In his first few weeks in office, Donald Trump has faced relentless agitation from people in the streets, with protesters reacting to his Muslim Ban executive order, his anti-immigration plans, and the appointment of white nationalist Steve Bannon to a top job in the White House.
In response, the administration has, without proof, spun an elaborate tale for all the dissent.
Speaking to Fox News on Monday, Sean Spicer again floated the idea that protesters who’ve taken to the streets against Trump and alt-right figureheads like Milo Yiannopoulos, were actually paid operatives.
“Protesting has become a profession now,” Spicer said. He went on to note that individuals still have a right to demonstrate, but that “we need to call it what it is.”
“It’s not these organic uprising that we’ve seen through the last several decades,” Spicer claimed. “The Tea Party was a very organic movement. This has become a very paid AstroTurf type movement.”
Earlier this month, following protests that shut down a Yiannopolous speaking gig at the University of California Berkley, President Trump alleged on Twitter that students in the streets were “professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters.”
Spicer was asked, during last Friday’s press briefing, if the administration intended to investigate the use of paid protesters.
“I think we know who they are,” he said, without elaborating. “I don’t know that we need to do an investigation.”
The claim–that a secret cabal of Democratic donors led by mainly George Soros has been the guiding hand of anti-Trump protests–originated in the rightwing blogosphere. It has, apparently, found its way into the ear of the new president.
Politifact cited a post from a conservative blog that made accusations against last month’s Women’s March in Washington, which occurred on the first full day of Trump’s presidency. The gatherings were the largest nationwide protests in the history of the nation, with more than three million people attending in cities coast-to-coast.
But, according to Constitution.com, Soros money went “straight into the protesters pockets.”
“George Soros funded over 50 organizations partnering and participating in the March for Women’s Rights.,” the blog alleged. “They weren’t there for rights. They were there for riches.”
After an investigation, Politifact deemed the claim a “Pants on Fire” lie—one that is still being repeated by the President of the United States and his press flack.
Also, there is extensive reporting disproving Spicer’s claims on Monday about the “organic” nature of the Tea Party. Journalists like Lee Fang and the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer have documented the extensive connections between the Tea Party movement of 2009 and rightwing political organization financed by billionaires like the Koch brothers.
A 2012 book–The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, by Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williams–described the movement as a “mass rebellion… funded by corporate billionaires, like the Koch brothers, led by over-the-hill former GOP kingpins like Dick Armey, and ceaselessly promoted by millionaire media celebrities like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.”
President Trump, meanwhile, on Monday was focused on promoting a separate conspiracy theory: one alleging that polls showing him with negative approval ratings are fabricated.
“Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election,” the President tweeted. “Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting.”
At the end of January, after inauguration, polls showed Trump underwater in popularity ratings. The President had a favorable rating of just below 42 percent, with an unfavorable rating of nearly 50 percent.
Trump was the least popular President to assume office in the past 40 years.
