President Donald Trump spent the morning firing off a wild variety of Truth Social posts, including one linked to the QAnon conspiracy, as the world waits for an update on peace negotiations with Iran.
In one post, Trump shared a link to an image of him standing in front of a cosmic storm engulfing the White House, alongside the letters “Q+” and the slogan “every battle is won before it is fought.”
The image drew from the symbols and themes of QAnon, the mass conspiracy whose followers believe Trump will take on a shadowy cabal of child-trafficking elites inside the business world and government. The image appears to originate from an account called Spiritual Street Fighter, which made a similar QAnon post that Trump reshared in April.
The fan tribute the president reshared came in response to another one of his posts, which claimed that recent updates about the Iran negotiations were “Fake News.”
“What they said, including their weak and pathetic statement on having a deal, bears no relation to the truth,” Trump wrote in the original post. “Very dishonorable people to deal with.”
The U.S., Iran, and mediators in Pakistan insist a deal is as nearly as close as it’s ever been, though concrete terms have yet to be finalized in public.
President Trump has referenced the QAnon movement before, though some of its followers have lost faith in the conspiracy and in Trump, given that the promised “storm” of retribution didn’t come to pass and the administration slow-walked the release of the Epstein files, whose real-life details mirrored some of QAnon’s preoccupations with alleged elite abuses.
In another post, featuring images of massive, gold-painted horse heads, the president touted the re-gilding of The Arts of War statue, which are usually displayed between the Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C., near the site of Trump’s proposed arch monument.
The president has pushed to refinish the statues before July 4 as part of his efforts to spruce up Washington ahead of American’s 250th anniversary celebrations in the capital this summer.
The administration reportedly handed a Maryland studio a $5 million contract without the usual full competitive bidding process, one of multiple unusual, high-value contracts tied to the America 250 makeover.
A different contractor got a $6.9 million, no-bid contract to repaint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, reports say.
As part of the effort to remake Washington’s landscape, the president has also rammed through proposed projects and modifications including a new victory arch and his signature ballroom at the White House, both of which have faced legal challenges.
The president’s posts on Monday touched on some of his other favorite topics, too, including slamming the media and alleging mass voter fraud without evidence.
Trump shared an article denigrating former 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley, who was fired as part of the controversial remaking of CBS News leadership.
Trump also echoed his Republican allies in suggesting there was voter fraud in recent California elections where Spencer Pratt lost his Los Angeles mayoral campaign, though no evidence of fraud has emerged, and the Justice Department reportedly has launched no new criminal cases related to the L.A. elections.
