dealey plaza awaiting the return of john f. kennedy and his son, jfk jr. who died in a plane crash tragically in 1999. they believe the kennedys are not actually dead and will reveal themselves in order to help reinstate donald trump as president. now, it was supposed to happen at 12:29 on november 2nd. obviously that did not happen. but a hard-core group remains in dealey plaza waiting for something to happen. the leader promised something big yesterday. you could look at all of this and be forgiven for thinking the country is going through a bit of a psychotic episode. look, all kinds of people with all kinds of politics in all kinds of places believe all kinds of banana things. probably i do. so i don t necessarily want to single this group out. the reason they re noteworthy is because their peculiarities and beliefs are associated with the
they gather on the grassy knoll. for decades it was the epicenter for american conspiracy theories. but this year was different. this year for the past several weeks in fact the area has been taken over by qanon and its related cult groups. they are waiting for the return of john f. kennedy and his son, john jr. they in fact believe this man is what jfk jr. looks like today. they say the plan is for jfk jr. to be trump s running mate in 2024, and they have banners and flags to prove it. it s sad. it s tragic. it s sick. it s twisted and obscene. imagine a grievance-filled life so devoid of purpose, so disconnected with reality and the country that cares for you as to make someone leave home, as some of them have, and empty their savings as some of them have, to go and be part of something where they claim their slice of insanity.
okay. wendy davis, given what lies ahead, i know we ll be speaking with you soon. thank you so much for your insights. meantime, hundreds of qanon supporters gathered in dallas this week because they thought ready for it? jfk jr. was going to come back to life to reveal himself as donald trump s running mate. what is behind this new ridiculously failed prediction for qanon and what it means for this fringe conspiracy movement next. means for this fringe conspiracy movement next are you gonna stop me? uh-oh. i m almost there. too late! boom! earn big time with chase freedom unlimited with no annual fee. how do you cashback? chase. make more of what s yours. everyone remembers the moment they heard. “you have cancer.” how their world stopped and when they found a way to face it. for some, this is where their keytruda story begins. keytruda - a breakthrough immunotherapy that may treat certain cancers. one of those cancers is advanced nonsquamous, non-small cell lung cancer
followers believed he was going to announce he was running as donald trump s vice president in 2024. joining me now is ben collins, senior reporter for nbc news who covers disinformation, extremism and the internet. where, ben, did this wild idea begin that, by the way, trump is related to the kennedys and the late jfk jr. would come back to life to become trump s republican running mate? i think it s important to realize that this started with q, from qanon. q is that fictional character basically that posts anonymously on the white supremacist website. q many years ago posted very vaguely president trump and jfk jr. and then he said just like think about it. when you tell conspiracy people to think about it, they don t think what connections do these people have. they think very simply. they think jfk jr. is still alive and they re going to run together.
they are just excited about the fact that they all believe donald trump is still the president, and this is a very niche version of this. this is people following two specific telegram influencers with hundreds of followers. the much larger, broader section of qanon followers do not believe this. they kind of make fun of this. if you believe in qanon, you believe that there is this large pedophile gang running the world who is killing babies to drink their blood. all qanon people believe this, and then there is this tiny subset that believe that jfk jr. is involved. that tiny subset showed up by the hundreds in dallas this week, and not a lot of people believed this would happen. it shows how large this movement really is. yeah. stunning. leaves me speechless. i m glad i have a commercial break to try to get my head around it all. ben collins, thank you is much. it s good to see you my friend. come talk about these kinds of things anytime.