'These are people who love our country': Trump embraces the far-right QAnon conspiracy movement from the White House podium and claims he's 'saving the world'

• President Donald Trump threw his support behind the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory from the White House podium during a press briefing on Wednesday evening.
• Trump said that he didn't know much about the movement but that its followers "like me very much, which I appreciate."
• "These are people who don't like seeing what's going on in places like Portland, in places like Chicago and New York, and other cities and states," he said. "These are people who love our country."
• The FBI warned last year that conspiracy theories might pose a domestic-terrorism threat and listed several QAnon-inspired incidents as examples.
• Last year, a QAnon supporter was charged with murder over the death of a New York Mafia leader. Another conspiracist was arrested earlier this year on suspicion of threatening to murder the presidential candidate Joe Biden.

President Donald Trump embraced supporters of the far-right QAnon movement on Wednesday evening during a White House press briefing.

Trump said that he didn't know much about the movement but that followers of the conspiracy "like me very much, which I appreciate."

"These are people who don't like seeing what's going on in places like Portland, in places like Chicago and New York, and other cities and states," he went on. "These are people who love our country."

A reporter then told Trump the group claimed he was "secretly saving the world from this satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals."

"Does that sound like something you are behind?" the reporter asked.

"I haven't heard that, but is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing?" Trump replied. "I mean, you know, if I can help save the world from problems, I'm willing to do it — I'm willing to put myself out there."

He went further, saying he was, in fact, saving the country and the world.

"We are, actually," he said. "We're saving the world from a radical-left philosophy that will destroy this country. And when this country is gone, the rest of the world would follow. The rest of the world would follow."

The FBI warned last year that conspiracy theories like QAnon posed a domestic-terrorism threat.

"The FBI assesses anti-government, identity based, and fringe political conspiracy theories very likely motivate some domestic extremists, wholly or in part, to commit criminal and sometimes violent activity," the bureau said in an internal document first obtained by Yahoo News. "The FBI further assesses in some cases these conspiracy theories very likely encourage the targeting of specific people, places, and organizations, thereby increasing the likelihood of violence against these targets."

Broadly, the QAnon conspiracy theory claims the world is run by a satanic cabal of elites intent on bringing down the Trump presidency.

It alleges, among other things, that the former special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and other top Democrats who opposed Trump and that the so-called American deep state tried to shoot down Air Force One before Trump's summit in North Korea last year.

Some QAnon followers have been arrested and charged with violent crimes.

In one case, a QAnon supporter was charged with murder over the death of a New York Mafia leader last year. Another conspiracist was arrested earlier this year on suspicion of threatening to murder the presidential candidate Joe Biden.

In June 2018, a Nevada man used an armored truck to block traffic on the Hoover Dam bypass bridge and was later arrested after fleeing to Arizona. Authorities found body armor, ammunition, rifles, and a flash-bang device inside his vehicle. The FBI said the man directly mentioned the QAnon conspiracy theory after his arrest. The media also reported that he sent letters to Trump from jail that featured a QAnon slogan.

The president has shared, retweeted, and otherwise promoted dozens of messages from QAnon supporters but had not directly addressed the conspiracy theory before Wednesday. The movement is also gaining steam among Republican candidates for public office: At least two Republican congressional candidates who've voiced support for QAnon are poised to win House seats in November.

Trump's comments on Wednesday came hours after Facebook cracked down on QAnon conspiracists as part of a larger effort to police "offline anarchist groups that support violent acts amidst protests, US-based militia organizations, and QAnon."

Earlier this month, Facebook also removed a QAnon group with 200,000 members from its platform after it violated company policy. The social-media giant recently ran an internal audit that showed the conspiracy theory might have reached millions of users, through thousands of groups on the platform.

Other platforms have also taken steps to address the far-right group's influence. Twitter in July announced that it was cracking down on "so-called QAnon activity" and reportedly removed 7,000 accounts associated with posting content related to the conspiracy. Later that month, TikTok disabled two popular hashtags associated with QAnon.