Conspiracy theorist Brenden Dilley got press passes to the Trump campaign’s Iowa caucus “War Room”
Trump’s campaign gave Dilley and at least one other member of the pro-Trump “meme team,” who have both previously supported QAnon, “exclusive” press credentials and offered to bring guests for his show
Written by Alex Kaplan
Published
Brenden Dilley, a podcaster who has previously supported the QAnon conspiracy theory and leads a “meme team” that creates pro-Trump content, revealed on his show that he received press credentials from former President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign for its Iowa caucus “War Room.”
Dilley, who hosts an online show, is the leader of a “meme team” that reportedly refers to itself as Trump’s Online War Machine. He has openly admitted that “it doesn’t have to be true; it just has to go viral,” and that he “make[s] shit up” to further Trump’s agenda and destroy his opponents. As noted by The New York Times:
Cheered on by Mr. Trump, the group traffics freely in misinformation, artificial intelligence and digital forgeries known as deepfakes. Its memes are riddled with racist stereotypes, demeaning tropes about L.G.B.T.Q. people and broad scatological humor.
Dilley himself is a known conspiracy theorist, previously promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory — wearing QAnon hats and covering posts from QAnon’s central figure “Q” on his show — and being banned from then-Twitter for spreading misinformation about the 2019 El Paso mass shooting. He has since returned to the platform, which is now known as X, and dubiously claimed that he “never was all in for Q.”
Trump and his campaign have reportedly shared the group’s content and “have privately communicated with members of the meme team, giving them access and making specific requests for content,” and, “in at least one instance, the campaign shared behind-the-scenes footage to be used in videos, according to members of the team.” Trump has also “sent personalized notes to several of the group’s members, thanking them for their work.”
Now, Dilley has disclosed that the campaign also gave him press passes. During a January 17 episode of his show, Dilley showed press credentials for the campaign’s Iowa caucus night, and said they gave him credentials “because I’m Brenden Dilley of the Dilley Meme Team.” He also bragged that he got a “special” and “exclusive” press credential that had “Dilley 300” written on it, which he claimed got him into the “Trump War Room,” where “you hang out with all these wonderful people, and Don Jr. comes through, and Eric Trump comes through, and pretty much the entire Team Trump comes through.”
According to Dilley, he was in the War Room with another member of the meme team Michael Beatty — who has also previously supported QAnon and is known online as “Miguelifornia” — and they got “the most royal treatment” from Trump’s team, with the campaign even offering “to bring guests soon” for The Dilley Show that day.
Citation From the January 17, 2024, edition of The Dilley Show, streamed on Rumble
BRENDEN DILLEY (HOST): Now, this is a press pass issued by Donald J. Trump. I didn’t even use this. This is a very highly sought-after item, and I never used it. I just wanted one. And because I’m Brenden Dilley of the Dilley Meme Team, they gave me one. And they said I could go stand with the press, and they even put tape on the ground next to fucking — my friends over at OAN. And they said, “If you want to stand up there with OAN in the press box, you can. And there’s tape on the ground, and it says Dilley.” And I said, “I don’t want to stand with the press. I want to hang out with the regular people in the cool crowd.” So that’s what I did.
But that’s not even the special one. The special one is when you get one of these. See, this is what matters. This is the exclusive one. This is the one that nobody could get into the room. That is called Trump War Room press pass for, oh, that’s you guys, the Dilley 300. See, this lanyard is different. This lanyard gives you access to RSBN, OAN, and Real America’s Voice. And you sit in that room and you hang out with all these wonderful people, and Don Jr. comes through, and Eric Trump comes through, and pretty much the entire Team Trump comes through, and you visit and you hang out and they say things like, “We would love to have The Dilley Show in the War Room.”
And then what happens is you sit there and incredible people like Sonny, who work for Team Trump and all — her entire job is arranging interviews for Trump surrogates. And Sonny tells Miguelifornia, “Tell Brenden I’m going to bring guests soon. Let him know that we’re going to start bringing him guests.” Had I stayed on the air the whole time, we would have eventually ended up with Eric Trump and Don Jr. and some other people. I obviously didn’t wanna stay. There was — I was already on for 4 hours on Monday, so I couldn’t do it. But my whole point is we basically got the most royal treatment I’ve ever received at a Trump anything, and they were wonderful to us, and they were gracious.
Dilley is seemingly referring to using the press credentials during his January 15 episode, the day of the Iowa caucus. During that stream, Dilley also showed his press credential on screen, and he interviewed Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird and Arizona Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake, who Dilley said was his “friend” and who supposedly told him that Trump told her that one of Dilley’s “meme team” videos was “one of the best videos I’ve ever seen.”
Dilley and Beatty — both of whom have previously expressed support for QAnon — receiving press passes from Trump’s 2024 campaign comes as a QAnon show host got press credentials for Trump’s December rally in Nevada.