What Did Alex Jones Say About Sandy Hook? [WATCH]
NBC 's controversial interview Sunday between its fresh news personality Megyn Kelly and conspiracy theorist and right-wing talk show host Alex Jones has raised all kinds of controversy. Jones has pushed the narrative that the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut was a hoax. The 2012 shooting left 26 people dead, mostly children, and several of their parents are upset with NBC for scheduling the interview.
WVIT, West Hartford, has elected not to air Sunday’s episode of “Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly,” the Hartford Courant reported last week.
Jones is famous for his radio show, “The Alex Jones Show,” and website Infowars. He has offered conspiracies about several major events such as the Sept. 11 attacks and the Boston Marathon bombing.
“The whole thing is a giant hoax. And how do you deal with a total hoax? How do you convince the public something is a total hoax?” Jones asked in discussing Sandy Hook in late 2014. “The general public doesn’t know the school was actually closed the year before. They don’t know they’ve sealed it all, demolished the building. They don’t know that they had the kids going in circles in and out of the building as a photo-op. Blue screen, green screens — they got caught using.”
Jones said it took him a while to believe it was fake.
“It took me about a year with Sandy Hook to come to grips with the fact that the whole thing was fake. I mean even I couldn’t believe it. I know they jumped on it used the crisis hyped it up, but then I did deep research, and, my god, it pretty much didn’t happen,” Jones said.
Several articles on Jones' site have detailed conspiracies about Sandy Hook as a hoax, and he has said many similar things on his show over the years.
Kelly and NBC have defended the interview despite several advertisers, including JP Morgan, pulling out from the Sunday night broadcast.
"Our goal in sitting down with him was to shine a light, as journalists are supposed to do, on this influential figure, and yes, to discuss the considerable falsehoods he has promoted with near impunity,” Kelly told Reuters.
READ: Megyn Kelly Defends Alex Jones’ Interview, But Sandy Hook Theorist Doesn’t Want It Aired
Nelba L. Márquez-Greene, a parent of one of the children killed at Sandy Hook wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post Friday criticizing NBC.
“Deniers of tragedy cause unfathomable pain to families who have experienced catastrophic and public losses. It disrupts the grief process, which is unending. Sometimes, it threatens their physical health and safety. I cannot begin to describe the pain of experiencing death threats and harassment on top of mourning the loss of a beloved family member,” wrote Márquez-Greene. “Five years after the Sandy Hook shooting, we receive emails weekly suggesting that our daughter did not die. Or that President Barack Obama was behind her death.”
Watch the interview live here at 7 p.m. EDT.
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