As OAN pitches to new carriers, one of its top personalities pushes conspiracy theories with Alex Jones

On February 9, One America News Network’s Pearson Sharp appeared on Alex Jones’ eponymous show on Infowars for a nearly 40-minute interview with the conspiracy theorist who was recently found liable for defamation in lawsuits brought by some of the families of children murdered in the Sandy Hook school shooting.

During the appearance, Sharp suggested pandemic restrictions could lead to a revolution; claimed Democrats might welcome an invasion by China to help fight dissenters; and compared the tracking of unvaccinated Americans to events that preceded the Holocaust.

OAN is currently trying to get picked up by mainstream cable providers like Spectrum and Dish Network after DirecTV announced it would not renew its contract with the network, starving OAN’s parent company of 90% of its income.

Though Jones is most infamous for lying about the Sandy Hook massacre, he has also regularly promoted far-right extremists calling for anti-government violence. He was also involved in funding and fomenting a January 6 event that devolved into the attack on the Capitol, and he has capitalized on his lies about the 2020 election by promoting his line of ineffective supplements.

During the interview, Sharp praised Jones, saying, “It’s really an honor to be on here. You’re one of the few truth-tellers in our country right now.” Jones also effusively praised Sharp, telling him, “I watch [OAN] hours a day. We have it on here at the office, all over the building. We don’t have Fox on anymore, other than Tucker Carlson occasionally.” Jones also told Sharp that “you have the same views as I do on this crazy world” and at the end, he invited him to come back anytime and guest host The Alex Jones Show.

Some highlights from Jones and Sharp’s lengthy conversation follow:

Sharp predicted that COVID-19 restrictions could spark a revolution, leading to Democrats inviting a Chinese invasion to keep power

From the February 9, 2022, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show

PEARSON SHARP (OAN REPORTER): What worries me is we are pushing back, but the American people -- you know, we’re supposed to be the cowboys. We’re supposed to be the rebels and the renegades and the revolutionaries. But throughout the last two years, we have just shown a shocking tolerance for this kind of oppression and this tyranny, and we just go along with it and bend over and accept what they’re saying. And I didn’t expect that. I thought we were going to have more of a backbone and push back.

Now, we’re not like New Zealand. We’re not like England. We haven’t been pushed that far, and I think the only reason that’s happened is because we have guns and they don’t. But they’re doing everything they can to get rid of those as well.

ALEX JONES (HOST): I totally agree with you. So why do you think they’re suddenly claiming, “OK, we’re going to back off the masks, we’re going to back off forced injections for now.” I think that’s because they see that finally people see them, and they’ve pushed too far. They hope people go back to sleep.

SHARP: They do. They absolutely do. They have pushed too far. But I wonder, what is going to be the sparking point? What is going to be the Boston Massacre of our generation? What is going to be the flint stone that sets this off?

And the other thing that worries me, and I’d like to get your take on this, is when we do push back, and we push back hard enough, I’m concerned that whether it’s Biden or Kamala, or whoever it is -- someone in Washington is going to say, “Look, this is too much for us to handle. Hey China, you want to help us out here? You’re good at putting down riots and oppressing people. Why don’t you come on over?”

…

SHARP: I’m legitimately concerned that it could be a very real possibility that we have an initially soft invasion from China — where Washington rolls out the welcome mat and we have Chinese peacekeepers coming over and filling our streets — to a hard invasion where there is no rebellion against Washington anymore, but we’re just fighting an outright war against China on our doorstep.

…

SHARP: Where we’re at now, how bad things have gotten, do you think that we can have -- can we recover from where we are? Can we have a peaceful recovery from where we are? Because everything I’ve seen, it looks like the democratic process has failed. Negotiations have failed. And I hate to think that a revolution is the only answer, but I don’t see these people ever giving up power or backing down.

Sharp argued that the “globalists” want to turn America into China, where “everyone is just totally controlled and cowed into submission”

From the February 9, 2022, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show

PEARSON SHARP (OAN REPORTER): China -- astonishingly, China is the end goal for these globalists. They want everything to be like that, where everyone is just totally controlled and cowed into submission.

When I was over there, I was a teacher at Xuchang University, which is in central China, about 12 hours west of Beijing, and it was a town of about 4 million people, which is considered small over there. And my students were really nice. But I have never met a more indoctrinated group of people in my life. And it was everybody.

Everybody you would run into was just -- it’s difficult to explain to someone in the West, the difference in behavior between a Chinese national and an American. And this is a total cultural thing, before anyone jumps to racism, because you talk to people from Hong Kong, and it’s night and day. They’re like Americans. You talk to people from Taiwan, they’re like Americans. They understand what freedom is --

ALEX JONES (HOST): This is three generations under communism and they’re like Martians.

SHARP: Yeah. They are. They absolutely are like Martians. They’re totally obedient, they don’t question anything. And they have a concept over there called “saving face,” where you know the person you’re talking to is lying, they know you know that they’re lying, but you both continue with it because you want to preserve face. And that interaction happens in everything that you do.

…

ALEX JONES (HOST): So all they do is just gaslight and just go on. That’s why they have so many disasters, so many plants melt down, because no one will tell anybody they’re wrong.

SHARP: Exactly. Yep. It’s endemic to their culture. And that, I’m afraid, is what’s going to happen here. People are just going to buy what’s being fed to them.

Sharp compared federal agencies’ alleged tracking of unvaccinated employees to the beginning of the Holocaust: They are “curating a list of enemies of the state”

From the February 9, 2022, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show

PEARSON SHARP (OAN REPORTER): We just found out a couple days ago that there are 55 federal agencies, including five cabinet-level agencies, who are now tracking Americans and employees -- specifically of them, Treasury Department, even the military -- tracking employees who have objections to the vaccine, who apply for an exemption or something, who don’t want to get it. They’re tracking these people. And you’d better believe they’re watching them closely.

They’re basically, what this is is curating a list of enemies of the state. And what’s terrifying is, we’ve seen this before. All of this has happened before. In 1930s Germany, IBM created a database of Jewish people in Europe, which really greatly facilitated the Nazi Germany government going after the Jews in their country.

And now, I feel like that’s what we’re seeing here. They’re going after red-blooded Americans who are standing up for their country and don’t want to be a part of this genocide. They’re tracking them. And we know where this leads.

ALEX JONES (HOST): That’s right, this is all -- if you had a list of like a hundred things that tyrants would do, and like Hitler did 60, and Stalin did 50, and Mao did 75, they’ve done like a hundred. They’re going down everything a tyrant would do, and they’re checking the box off.

As OAN pitches to new carriers, one of its top personalities pushes conspiracy theories with Alex Jones

Sharp predicted that COVID-19 restrictions could spark a revolution, leading to Democrats inviting a Chinese invasion to keep power

Sharp argued that the “globalists” want to turn America into China, where “everyone is just totally controlled and cowed into submission”

Sharp compared federal agencies’ alleged tracking of unvaccinated employees to the beginning of the Holocaust: They are “curating a list of enemies of the state”

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