Eric Trump has been touring with antisemitic conspiracy theorist Scott McKay, who claims that many Jewish people are working “under the cover of this religion called Judaism” to carry out a massive and evil conspiracy. In McKay’s telling, these fraudulent Jewish people have perpetrated 9/11; set up banking systems “in exchange for the child blood sacrifices”; and engineered presidential assassinations, among many other crimes.
McKay has also praised Hitler as a like-minded ally. In his narrative, Jewish people supposedly “created” and “built” Hitler to profit from war, but “Hitler broke away” from his Jewish creators and their evil banks by trying to create “a banking system for the people and the free world.”
“Hitler was actually fighting the same people that we're trying to take down today,” McKay claimed last year.
McKay, who uses the moniker Patriot Streetfighter, has a streaming show on Rumble, where he has hosted people including Trump lawyer Christina Bobb; Trump adviser Roger Stone; Iowa state Sen. Jim Carlin; violent rhetoric-spewing election denier Joe Oltmann; election conspiracy theorist Seth Keshel; and former New Hampshire U.S. Senate nominee Don Bolduc.
McKay is a “big part” of the ReAwaken America tour
McKay, who is also a QAnon conspiracy theorist, has begun to gain more prominence because of his featured speaking role on the ReAwaken America tour, which was founded by Clay Clark and Michael Flynn. The tour features QAnon and COVID-19 conspiracy theories; pro-Trump rhetoric; and Christian nationalism.
In addition to McKay, its “featured tour speakers” include Charlie Kirk, Kash Patel, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Peter Navarro, Mike Lindell, and Alex Jones. (Jones is scheduled to appear at the tour's Las Vegas stop in August; a poster of the event also includes McKay.) Donald Trump Jr. has also spoken on the tour. The tour’s best-known “featured speaker” is Eric Trump, who, along with McKay, most recently spoke in Nashville, Tennessee. McKay posted a picture of himself with Trump last year and wrote that he “says his Dad loves what we’re doing.”
“Eric's been there to a number of events I've spoken at, I've been right beside him a number of times,” McKay said last April. He went on to call his presence on the tour one a “validation” for him and “this movement.”
The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer recently reported that Trump’s Miami hotel is scheduled to host the ReAwaken tour in May. He wrote that “a spokeswoman for Clark told The Daily Beast that the conference’s agenda won’t be finalized until a few weeks before. … An online flyer promoting the Trump Doral stop, though, suggests that the speaker’s list could include a number of prominent conspiracy theorists,” including McKay. Eric Trump, Lindell, Patel, and Flynn are also on that flyer.
Tour co-founder Clay Clark is a friend and strong supporter of McKay, telling him last year: “If you're looking for someone to get behind and support, check out what Scott's doing with the economic warfare. It is a powerful movement. I really do believe Scott's the real deal. Scott, I appreciate you, my friend, for being a big part of the tour.”
McKay and the antisemitic “Khazarian Mafia” conspiracy theory
McKay is a frequent proponent of claims about the “Khazarian Mafia,” a sprawling antisemitic conspiracy theory that claims that many modern-day Jewish people are frauds who have hidden behind Jewish identity to oppress the world.
Conspiracy theory researcher Mike Rothschild, who wrote a book about QAnon and is working on another book about antisemitic conspiracy theories, told Media Matters: “Essentially, the Khazarian Mafia theory is that today's Ashkenazi Jews, the descendants of the Jews who settled in the Holy Roman Empire during the Diaspora and who would eventually emigrate to the US and Israel, are not actually Middle Eastern in origin. Instead, they're the descendants of a nomadic Eastern European/Central Asian tribe called the Khazars, who converted to Judaism in the 8th century CE. That ‘tribe’ of imposter Jews now exerts an iron grip on politics and finance through high-ranking families like the Rothschilds and Warburgs.”
The Khazarian Mafia conspiracy theory is antisemitic garbage.
“There is scant evidence to support this theory, and its origins and usage are deeply antisemitic,” Rothschild said. “It's part of a long line of canards used by antisemites to claim that certain powerful Jewish families are ‘fake Jews’ and exploit the suffering of actual Jewish people for their own purposes, usually making money and causing chaos.”
After reviewing McKay’s claims about the Khazarian Mafia, Rothschild said: “All I see is an influencer exploiting the same pseudohistory and Jew-baiting that antisemitic authors and preachers have used for hundreds of years.” He went on to say that McKay is pushing “hatred of Jews, there's no other way to put it.”
McKay has promoted his antisemitic beliefs to anyone who will listen. He has repeatedly discussed the Khazarian Mafia in his media appearances. He also features one of his unhinged episodes about it on the front of his website. And he has brought the Khazarian Mafia conspiracy theory to the ReAwaken tour.
For his part, McKay acknowledges that he says things that upset Jewish people: “I say all kinds of stuff that really piss off a lot of Jewish people but these people are still my friends,” McKay said last November.
McKay’s place among prominent right-wing figures is yet another example of the Republican Party’s embrace of antisemitic figures in recent years.
McKay’s antisemitic conspiracy theories and rhetoric
The following are some of McKay’s many antisemitic claims about Jewish people (or, per McKay’s conspiracy theory, fake Jewish people who are secretly Khazarians):
- McKay has claimed that Jewish people “built Hitler. … He was created by them” because they needed a catalyst to profit from a military conflict. He also praised Hitler for supposedly attempting to spurn his Jewish creators by trying to break “free of the Rothschilds’ corrupt money-magic fiat system” and create “a banking system for the people and the free world.”
- McKay claimed that 9/11 was perpetrated by “the same group of people that has done a very good job at hiding under the religion of Judaism."
- McKay claimed that Jewish people were responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing and the assassinations of Presidents Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and William McKinley.
- McKay claimed that Khazarians are hiding “under the cover of this religion called Judaism” so they can “murder children.”
- McKay claimed that Jewish people practice “satanism, child sacrifice, bleeding them out, torturing them, consuming them, eating their heart.”
- McKay claimed that Jewish people use the Rothschilds as their frontmen and created a banking system “in exchange for the child blood sacrifices.”
McKay claimed that Jewish people “built Hitler. … He was created by them.” McKay also praised Hitler for purportedly trying to be “free of the Rothschilds’ corrupt money-magic fiat system that didn't have a usury-based structure,” saying he was trying to create “a banking system for the people and the free world.” After praising Hitler, McKay added: “Am I saying Hitler’s a good man? Of course not. But the picture isn't as simple as they've created it to look.”