Trump Refuses to Denounce QAnon Conspiracy Theories
BURNETT: Tonight, Senator Mitt Romney attacking President Trump's refusal to denounce QAnon during last night's town hall, saying, quote, the president's unwillingness to denounce and observe a dangerous conspiracy theory last night continues an alarming pattern. Politicians in parties refuse to purposely repudiate groups like Antifa, white supremacists and conspiracy peddlers. The president going so far as to praise QAnon supporters and defending his retweets of -- I guess you would call it a conspiracy theory, this is completely insane that Osama bin Laden is not really dead.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know nothing about QAnon.</s>SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: I just told.</s>TRUMP: You told me, but what you told me doesn't necessarily make it fact, I hate to say that. I know nothing about it, I do know that they are very much against pedophilia, they find it very hard.</s>GUTHRIE: Just this week, you re-tweeted to your 87 million followers the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden orchestrated to have Navy SEAL Team 6, the Navy SEAL Team 6, to cover up the fake death of bin Laden. Now why would you send a lie like that to your followers? You retweeted it.</s>TRUMP: That was a retweet. That was an opinion of somebody and that was a retweet. I'll put it out there. People can decide for themselves.</s>GUTHRIE: I don't get that. You're the president. You're not like someone's crazy uncle who can just retweet whatever.</s>TRUMP: No, no, no. That was a retweet and I do a lot of retweets and frankly because the media is so fake and so corrupt, if I didn't have social media, I don't call a Twitter, I call it social, media I wouldn't be able to get the word out.</s>GUTHRIE: Well, the word is false. And you know what the word is? The word is very simple. We're building our country stronger and better than it's ever been before. That's what's happening and everybody knows it.</s>GUTHRIE: OUTFRONT now, former Navy SEAL Rob O'Neill. He's the retired member of Navy SEAL Team 6, the team that killed Osama bin Laden. Rob, you and I have talked a lot about that. You know, his defenses I'll put it out there that Osama bin Laden is alive. As I said, the conspiracy theory I've only heard in taxicabs in the Middle East, not something you'd ever think the president of the United States would put out there. So, what do you say to that? You were there.</s>ROBERT O'NEILL, FORMER MEMBER OF NAVY SEAL TEAM THAT KILLED OSAMA BIN LADEN: Yes. Thanks again, Erin. Great to see you and to be back on the show. Yeah, I was there and when I heard you say absurd, I mean, it is absurd, and to the point where when we first heard about it, I was on a vacation, some of the guys who are on the ground with me were texting me saying stuff, almost jokingly, like, you know, who did we go in there and kill, why are we all dead? Stuff like that. And, you know, it's one thing to joke about something like that and, I put out a two-way tweet that said I put a I guess we might have must killed Obama bin Johnson or something like that. But, I mean, for the president of the United States, now, he loved to tweet out stuff to whip, to own the news cycle, and a retweet is one thing for someone who's not the commander-in-chief, but for something this important, you can't just tweet out something like that, especially with -- even with someone with that with that many followers and say, well, I'm sure they will just come up with their own conclusions, because, you know, we got crazies on the right hand on the left, and there are people that are taking his words as gospel. And if the president puts out that we didn't kill the right guy or the entire team was killed or whatever, they're saying like that, a lot of people are gonna straight-up believe him. And it can't get to a point where it's more than politically dangerous. It shouldn't be a retweet, he knows what happened, he is the highest of the top secret, the toppest, the highest of the top secret people. He can go see the pictures that we do have it CIA in a file cabinet. We got a lot of photos of him different places where we took bin Laden's body for DNA test. So, it's just -- you know, it's one of those things where as somebody has made mistakes on twitter, the president should not be doing something of that scale.</s>BURNETT: No, I mean, it's just tough to imagine, you know, how that -- how that feels to you, when you were there with your team and you risk your lives to do this for this country. I want to ask you about something else, because part of that exchange that I played was about QAnon right? He has said that in the past that he understands QAnon supporters, quote, like me very much and that they love America. According to a reporting from "The Atlantic" the, president as promoted Twitter accounts that referenced QAnon more than 200 times, right, with his retweets and other things as you're discussing. Do you believe Trump that he doesn't what QAnon is? And sees them as I guess the valiant opponent of pedophilia?</s>O'NEILL: I -- I'm not -- see, I'm not even that familiar with QAnon. The most I know is that they claim to be a right wing group. I know people who have gone to their spots as keynote speakers and said they never go back, because they have some bizarre things going on. I'm not -- I don't know what the president knows about them, and I've never spoken to the president about QAnon. I've heard different things from different sides. From what I've read, I'm not going to associate with them. If they're breaking up pedophilia rings, that's awesome. Obviously, I don't think anyone's pro pedophile. But I don't know much about, them I don't know what the president knows about them. It's just -- it just seemed like bizarre, because these are guys that are saying -- I mean, part of that conspiracy, the guys on the bin Laden raid can joke about. We know what we did, we saw it, and the unfortunate thing is we're many -- I mean, few people that have seen it. But then when it gets into the conspiracy that somehow because Vice President Joe Biden says SEAL Team 6, that they shot down SEAL Team 6 to silence the group, because the group got shot down was a different group of guys. Not one guy that died there, albeit some of the best fighters I've ever seen, the best heroes ever, none of them were in the bin Laden, but they were real people, and their kids are still missing their fathers, and that was a real thing. And even to go so far as the conspire that Hillary Clinton saw the missiles that shot them down to shot up SEAL Team 6, that's the kind of stuff what was in this ridiculous QAnon conspiracy theory and that's when it gets very, very personal for me and that's why I did get upset about.</s>BURNETT: Yeah, I understand that. It's absurd and it can be very dangerous. I want to ask you one other thing before we go, Rob, because -- since I have you. Look, I know that you yourself, you're a conservative guy. The president has come under fire for suggesting that Gold Star families could've been spread responsible for the spread of coronavirus in the White House, right? He's made some comments here, you know, saying that they just like Hope Hicks so much, they want to hug her, and that's sort of how it happened. He also said this.</s>TRUMP: They come within an inch of my face sometimes, they want to hug me and they want to kiss me, and they do. And frankly, I am not telling them to back up, I'm not doing it. But I did say it's obviously dangerously dangerous, it's dangerous if you go by the COVID thing.</s>BURNETT: And then, of course, Rob, he specifically said law or military enforcement could've in affected Hope Hicks. I mean, look, veterans and active duty service members are a key part of Trump's political base. Sixty percent of them voted for him in 2016, according to the exit polls. Just from your point of view, do you feel at supporters slipping or not?</s>O'NEILL: I know -- I know that most of the men or women with whom I've served a conservative leaning, and I think if you want to -- if someone wants to get political as far as Gold Star families, my advice is to keep them out of it completely. And, you know, you don't blame Gold Star kids for something that may have happened when a lot of people aren't 100 percent sure how this virus is spread. I would just, I mean, me personally, if a Gold Star kid wants to hug him, get him a hug, and I'm not going to say a word of it.</s>BURNETT: Yeah, right. Point taken, thank you very much, Rob. I appreciate your time.</s>O'NEILL: Thank you, Erin.</s>BURNETT: And next, Trump was repeatedly warned that Rudy Giuliani repeatedly being used by Russian agents to take down Biden. So what was the president's response? And all eyes on a key swing state that could not only determine who wins the White House but who takes control of the Senate. So, who has the upper hand?