Since January, former President Donald Trump has amplified content on Truth Social that features posts from “Q,” the QAnon conspiracy theory’s central figure, at least four times — a new milestone in the former president’s relationship with the conspiracy theory. 

During his presidency, Trump repeatedly amplified Twitter accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory — a movement which began in October 2017, when a poster calling themself “Q” started claiming on far-right message boards that Trump was secretly fighting a battle to take down a satanic cabal of pedophiles. 

By the time Trump’s Twitter account was suspended in the final days of his presidency, he had amplified QAnon-promoting accounts on the platform more than 300 times. Trump also praised the QAnon community multiple times, and after he left office, QAnon show co-hosts known online as “intheMatrixxx” and “ShadyGrooove” received press credentials for a Trump rally. 

Associates of Trump reportedly tried to “weed out any QAnon influences — both adherents and postings — getting close to him” and tried to distance the MAGA movement more broadly from the conspiracy theory movement. But instead, Trump has continued to amplify the movement, reposting QAnon-promoting accounts on Truth Social over 630 times since he began actively using the platform in late April 2022. And now he has reached a new milestone: amplifying posts from QAnon’s central figure. 

Since January, Trump has boosted posts from Q — known as “Q drops” — at least four times.

The latest “Q drops” Trump amplified, on August 1, were in a video that features Q posts, references to QAnon shows, as well as suggestions that officials from former President George W. Bush’s administration would be indicted and sent to Guantanamo Bay for supposedly orchestrating the 9/11 terrorist attacks (a false conspiracy theory that is nonetheless widely supported within the QAnon community).

The former president has also associated with and appealed to the QAnon community in other ways. He was photographed with multiple QAnon figures at Mar-a-Lago — including intheMatrixxx — and has used a song associated with QAnon on Truth Social and at multiple rallies. Kash Patel, a former Trump administration official and Truth Social board member, also claimed that Trump has been “blown away” by the “acumen” of some QAnon supporters. 

Others in Trump’s orbit have also associated with the QAnon community, including Truth Social’s leadership, who have actively courted QAnon supporters to the platform, with Patel saying that “we try to incorporate” QAnon “into our overall messaging scheme to capture audiences.”