WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump alleged in an interview that a group of people from "the dark shadows" are controlling Joe Biden.
In an extensive on-camera interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Monday night, Trump was asked who is pulling Biden's strings.
"People that you've never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows," Trump said.
Ingraham responded, "What does that mean?" and she said that it sounded like he was espousing a conspiracy theory.
"People that you haven't heard of. They're people that are on the streets, they're people that are controlling the streets," Trump said.
The president then suggested, without citing any evidence, that there was an organized plot against the Republican National Convention last week, claiming that someone boarded a plane "from a certain city" and it was "almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that, they are on a plane."
"I'll tell you sometime, but it's under investigation right now," he continued. "But they came from a certain city and this person was coming to the Republican National Convention. And there were like seven people in the plane like this person and then a lot of people were in the plane to do big damage."
Ingraham then said that money is "coming from somewhere" and asked Trump how it can be tracked.
“The money is coming from some very stupid rich people who have no idea that if their thing ever succeeded, which it won't, they will be thrown to the wolves like you've never seen before," Trump said.
Asked to clarify his comments on Tuesday, Trump told reporters, "A person was on a plane, said that there were about 6 people like that person, more or less, and what happened is the entire plane filled up with the looters, the anarchists, the rioters, people that obviously were looking for trouble. And the person felt very uncomfortable on the plane. This would be a person you would know."
On the final night of the RNC last Thursday, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said that he and his wife were attacked by "an angry mob” and said the following morning on Fox News that he believed there were people "involved with the attack on us that actually were paid to come here, are not from Washington, D.C., and are sort of paid to be anarchists."
Meanwhile, while expressing support for police during the Fox interview, Trump compared shootings to golf, saying, "There's a whole big thing there, but they (officers) choke just like in a golf tournament, they miss a 3-foot..."
Ingraham asked if he was really comparing it to golf, and he said, "I'm saying people choke." The president did not mention any specific incidents.
Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates responded to Trump in a statement on Tuesday, saying, "The President of the United States is bizarrely highlighting the unrest and division he has stoked, refusing to condemn violence committed by his own supporters. Donald Trump's incomprehensible case for doing even more damage in a second term makes less and less sense every single day."
