Trump Rally Speaker Blamed Vegas Shooting On Muslims And Pushed Seth Rich Conspiracy Theories

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By Dave Goldiner September 20, 2018

Donald Trump’s handpicked warm-up speaker for his Las Vegas rally is a loud-and-proud conspiracy theorist who called the mass shooting at a country music festival a “Muslim terror plot” and suggested that George Soros paid Charlottesville demonstrators to make the far right look bad.

Wayne Allyn Root, will address a campaign-style rally with Trump in Sin City Thursday, also pushed the murder of Democratic staffer Seth Rich as a “HUGE issue” — and spouted bizarro theories that Democratic bigwigs ordered his killing, the Daily Besst reported.

Great day! I’m opening speaker for President of United States tonight. I just signed deal to nationally syndicate my newspaper column all over USA. & moments ago I became host & star of hottest Fantasy Football TV Show in America! God Bless America, capitalism & @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/biJ6yHfmi2

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— Wayne Allyn Root (@RealWayneRoot) September 20, 2018

Trump is apparently playing to the farthest right crowd as he mounts a political trip to ostensibly boost Sen. Dean Heller, a Republican senator who is struggling to survive as the only GOP incumbent in a state that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016.

Root claimed on Twitter that Trump personally intervened to get him the coveted spot before the president at the rally. A radio host and author, Root may have ingratiated himself with Trump with his book: Angry White Male: How the Donald Trump Phenomenon is Changing America.

Root famously blamed the mass killing on ISIS even though it turned out to have been committed by a homegrown white male killer.

He also said he suspects George Soros of paying off actors to impersonate white nationalists at the Charlottesville rally last year. Far right wing figures and anti-Semites often use Soros as a dog whistle signifying a Jewish dominated global conspiracy.

He recently launched an unhinged rant on radio blaming various Democratic figures for the 2016 murder of Rich, which he and other far right wing commentators believe was carried out to silence Rich or punish him for supposedly leaking Democratic National Committee secrets to Russia.

“He was murdered because he was the guy that gave all the DNC files to Julian Assange and Wikileaks,” Root asserted on his radio show, even accusing disgraced ex-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman as a possible culprit. “It sure seems to me to point to leading Democrats—Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC, the Clintons, Hillary Clinton, all the above, Donna Brazile—all the above seem to be mixed up in this, they all had a motive to kill this guy.”

I think Seth Rich murder is HUGE issue.I understand people and psychology. Something is VERY wrong.

— Wayne Allyn Root (@RealWayneRoot) May 29, 2017

Dave Goldiner is the Forward’s director of digital media. Dave is a veteran journalist who has spent two decades working at newspapers in the United States and Africa. A native New Yorker, Goldiner wrote for the New York Daily News, where he covered some of the biggest stories of our time, including the attacks of September 11, along with thousands of stories of hope and heartbreak. He also studied and worked in Southern Africa and has written for publications in South Africa and Zimbabwe. He holds masters degrees in journalism and public administration from Columbia University. Dave can be reached at [email protected], or follow him on Twitter @davegoldiner

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