Fake News: Trump Did NOT Unveil Alex Jones As SCOTUS Nominee

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Trump Did NOT Unveil Alex Jones As SCOTUS Nominee

Did President Donald Trump unveil right-wing Infowars talk show host Alex Jones as his pick for Supreme Court Justice? No, that's not true: even though the President can in theory nominate anybody he wants, no nomination has been made at the time of writing and the news about Jones being proposed came from a Christian-themed satire website. It is not real.

The story originated from an article published by The Babylon Been on July 9, 2018 titled "Trump Finally Unveils SCOTUS Nominee: Alex Jones" (archived here) which opened:

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Amid breathless anticipation for the president's second pick to the Supreme Court of the United States, President Trump spilled the beans on Twitter Monday afternoon that he had selected conspiracy theorist and talk show host Alex Jones as his nominee for the nation's highest court.

Trump quickly called a press conference at which he introduced his nominee.

"I like the stuff he says on his show. Good stuff. The best stuff, really," Trump said. "Whereas all the other candidates for the Supreme Court were heavily involved in the Deep State New World Order, Alex Jones sees right through all the lies. In a world of fake news, Alex cuts through all the BS to bring us the unvarnished truth about UFOs, weather control, and the reptilian plot to overthrow our plane of existence."

Users on social media who only saw this title, description and thumbnail might have gotten the impression it was a real news story:

Trump Finally Unveils SCOTUS Nominee: Alex Jones

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Amid breathless anticipation for the president's second pick to the Supreme Court of the United States, President Trump spilled the beans on Twitter Monday afternoon that he had selected conspiracy theorist and talk show host Alex Jones as his nominee for the nation's highest court. Trump quickly called a press conference at which he ...

However we can reassure them "The Babylon Bee" comes with following dislaimer on every page:

The Babylon Bee is Your Trusted Source For Christian News Satire.

Some of their greatest past hits include:

With a track record like that it is clear that you shouldn't take anything posted on the site seriously and you definitely shouldn't confuse it with real news.

We wrote about babylonbee.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:

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  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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