The California GOP is backing a commentator who pushed a bizarre conspiracy theory about Rothschilds, tunnels, and fires

Right-wing commentator Denise Aguilar Mendez: “My tinfoil hat is going to show”

Written by Eric Hananoki

Published

Updated

The California Republican Party has been backing the state Assembly campaign of Denise Aguilar Mendez, a commentator who has a history of pushing far-right conspiracy theories. 

Aguilar shared a bizarre and antisemitic conspiracy theory essentially claiming that the power grid was turned off in parts of California in 2019 not to prevent fires but to stop the Rothschilds, a prominent Jewish family, from trafficking children. After referencing the Rothschilds, Aguilar claimed that “there's certain families in the United States all over the world who are in charge of us. It's the central banking system. They're in charge of our money.” 

“That's the reasons why we go to war and all that stuff,” she later added.

Aguilar is running for California State Assembly in District 13. The California Republican Party is supporting her campaign and California Republican Assembly Leader James Gallagher has been backing her. Aguilar also wrote that she attended an event this summer for California Republican U.S. Senate nominee Steve Garvey, with whom she took a picture for social media.  

Aguilar helped found two organizations: the anti-vaccine Freedom Angels and the “Mom Militia.” She is an election conspiracy theorist: USA Today’s Will Carless reported on her activities on January 6 in a March article headlined, “Calif. statehouse candidate says she didn't join Capitol riot. Video shows otherwise.” 

She is a right-wing commentator who has appeared on outlets like One America News. She also frequently posted online commentaries prior to her run for office.

In a 2019 video, Aguilar shared a conspiracy theory that was apparently so odd that she herself said, “My tinfoil hat is going to show today.” 

At the time, California was facing severe wildfires, which prompted PG&E to turn off some of the power grid. Aguilar had a different theory, stating that the shut off was “not to prevent fires” but was actually because “white hats” — a term often used by conspiracy theorists to describe people working within major institutions who they believe are fighting perceived corruption — “had to turn off the power grid in California in order to find the underground tunnels” housing missing trafficked children. (“Underground tunnels” have been part of several prominent conspiracy theories over the years.) 

Aguilar then expanded that the people the white hats were fighting against were “the Rothschilds,” who she claimed run PG&E. She said: “So Rothschild, there's a family, there's certain families in the United States all over the world who are in charge of us. It's the central banking system. They're in charge of our money. The Federal Reserve is not a government entity. It's actually a private company owned by these families that control our money. So that's another rabbit hole to go into. That's the reasons why we go to war and all that stuff.”

Aguilar was repeating a well-worn antisemitic canard: As the Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation summarized, “Antisemitic descriptions of the Rothschilds claim they are part of an international Jewish conspiracy to control the world economy.” 

From a video uploaded to Rumble on October 17, 2019

DENISE AGUILAR MENDEZ: I want to talk to you guys about what's happening in the world of trafficking and what's happening in California because mainstream refuses to report it. And, there's just been a lot of — we've seen what's happening with PG&E. And this is not to prevent fires, by the way. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start at the top with PG&E fires. And then I'm going to go down how I came into this rabbit hole. 

So if you guys did not know, in the state of California, we had PG&E shutting off the power to the Bay Area communities, and this was not for fires. What's been happening is that there were 2,100 children who were saved from human trafficking. And we have something called white hats. So white hats are the good people within every entity of our government, within every entity of large corporations that help us when needed. 

So PG&E to start is not a government agency, but it is ran by the Rothschilds. So Rothschild, there's a family, there's certain families in the United States all over the world who are in charge of us. It's the central banking system. They're in charge of our money. The Federal Reserve is not a government entity. It's actually a private company owned by these families that control our money. So that's another rabbit hole to go into. That's the reasons why we go to war and all that stuff. But look up Gadhafi and why he was killed. 

But my tinfoil hat is going to show today. So, PG&E’s white hats had to turn off the power grid in California in order to find the underground tunnels. Underground tunnels are where — how humans are trafficked — in like at the state Capitol, there's tunnels going from the Capitol to the courts, courthouses, and to the jails. That's how a lot of the — that's how they're transported so that way there's not a lot of, you know, media. So, if you look at certain stories that have happened, you're seeing fires in manholes coming up from the ground, which does not happen. So they basically had to smoke out these people. The white hats came and did and used their machines to check to see if there was power underground. And in order to do that, they had to shut down the power grid on top. So 2,100 children have been saved. These children were trafficked, some of these children were farmed.

“You're not going to find this on CNN,” Aguilar added. “If you don't believe me, that's completely OK. You'll one day find your rabbit hole.” 

In November 2018, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) shared a now-infamous conspiracy theory related to space lasers, Pacific Gas & Electric, the Rothschilds, and wildfires in California.

In another 2019 video, Aguilar promoted “Pizzagate,” the violence-linked conspiracy theory that elites have trafficked children through a Washington, D.C., restaurant. Among other remarks, she specifically claimed that human trafficking is a “very real problem in the United States, but it’s even a bigger problem within the United States government and the people in power,” explaining, “This originally started within a pizza place.” 

Later in that video, she also referenced the adrenochrome conspiracy theory, claiming: “Children have always been the source of what these people want. There's something called adrenochrome, which isn't that far-fetched,” and then said that elites “drink” children’s blood. She added that it's “real and it’s serious.” 

Update (10/18/24): This headline has been revised.