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.

From the March 6, 2023, edition of Liberty and Justus

JUSTUS EAPEN (HOST): Oh, people are excited to hear about Q. This will be the first time that we’ve really gotten into Q. So, I cannot wait. This is going to be huge. 

…

I’m so excited for this one. You know, the beautiful — the movement is so coherent now. You can just reach out to people. You can get them in the same room. You can hash things out. You don’t have to, you know, go through agents and gatekeepers. It’s just we are on the same page and it’s really exciting. It’s never — I've never seen anything like it. It’s never been so easy to get in touch with the people who are moving the needle. I’m just loving what we are working on these days. 

…

Yeah. Where we go one, we go all. Let’s go. 

…

Yeah. WWG1WGA. Let’s go.

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.)

From the March 6, 2023, edition of Liberty and Justus

JUSTUS EAPEN (HOST): I’m honored to have you. So, thank you for coming on. It’s going to be a big one because I think for the entire time I’ve been doing this show, people have been wanting us to discuss one particular topic. And we’re just going to start right here. Jeffrey, could you tell me what is Q?

JEFFREY PEDERSEN: Yeah, you know, it’s not “who,” it’s “what,” and Q is the information, right? So, like many of you — you know, I felt that something wasn’t right in the world and that our country was heading in the wrong direction, right? Then something magical happened in 2016, Donald J. Trump was elected president of the United States.

…

Consequently, the fake news, right, these guys, you know, began an all out assault on President Trump and his administration. You know, patriots like us stood by our duly-elected president, but he needed help. 

EAPEN: Yeah. 

PEDERSEN: So that’s when Q comes in. Ten months after President Trump, the inauguration, someone named Q — we don’t know who it is, 10 people, less than 10, 3 non-military. We’re not sure, but Q arrived on the scene [in] 2017, October. Q claimed to be an intelligence insider, perhaps U.S. military intelligence, and was actively helping the president.

EAPEN: Can I just ask, through what channels did this person first start? 

PEDERSEN: Yep. So basically 8chan. 

EAPEN: 8chan.

PEDERSEN: First it was for 4chan, then it was 8chan. Then it was 8kun, which it is today, basically. And there was like a Great Awakening board. But he only posted on the chan boards and the 8kun boards.

…

EAPEN: Do you have any examples of any of these early Q drops and sort of what the — like how — I guess how does it work? Like, he posts a list of sort of enigmatic statements and then are you — how does it work? Like, where do you go from there? Maybe you could give me an example if you have any on hand. 

SHANNON TOWNSEND: Yeah, I think he’s probably actually getting ready to pull up a couple and just reading a couple of them. And like I said, you will see sort of how Q answers his own questions within more questions.

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.