with the devil. it's true. >> the big shock was alex having the ear of a president-to-be that was the biggest shock. of all the people i'vete iewed over 35 years, i can think of a, a lot of people i would rather have the presidency than alex jones. it's a bit of a shame that onepi of the most, um...ling people i've ever met is the one whs influencing trump. >> national convention kicks off in cleveland, ohio, tomorrow... >> eyeon cleveland, the 2016 republican natnal convention. >> narrator: almost two decades after pedaling conspiracy theories on late night cable tv... this thing.t, let's just cover >> narrator: alex jones arriveda at the republican onal convention. >> that summer was particularly important for jones because hehe

was on t rise atime. >> i've come to see alex jones, put that on cnn. ha ha... >> god bless you, brother. >> god bless you, alex, thank you.ma >> nory you would expect alex jones to be outside the but all of a sudden, there he wae making his way through, was a part of things. because this was an administration that not on embraces people like him and like roger stone, and people who were kind of, you know, practicing the sort of conspiratorial dark arts... conspiratorial thinking is a feature of this president. (background chatter) >> narrator: inside the convention, jones immediately sought out controversy. he crashed the set of a liveon left-wing televisi show. >> it's that it overcomes every other demographic advantage... >> good to see you man...

>> jones had a contentious relationship with the young turks. thpt both decided to interru their live show. eo there wereple everywhere andg i remember try hold my camera up to film what was going on. therwere people scrambling everywhere, people screaming at each other. >> i mean, it was spectacle.ic it was, it was ridulous, but i mean, honestly, that was par for the course. that was daily life wi jones. >> for him, it was always like, "let's create chaos." >> (bleep)! >> because chaos is entertaining people are going to tune into that. (people shouting) >> and they just decided to go for it. they had a preternatural sense tthat that would be a bigo-do. the objective is always to get clicks, to get eyeballs, and to convert that into financial gain. >> narrator: chaos, conflict,

conspiracy. rewriting the playbookne were american politics. where you realize, this wholend scape has changed. cand these individuals thld so easily be dismissed have th.ome a force to be reckoned >> i'm never a lesser of two evils person, but with hillaryhe there's not evename universe, i mean, she is an abject, psychopathic demon from hell... >> narrator: with election day looming, on infowars, jones went all in attacking hillary clinton. >> people loved this conspiracist claim. you needed more to lock her , here was the mor but it was really a, a portrait of her as a woman who would do anything. anything. >> i will warn you, uh, this esstory that's been the bi thing on the internet is a rabbit hole that is horrifying to go down.d now, this is tto podesta

with tusands of emails with, "we're gonna have the six-year-old, the seven-year-old..." >> narrator:t was an internet conspiracy theory sparked by stolen emails from clinton's campaign chairman john podesta, claiming that references to "cheese pizza" were code for "child pornography." >> why did the podesta emails mention the code word pasta for either "little boy" or "sex" 78 times? girl" 85 times?se" for "little >> they were ready to believe just about anything about hillary clinton. d you think i'll do better playing dominos on cheese than on pasta? >> the belief that evildoers are meeting in secret to abuse children is really old. . it's the blood lib the best known example of that from the middle ages. it's the idea that jews were meeting in secret to murderdr christian ch and use and we can see elements of the blood libel in a lot of conspiracy theories, even through the present day. >> narrator: on twitter,hey

called the blood libel #pizzagate. >> pizzagate has elements of blood libel within it. >> narrator: the allegation: a child sering run out of the basement of a d.c. pizza parlor... >> so comet ping pong... >> narrator: ...comet ping pong. >> wikileaks have come out with podesta going to rituals where u they drink blood ane and semen.h, >> oh my gones is having the time of his life. >> yes, i have a responsibility to cover it and yes it's important... >> i mean, he was in high dudgeon.hi >> they hurtren, folks. >> he's crying. he's weeping, we're, like, this is pure evil. >> cover pizzagate, we have covered it, we are covering , and all i know is, god help us, we're in the hands of pure evil. >> and it ran constantly, because it was a ratings-getter. >> when i think about all the children hillary clinton has personally murdered and, and >> narrator: his profile raised

by trump and stone, jones was known as a "super spreader," a megaphone for internet lies and misinformaon. >> i just can't hold back the truth anymore. hillary clinton is one of the most vicious serial killers the planet's ever seen... >> a match was struck on alex jones' show. and it goes from zero to 100 on google trends. 96 hours. >> thousands of emails, i'm not ready to accuse these people of this, it's up to you to research it for yourself, but you gotta... >> yeah, i mean, alex would always encourage people, like, "i can't do this alone." you know, he'd always encourage things by themselves.do those >> narrator: some of them took matters into their own hands. >> a volunteer firefighter in north carolina, edgar madison welch, hears the stories about pizzagate being promoted by alex jones and others and, uh, decides somebody has to do

something about it. somebody has to save these kids. >> he's basically making a goodbye video... his two daughters, like, in the car, on the wa driving north on 95. i mean, he believed it. >> so this guy, welch... >> you know, armed with an assault rifle, barges into the restaurant on a sunday afternoon, um... fires two shots as he goes looking for the mythical basement where the afficked, um, and, of course, uh, never nds it. >> narrator: welch discovered there was no basement. no pedophile ring. >> get on the ground, lay prone one the ground!ou

