A traveling Christian nationalist roadshow received the Donald Trump stamp of approval this weekend when, during a two-day event at the Trump National Doral Miami resort, the former president suggested hiring the roadshow’s co-founder, his old buddy Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
The event was ReAwaken America, a long-running tour that promotes far-right conspiracy theories and antisemitic speakers. It was co-founded by Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor who, after leaving the White House amid scandal in 2017, became a hero of the Christian nationalist and QAnon movements.
Now Trump is suggesting reinstating Flynn, should he win the 2024 presidential election.
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Although Trump did not personally attend the ReAwaken tour at his own resort (he was in Iowa, where he had scheduled, then canceled a campaign rally) he spoke to the crowd via a cell phone, which Flynn held up to a microphone on the Doral stage.
“General, you just have to stay healthy because we’re bringing you back,” Trump said to Flynn on the call. “We’re gonna bring you back.”
Flynn’s reinstatement in the White House would be controversial, even on the right. Flynn was instrumental in launching the Stop The Steal movement, but later ran afoul of some of his compatriots, putting him at odds with more centrist Republicans and a subset of QAnon believers. But a future Flynn White House gig would be red meat for the conspiracy crowd that flocks to events like ReAwaken America—a crowd even more embroiled in fringe hoaxes and religious fervor than Trump’s 2016 base.
Flynn served an infamously short term in the Trump administration. Sworn in as National Security Advisor on Jan. 22, 2017, he stepped down weeks later on Feb. 13, over concerns about his communications with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S.
Flynn also entered, then withdrew, a guilty plea of making false statements to the F.B.I., although Trump later pardoned him and the case was dropped. Flynn was also instrumental in the Stop The Steal movement, and, when questioned in connection to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than state whether he thought the violence on Jan. 6 was justified.
Flynn has also publicly sworn an oath associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory and spoken at QAnon-aligned conferences, although he discredited QAnon in private texts with pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood. Wood later leaked the messages, in which Flynn speculated that QAnon was “a disinformation campaign to make people look like a bunch of kooks.” Still, QAnon-flavored language abounds at ReAwaken America. Flynn’s typical speech at the conference invokes QAnon-friendly fears of Christianity under attack.
Flynn’s dubious reputation hasn’t stopped Trump from mulling a new job for him in a future administration—but it has prompted Trump to muse that any such appointment would probably have to occur outside the Senate confirmation process, Rolling Stone reported earlier this month.
Trumpworld has at times exercised caution in its connections to ReAwaken America. The tour has featured end-times rhetoric, open calls for Christian nationalism, and prophecies of death for Trump’s opponents. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have been ReAwaken speakers, as have two Hitler-hyping antisemites who have elsewhere claimed that Jewish people eat children and that Hitler was “warning us” about Jews. Those two antisemitic speakers were listed as attendees at the Doral event, but were removed from the lineup after an outcry.
Nevertheless, the Doral event hosted bizarre speeches, alongside those from Trump family members like Eric and Lara Trump. Conspiracy theorist Liz Cronkin gave a speech promoting the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory that falsely claims prominent Democrats were engaging in child sex-trafficking under the guise of ordering pizza. Another speaker, a self-described “prophet,” urged that now is the time for religiously motivated “hand-to-hand combat” because she has seen evidence of mermaids, which are bad. “We have to understand what we’re dealing with. We have to understand the rules of engagement in spiritual warfare,” she told the crowd.
Flynn, who co-founded ReAwaken with businessman Clay Clark in 2021, is consistently one of the event’s biggest draws, leading attendees in baptisms and charged religious speech. At a November 2021 tour stop, Flynn called for “one religion” in the U.S. "If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God," he told the crowd.
ReAwaken America is a money-maker. Current ticket prices aren’t listed online (would-be attendees have to request them via phone) but a PBS investigation last year found the prices to range from $250 to $500. With 14 multi-day stops last year, some boasting more than 3,000 attendees, the tour is one of the far right’s main events.
In addition to promoting ReAwaken America, Flynn has recently launched other side-gigs that tap into his far-right fanbase.
On May 10 on Twitter, he announced that he was creating a profile on Cameo, a service that allows people to buy personalized video messages from celebrities.
“That community represents millions of people and they deserve to have a personalized message sent to them,” Flynn said in an introductory video. “So this is really for anybody but particularly for that community. I love you all and I just want to say thank you, God bless you and God bless America and I look forward to doing videos for each and every one of you.”
So far, Flynn appears to have made two videos singing “Happy Birthday” for customers, at $150 a pop. He also this month launched a channel on Rumble, a YouTube alternative popular with the right. His first video, a two-and-a-half minute clip titled “The Decline of The Dollar,” splices together ominous footage about alternative currencies before concluding with a clip of Flynn endorsing a California-based precious metals retailer.
Flynn also promoted the precious metals store this month on Telegram, suggesting that followers stock up on gold in order to “start preparing for CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currency) & EO 14067.” The reference to CBDCs is a nod to an ongoing discussion by the Federal Reserve on whether to use digital currency in addition to physical money. Although the Fed has not decided whether to move forward with the digital option, figures in conspiracy circles have conflated CBDCs with other monetary proposals and falsely claimed that the currencies represent an imminent plot to oppress Americans by digitally banning them from buying things like guns or meat.
