President Obama Sniffs His Hand at a Campaign Rally to Prove He’s Not Demonically Possessed

But did he smell sulfur? Ask Alex Jones.

<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/30192882505/">The White House</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


On Monday, conspiracy radio host Alex Jones made a major announcement: White House sources had informed him that Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama are “abject, psychopathic” demons “from Hell.”

Jones has hosted Donald Trump on his radio show, InfoWars, and quickly emerged as one of the Republican nominee’s leading boosters in conservative media. So at a rally Tuesday in Greensboro, North Carolina, Obama decided to respond. “I was reading the other day, there’s a guy on the radio who apparently, Trump’s on his show frequently, he said me and Hillary are demons. Said we smell like sulfur. Ain’t that something!”

Obama then paused to smell his own hand.

“Now, I mean, come on, people!” he said.

Trump only appeared on Jones’ show once, but both men have close relationships with conservative dirty trickster Roger Stone, a Nixon campaign vet who serves as an informal Trump adviser and a frequent InfoWars guest.

Jones, in case you’re unfamiiar with him, is a 9/11 Truther who claims the Sandy Hook massacre never happened. He has been critical of past Republican candidates, but he can’t get enough of The Donald. Jones also helped to popularize the “Hillary for Prison” t-shirts that are now ubiquitous at conservative rallies, and his show is an incubator for some of Trump’s wildest accusations—including the claim that the November election will be “rigged.”

“It is surreal,” Jones commented on his program in August, “to talk about issues here on air, and then word-for-word hear Trump say it two days later.”

But maybe Jones had a point. If Obama’s not the devil, how does the president explain this?

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate