Why Is CNN Hosting Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones?

CNN's Piers Morgan hosted noted radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to discuss his petition to deport Morgan because of his views on gun control. Jones is a 9/11 truther who has a history of inflammatory and baseless remarks.

On Monday's edition of Piers Morgan Tonight, Morgan asked Jones to explain his “Deport Piers Morgan” petition. Jones responded with a lengthy tirade that filled two segments. His comments included pushing the debunked myth that “more guns means less crime,” claiming that “1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms,” referring to antidepressants as “mass murder pills” that cause people to commit violence, and claiming that “megabanks” have “taken everybody's guns but the Swiss and the American people, and when they get our guns, they can have their world tyranny.”

Jones is one of the country's leading conspiracy theorists. Here are just a few examples of conspiracy theories Jones has promoted:

  • The Oklahoma City Bombing was “carried out by intelligence agencies” with “Bill Clinton's involvement.”
  • The government is using products like juice boxes to “encourage homosexuality with chemicals so that people don't have children.”
  • The U.S. government was behind the 9/11 attacks. Jones describes himself as being on “the front lines of the growing global information war from ground zero to the occult playgrounds of the power-mad elite. Jones predicted the attacks on September 11th, 2001 and is considered one of the very first founding fathers of the 9-11 Truth Movement.”
  • The government has set up FEMA concentration camps in America, and “the military-industrial complex is transforming our once free nation into a giant prison camp.”
  • President Obama is transforming the United States into “something that resembles Nazi Germany, with forced National Service, domestic civilian spies, warrantless wiretaps, the destruction of the Second Amendment, FEMA camps and Martial Law.”
  • The BP oil spill “could have been manufactured.”

Jones has also pushed numerous conspiracy theories about weather control, mass sterilization, and the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. In June 2012, Jones' Infowars.com promoted the myth that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was using drones to spy on Midwestern ranchers. Finally, the radio host has declared that Obama's birth certificate is a fraud.

Jones' lengthy history of pushing absurd conspiracy theories should disqualify him from being mainstreamed on media outlets such as CNN.