A Truth Social employee promoted QAnon on his podcast
Trump’s social media platform and its staff have repeatedly tied themselves to the conspiracy theory
Written by Alex Kaplan
Published
A senior software engineer at former President Donald Trump's social media platform Truth Social dedicated an episode of his podcast to promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory. It is yet another instance of the platform’s staff openly associating with and promoting the conspiracy movement.
While promoting the March 6 edition of his podcast, Liberty and Justus, host Justus Eapen, a senior software engineer at Truth Social, promised his audience what he called an “intro to Q” and which aimed to try “to understand the Q phenomenon from the ground up.” To do so, he invited Shannon Townsend and Jeffrey Pedersen, co-hosts of the QAnon-supporting MatrixxxGrooove Show (or MG Show) to explain the conspiracy theory to viewers.
Before introducing Townsend and Pedersen into the show, Eapen said the episode — during which he apparently wore a Truth Social-branded shirt — would be “the first time that we've really gotten into Q so I cannot wait” and that the episode would be “huge.” He then said the QAnon slogan — “where we go one, we go all,” or “WWG1WGA” — out loud.
Eapen then interviewed Townsend and Pedersen to discuss QAnon, where they falsely claimed the posts from “Q,” QAnon’s central entity, were legitimate, and they even showed Q posts on screen to discuss when Eapen asked for “an example.” (Eapen also allowed Pedersen to echo Q’s call in 2020 to deny that QAnon exists.)
Days later, Eapen appeared on a QAnon show, X22 Report, where he encouraged the audience to “talk to me about how we can improve Truth Social,” adding that he wanted “to hear all of your best feature ideas.”
Eapen’s activity comes as yet another tie between Truth Social and its leadership and QAnon. Kash Patel, a former Trump administration official and a member of the platform’s board of directors, and former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the platform’s CEO, repeatedly amplified an account called “@Q,” and Patel has associated with and praised the QAnon community, saying that “we try to incorporate” QAnon “into our overall messaging scheme to capture audiences.” Truth Social also features QAnon ads and verified QAnon influencers. The CEO of a shell corporation formed to merge with the company running Truth Social even went on a QAnon show to advocate for his own shareholders to delay the merger. Trump himself has also repeatedly amplified QAnon accounts and content on the platform, and a NewsGuard report also noted that some other Truth Social employees had “boosted QAnon-promoting accounts or shared original QAnon messages” — including Eapen.