Filmmaker Spike Lee embraced several conspiracy theories about President Donald Trump in an interview published Sunday in GQ magazine, including the infamous “fine people hoax” about neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“He sided with the Klan in Charlottesville. He’s sympathetic to their cause,” Lee said during the interview.
In fact, Trump said that neo-Nazis and white supremacists should be “condemned totally,” and sided with non-violent protesters on either side of the issue of the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee from a public park.
Lee also repeated the false claim, widely circulated in the media, that Trump used “tear gas” on “peaceful protesters” to clear Lafayette Park so that he could walk across it and pose with a Bible in front of a fire-damaged St. John’s Church.
“He was on some General George Patton, John Wayne, bullshit! I mean, it was unbelievable. The whole thing was staged. You know, tear gas a peaceful crowd, give a speech and then walk from the White House to the church!” Lee said.
As Attorney General William Barr noted Sunday, the protests had been violent for days, and U.S. Park Police had decided to expand the security perimeter near the White House the day before Trump walked through the park. Tear gas was not used in clearing the park; the two events were not connected. “It’s the job of the media to tell the truth,” Barr said.
Asked whether he believed Trump would lose the election, Lee said, “I’m not certain about anything. How do we know he’s not going to try to rig the thing again?”
There is no evidence the election was “rigged,” and Special Counsel Robert Mueller found there had been no collusion between Trump and the Russian government.
