A resort owned by Donald Trump is set to host a conference this spring headlined by QAnon promoters and other conspiracy theorists, marking a new connection between the ex-president and his party’s far-right fringe.
In May, the ReAwaken America tour—a right-wing road tour that has held large events in more than a dozen states—will hold a weekend conference at the Trump Doral hotel in Miami. While it’s not clear yet who will be on the speaker’s list, previous iterations of the tour have featured conservative celebrities ranting about Satanic sexual worship and myriad other conspiracy theories.
Support for Trump has always been at the center of the tour, which is led by former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and right-wing media personality Clay Clark. Launched in the aftermath of Trump’s 2020 defeat, the tour features a blend of Trumpworld figures like Flynn, Trump loyalist Kash Patel, Eric Trump, and hardcore conspiracy theorists pushing QAnon and various shades of COVID-19 denial.
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“At this Reawaken America Tour, Jesus is King [and] President Donald J. Trump is our president,” Clark said when the tour stopped in New York last August.
Until now, though, the tour hasn’t actually been hosted at any Trump properties—until Clark and his entourage arrive at Trump Doral on May 12.
“Get your sunscreen ready,” Clark said in a recent video announcing the tour stop.
News of the event comes as Trump increasingly embraces QAnon, the conspiracy theory that posits Democrats are engaged in the Satanic torture of children and will soon be imprisoned and executed in a sort of fascist purge by Trump.
While Trump has long allied himself with conspiracy theorists, he has stepped up his public support for QAnon and other outlandish beliefs in the aftermath of the 2020 election. On the Trump-owned social media app TruthSocial, for example, the former president often reposts memes of himself wearing “Q” paraphernalia or repeating QAnon slogans.
ReAwaken America events have a history of promoting extreme conspiracies. At one of the group’s first conferences in Oklahoma in April 2021, actor Jim Caviezel embraced the idea that global elites sexually torture children in Satanic rituals to produce a life-giving substance called “adrenochrome.” At the same conference, pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood made his own claims that pedophilic Satanic worship is ubiquitous among the American political elites.
”They’re killing our children because they’re worshiping the devil,” Wood said.
For his part, Clark promotes the idea that the world’s elites engage in the cannibalistic practice of “spirit-cooking,” claiming he once became terrified after spending a night uncovering the practice online.
It’s not clear who will make the final speaker’s list on May 12 and 13. A spokeswoman for Clark told The Daily Beast that the conference’s agenda won’t be finalized until a few weeks before. The Trump Organization didn’t respond to a request for comment.
An online flyer promoting the Trump Doral stop, though, suggests that the speaker’s list could include a number of prominent conspiracy theorists. Along with Flynn, an outspoken QAnon booster himself, the flyer features pictures of QAnon promoters Ann Vandersteel and Scott McKay.
Known as “Patriot Streetfighter” to his fans, McKay wields a tomahawk onstage and urges his fans to threaten violence against police officers enforcing coronavirus restrictions. In videos to his supporters, McKay has explained that he believes a 1,400-year-old Satanic cabal controls the world.
While the ReAwaken tour marks a Trump property’s closest affiliation with QAnon, the ex-president has palled around at his resorts with conspiracy theorists in the past.
In December, Trump posed for pictures with QAnon promoter Liz Crokin at Mar-a-Lago after she gave a speech that she later described as covering Pizzagate—the thoroughly debunked hoax that Hillary Clinton and other top Democrats sexually abused children in a Washington pizzeria.
