Trump confidant Roger Stone appeared on a YouTube channel dedicated to promoting the violence-linked QAnon conspiracy theory to offer analysis of the first presidential debate. Stone previously appeared on the channel in June and said, “I certainly hope Q is real and there a number of indications that the information that is being disseminated has been of enormous value in this fight for freedom.”
On July 10, Trump commuted Stone’s 40-month prison sentence after he was convicted of lying to Congress and tampering with witnesses as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into 2016 election interference. In the weeks leading up to the commutation, Stone made a number of media appearances asking Trump to grant him clemency and said that in exchange, he could be a more effective campaigner for the president’s 2020 reelection efforts.
In that capacity, Stone participated in a two-minute video posted to YouTube channel IntheMatrixxx following the September 29 debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. The IntheMatrixxx YouTube channel is a major hub for QAnon conspiracy theories; it has more than 75,000 subscribers and over 4.5 million total views on the platform. The channel additionally claims that Stone will offer commentary for the upcoming vice presidential debate and the other two presidential debates in October. (In 2016, Stone provided debate commentary for far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars outlet, where he pushed bizarre and unfounded conspiracy theories against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.)
In Tuesday’s video, Stone said that Trump was “probably was not wise” to agree to the debate because “what you got was a format that turned into a two to one match because essentially” moderator Chris Wallace “ran interference for Crazy Joe.” Nonetheless, Stone declared the debate “a clear-cut victory for the president” and claimed that Trump “defeated Chris Wallace in the debate, and Joe Biden came in third.”