SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA- Yesterday, in a bizarre press conference, Republican Senate candidate Jason Lewis refused to unequivocally denounce a conspiracy theory that there were crisis actors involved in the video of George Floyd’s murder.
The conspiracy theory has been debunked by FactCheck.org – “Bogus Claims of ‘Crisis Actors’ in Death of George Floyd”
Watch the video (beginning at 5:55) and read the full exchange below where Lewis leaves open the possibility he believes the offensive conspiracy theory:
QUESTIONER: This is kind of a statement, and y’know I don’t want to get into the conspiratorial things, but I have a friend who has been with the local acting community for years. There’s just a lot of very suspicious stuff wrong with this. He stated specifically that his friends in the acting community recognized a lot of people from the George Floyd video that might need to be looked into. The paramedics, he said, were both local actors.
I think there’s more going on here and more collusion with more nefarious things happening, and I think it needs to be looked at. Now, I have a video that’s been pulled from Facebook multiple times, been pulled from YouTube. If anyone wants to see it, it gives a little bit more of this. But there’s something more going on here, and I know everybody says “conspiracy” with these kind of things. I personally know people who are with the acting community where stuff is going on behind the scenes. I’m a little suspicious. So if anyone needs some more information, they can come talk to me.
LEWIS: I am less concerned, to be honest with you, about conspiracy than I am a wayward consensus.
QUESTIONER: I agree.
LEWIS: And that’s what we have right now, a wayward consensus that all police are bad…
Lewis has a long history of peddling conspiracy theories and false information. Earlier this year, new recordings showed Lewis touting false statistics commonly cited by white supremacists, such as that white people are disproportionately killed by black people.
And most recently, Lewis doubled down on a COVID-19 conspiracy theory that the government would make people get “vaccines with tattoos to make certain you’ve got one.” This conspiracy has been repeatedly debunked numerous times (here, here and here). He was also publicly scolded by Steve Bannon for pushing the conspiracy theory that the coronavirus death toll is being artificially inflated.