>> narrator: welch w later tell a "new york times" reporter "the intel on this wasn't 100 percent." >> these conspiracies, some may think, "well, they're harmle." but then we have somebody who shows up at a pizza establishment with a wean. i mean, there... people will act on these things, we will see violence from this sort ofd stirring up of hatd division. and the pizzagate conspiracy theory is exhibit a. >> i'm going to read to you from a statement that's also posted to infowars.com, that i wrote yesterday... >> narrator: under legal threate fromwner of comet ping pong, alex jones would eventually retract his pizzagate clms. >> in oucommentary about what had become known as pizzagate, i ma comments at, in hindsight, i regret and for which i apologize to him.

>> narrator: alex jones had become a powerful and dangerous voice, his influence cfirmed with the inauguration in 2017. p >> finalreparations are underway f t inauguration... >> set to become america's 45th president today... e >> beginning ara, a new... >> narrator: he'd reachecethe nter of american politics and wer. >> live in washington d.c., here is alex jones. >> you make america great again and the whole rest of the plan, and have a new age of trade, low taxes and, and, and, and peace. a >> economic grow peace. today is a victory for thevo tion. let's get in there. >> this is a giant playground for fans of conspiracy theories. >> narrator: conspiracy theories were now emanating directly from the white house. >> he had a larger inaugural crowd than barack obama. >> if they spied on my campaign, it will be one of the grea.. >> narrator: as president, trump veered from one unsupported clm to the next. >> claed up to 5 million illegal votes cost him the

populavote... >> facing the backlash tonight for his denial of hurricane maria's death toll... >> president trump is someoneed who has realhat conspiracy theories work for him. if hs going to be able to ke his base happy, he has to continue to feed them red meat.d and thateat consists, a lot of times, of, of conspiracy theories. >> if you have a windmill anywhere near your house, they say the noise causes cancer, you tell me that one... okay? >> windmills cause cancer. but for fact's sake, that is t just ne. >> there was no collusion, there was no obstruction, everybody knows it. it's all a big hoax. it's... i call it the witch hunt, it's all a big hoax.>> ranium deal to rsia with clinton help and obama ggest story that fake media the doesn't want to follow...to >> narra jones was on a high. >> they write my stuff into speeches and trump appves it. it's like with trump, when he goes, "okay, yeah, yeah, that, that, that's right," i've had these conversations with trump, i start talkg and he finishes the sentence, i finish the sentence-- it's weird, man. it's weird.

>> and so someone like alex jones, who can come in with wild theories and, and donald trump repeats it as fact.sp you have ners printing it as fact. you have media and telision shows repeating it as though it's fact. and then you have donald trump tweeting it as though it's fact. we are in a position where manyp americans are suble to not just false information, but lies that they believe is truth. >> narrator: but with influence came a new level of scrutiny. >> will you raise your right hand, please? do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole trh and nothing but the truth? >> i do. >> narrator: those parents from sandy hook had been pursuing him in court. >> i simply had enough, and thae was... what needed tone. >> i'm proud obringing the lawsuit. uh, it brought a lot more tention to who he really is,

and what his show represents. >> can you now admit that you've done an outrageous wrong to these parents? can you admit that >> you know, the mainstream media is w always takes it and makes it a huge issue and then says that i'm saying it and gets me to reond. and it's lawyers like you and people that glom onto this for t fat then try to get the fame and then say that i'm the person that's promoting it. and it's obsne, in my view. >> narrator: it was at this point that jones shocked pozner's attorney. >> mr. jones claimed that theas that he said that sandy hook was fake is because he was sufferg from a kind of psychosis. >> that i've, you know, i, myself, have, you know, almostm had, like, a f psychosis back in the past where basilly thought everything was staged, you ow, now i'm learning a lot of times things aren't staged. >> because it sn't just about sandy hook. what, what he was saying is's that, "the psychosis i have, some form of psychosis,e that makes mbeliat every

event is staged." >> my opinions have been wrong but they were never wrong consciously to hurt people... >> in other rds, for jones, it's a universal pass. >> narrator: under oath, jonessi made a reluctant adm. >> and, and, so over the years, i've... you know, especially as it's became a hu issue, had time to, you know, really retrospectively think about it.e uh... and ashole thing matured, you know, i've had, had a chance to believe thath. children died, and it's a tragedy. >> as far as i'm concerned, i've alrey won. having alex jones admit under oath that noah did d the way it was reported, in his school, that's a victory for me. >> narrator: the lawsuits would continue. >> alex jones banned from >> narrator: but they were just e beginning of jones' problems. >> alex jones has been deleted, digitally de-platformed... >> apple, facebook, youtube,

spotify, pinterest, and linkedin have all removed material... >> narrator: jonesook his case washington. >> they're gonna have the heads of facebook and twitter up there... >> narrator:e had been de-platformed, banned by the soci media giants, for dehumanizing language, glorifying vionce, hate speech. >> there was a backlash, therewa s a backlash where people started toeally try to examine this person. >> they started to review, internally, you know, are we monetizing this guy? are we supporting the horrible things that he's doing? >> narrator: jones tried to portray it as a conspiracy by the ep state and globalists. >> i am here because there is a concerted effort by the democraticarty, multinational corporations, and big tech to nationalist and populices. that's why i've been targeted... >> (inaudible) >> so i can't have a press conference, as you can see, in america, cannot face my accusers. >> the tech giants were incredibly slow to respond to

what mr. jones was doing. they were more than happy to allow mr. jones to make money for their platforms, causing mayhem and hysteria. they were absolutely hap to do it. and at some point, it became too much for them, and some of it became this lawsuit. some of it became mr. jones' conduct. >> narrator: thoseround jones saw something else-- revenge fr the left for jones'it allianh trump.ew >> my own is that it has attack.gerprints of an organized within twoears of trump's, electi faces an onslaught of lawsuits from all across the country likehe kind he had never faced before. and he is completely removed a frost every social media platform. and his voice is censored orsi nced, it's an unprecedented attack on any individual that i've ever witnessed. on narrator: by 2020, alex was exploiting another nationald

tr.. the coronavirus pandemic. >> globalists inside o government to create the fear and allow the nation to never re-open. this is a chi-comm globalist bioweapon meant to shut down our economy. >> narrator: fear, economic collapse, partisan division... ng >> (crowd chanti u.s.a.! >> narrator: and he was still is lockstep with the ent. >> the democratic party, the liberals, are cheeng this virus. liticizing the coronavirus, you know that, right? coronavirus... they're politicizing it. >> narrator: a soon, race would emerge again, too. >> black live matter! >> george floyd, bombed out of his brain on fentanyl, died... so what's all this so-called

rioting about? it's not about injusti, it's about control and power. >>arrator: alluel for the fire stoked by trump and jones. >> but they want to keep us locked in our homes? >> it is a chi-comm laborato experiment... >> and guess what, after november 3, coronavirus will magically all of a sudden go away and disappear... >> conspiracism has become a recognized and accepted way of exercising political power. >> a lot of people are saying it may have been a biological weapon that potentially may have leaked out of wuhan. polarization in the population that's much deeper than partisan polarization.d >> george fls actually killed three years ago in texas... >> white supremacists organizati being responsible for some of the violence... >> it's a polarizati about what it means to know something. >> total population control, it's what the national security agency... >> i think it's likely to spread acro the political spectrum. >> a foreign government could

try to steal the election by printing absentee and mail-i ballots... >> and whether it returns to the fringes or not will depend on whether people in offi can resist using it. >> go to pbs.org/frontline for moren how conspiracy theorists are fueling racial tension today. >> alex jones looks for al the terrible things in society, racism, sexism, misogyny. >> and listen to our podcast with director michael kirk on consracies in the time of coronavirus. >> there's been a concerted efrt to knock down knowledge based information. >> connect with frontline on facebook and twitter, and watch anytime on the pbs video app or pbs.org/frontline. >> she was brought down to the icu knowinghat her oxygen level had gotten precariously worse. >> narrator: a new mot >> she's 30 years old, she b just had aaby. she's rely sick.

>> narrator: the newborn at risk. >> was the baby going to be extrely sick and infected as a result of covid too? >> narrator: and their struggle to reunite. >> she said, "help my husband, help my son." >> narrator: "love, life, and the virus." frontline is made possible by contributions toour pbs station from viewers likyou. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support is provid by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committedj to building a mot, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.or the ford foundation: working with visionaries on thel fres of social change worldwide. at fordfoundation.org. additional support is provided by the abrams foundation,te commto excellence in journalism. the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. the john and helen glessner family trust.

supporting trustwort jonalism that informs and inspires. and by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler. captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> for more on this and other "frontline" programs, visit our website at pbs.org/frontline. ♪ frontline's, "united states of conspiracy" is available on amazon prime video.

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- pnc has a choice to make: invest in the future. and that's in wind energy and renewable energies at and altee economies. i've been to countless demonstrations and marches and protests a rallies in various places and, in my early days mostly with my dad. what has that meant for me? m i think ns it's a place i feel really comfortable. it's a place i feel pretty at home, and it's part of my belief of what democracy is about. it's part of my belief of what quakerism is about my dad has tremendou it's part of my belief ofhe practices what he preaches, and he's willing to put it on the line. [dramatic music] ♪ - "who are these quakers?" ♪ "is it qhat guy on tker box? "do you still wear the big hats, and do you have the big"