 | |
Type of site | |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Rick Wiles |
| URL | trunews |
| Registration | None |
| Launched | September 1998; 26 years ago (1998-09)[3] |
| Current status | Active |
TruNews is an Americanfar-right[2]fake news website[1] and channel owned and hosted byRick Wiles.TruNews frequently publishesconspiracy theories[12][13][14] in addition toracist,anti-LGBT,antisemitic, andIslamophobic content.[11] It has been designated ahate group by theSouthern Poverty Law Center.[15]
Wiles founded the organization asAmerica's Hope in September 1998 as aChristian ministry based in theDallas–Fort Worth area. In the following months, Wiles toured the U.S. speaking of moral decline as he aimed to prevent "economic collapse" and "war on American soil". On May 24, 1999, the organization made its first radio broadcast. After five years of regular broadcasts, the news station briefly changed its name toAmerica Freedom News, before settling onTruNews in 2004.[3]
In November 2019,TruNews was temporarily suspended fromYouTube for violating its rules on promotinghate speech.[16][17] Wiles has denied his rhetoric hasantisemitic intent and blamedGeorge Soros for organizing a campaign against him.[14] In February 2020,TruNews was permanently banned from YouTube.[18]
In October 2014,TruNews urged that the spread ofEbola "could solve America's problems with atheism, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, pornography and abortion".[19][20] In late January 2020, Wiles saidCOVID-19 was God's "death angel" and "plagues are one of the last steps of judgment."[21]
TruNews is known for promoting racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories. The website frequently described PresidentBarack Obama as a "demon from hell".[7] Obama, he claimed while the former president was in office, was the "jihadist-in-chief" who was "waging jihad against the United States from inside the White House" and murdered Supreme Court JusticeAntonin Scalia as a "pagan sacrifice".[22]
In 2017,TruNews guests included someone who claimed PresidentBill Clinton was a flesh-eating cannibal, leading to his contracting related diseases.[23] Another asserted that QueenElizabeth II of the United Kingdom was a "lizard person" who hadDiana, Princess of Wales murdered because the Princess was in the process of revealing that the Royal Family was involved in Satanism.[24] He also asserted that Israel and the "Jewish mafia" had PresidentJohn F. Kennedy assassinated. Another edition of Wiles' program claimed Israel and the "synagogue of Satan" are pushing the United States to fight wars on their behalf.[12]
OnTruNews, Wiles has asserted that the effects ofHurricane Harvey upon the city of Houston, Texas, in September 2017 resulted from Houston's "LGBT devotion";[25][26] has described Judaism and Islam as "theAntichrist"; has called Central American immigrants a "brown invasion" being used by God to punish White Americans for legalabortion;[24] has claimed that the2017 Las Vegas shooting was conducted by government death squads from a "gay / lesbian Nazi regime";[7] and, in July 2018, predicted an imminent coup (led by CNN'sAnderson Cooper and MSNBC'sRachel Maddow) that would result in the nationally televised decapitation of theTrump family on the White House lawn.[24][27]
Wiles promotedantisemitic conspiracy theories ofJewish world domination while discussing the 2019AIPAC conference onTruNews.[28] In November 2019, he said that the congressional hearings concerning theimpeachment of Donald Trump were "infested with Jews" and constituted a "Jew coup".[17] He claimed: "That's the way the Jews work. They are deceivers. They plot, they lie, they do whatever they have to do to accomplish their political agenda" and asserted the United States would reach a state of civil war before Christmas. Millions of Christians would be murdered by Jews as a result.[29] Of the hoaxProtocols of the Elders of Zion, Wiles said the authors had "accurately predicted what was going to happen in the world".[17]TruNews and Wiles have also claimed that the transgender rights movement is a Zionist plot to make all of humanity androgynous, that this supposed plot was inspired by Talmudic and Kabbalistic doctrines, and that it involves "putting specific things in food, in drink".[30][18]
Even more shockingly, perhaps is the headline from the far-right news source TruNews, "Rick Wiles: Liberals Intend to Put Conservatives in Concentration Camps." For the far right, schools are not just sites of liberal hegemony but indoctrination centers, camps, cultural marxist madrassas.
For American Jews, there was a locally grown accusation. It was made by Rick Wiles, the Florida-based founder and host of the far-right Christian channel called TruNews. Wiles blamed Judaism for the spread of coronavirus: "There is a plague moving upon the Earth right now, and the people that are going into the synagogues are coming out with the virus. You are under judgment because you oppose his son, Jesus Christ. That is why you have a plague in your synagogues." For good measure, Wiles also claimed that COVID-19 outbreak in the United States was started at the AIPAC conference.
These include three far-right alternative news media with questionable credibility (The Colorado Herald, TruNews, and The Western Journal)...
TheTruNews archive reads like a greatest hits collection of far-right conspiracy theories, a veritable potpourri of Nazi references and fear mongering about secret cabals.
Another such case was fake news website TruNews, which presented several stylistic features associated with the genre of "broadcast news outlet."
TruNews è un canale televisivo online americano basato sulle notizie false e le teorie del complotto, ma non solo: tra i contenuti pubblicati troviamo omofobia, odio razziale e religioso, incluso l'antisemitismo. Il suo fondatore e proprietario, il pastore cristiano Rick Wiles, ha sostenuto la tesi degli Stati Uniti controllati da un gruppo di sionisti satanisti e le teorie del complotto sulla Covid19, soprattutto quelle NoVax, un'accozzaglia di contenuti comuni alla narrativa QAnon.[TruNews is an American online TV channel based on fake news and conspiracy theories, but not only that: among its published content we find homophobia, racial and religious hatred, including anti-Semitism. Its founder and owner, Christian pastor Rick Wiles, has supported the thesis of the U.S. being controlled by a group of Satanist Zionists and conspiracy theories on COVID-19, especially the NoVax ones, a hodgepodge of content common to the QAnon narrative.]
TruNews is a fundamentalist Christian streaming news and opinion platform that has increasingly featured anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist content, and also has a long record of disseminating radical Islamophobic and anti-LGBTQ messages.
Mr Wiles has used the TruNews platform to peddle conspiracy theories and push racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic content.
TruNews, which Mr. Wiles founded as an online radio program in 1999 called America's Hope, has a history of spreading conspiracy theories and proclaiming an imminent apocalypse. I
