Alex Jones and Roger Stone, left, celebrate on election night. Photo / InfoWars
Alex Jones and Roger Stone, left, celebrate on election night. Photo / InfoWars
On the night of the US election, the man described as "America's leading conspiracy theorist" was wrapping up a "historic" 52-hour live internet broadcast.
"Donald J Trump. The golden toad," declared a dazed and euphoric Alex Jones, the veteran radio broadcaster, filmmaker and founder of the influential InfoWars.com.
The broadcaster has been described as "the single most important voice in the alternative conservative media" by Roger Stone, the controversial Nixon-era political fixer and longtime Trump confidante.
He even scored a half-hour interview with the Republican candidate in December last year.
By his side sipping champagne on election night was Mr Stone, who was dumped from the billionaire's campaign in August.
Mr Jones, whose Facebook bio describes him as a "ruggedly handsome Texan" and the "grandfather of what has come to be known as the 9/11 Truth Movement", went on to reassure viewers in a 3am election night video that "Donald Trump is not Satanic".
"He does not wish to ground you under his treads," he said. "And that's why Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan have set themselves up against him, because they believe they own you. Donald Trump is not out to get you. He's not some weird a**hole who wants you to abort your kid or take a dangerous vaccine or submit to their system."
If you want to know what powers Mr Trump, he said, "individually it's a love of liberty and standing up to corruption", but "what powers the movement is InfoWars".
"The spirit of the InfoWar, across the world, from Australia to the UK to Russia, from Nigeria to Mexico, is spreading," he said. "And it's the Renaissance idea of freedom, and that's why they're trying to shut us down."
The interview with Mr Trump last year was a huge get for Mr Jones, the purveyor of outlandish conspiracy theories including that the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was a "false flag" to enact gun control, and 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombings were inside jobs.
Mr Trump ended that interview by telling Mr Jones "your reputation is amazing".
"I will not let you down, you will be very, very impressed I hope, and I think we'll be speaking a lot," he said.
"You'll be looking at me a year into office, you'll be saying wow, I remember that interview, he said he was going to do it and he did a great job."
In August, Hillary Clinton would call out Mr Jones by name in a speech denouncing the "alt-right".
"Just recently, Trump claimed that President Obama founded ISIS," Ms Clinton said. "And he has repeated that over and over again. His latest paranoid fever dream is about my health.
"But this is what happens ... when you listen to the radio host Alex Jones, who claims that 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombings were inside jobs.
"He even said, and this really just is so disgusting, he even said the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre were child actors and no one was actually killed there. I don't know what happens in somebody's mind or how dark their heart must be to say things like [that]."
The 42-year-old, who started his career with a call-in public access TV show in Austin, Texas, has a syndicated radio show across nearly 130 stations. The true size of his audience is difficult to determine, but he has claimed a daily five million radio listeners and 80 million video views a month, The Washington Post reported.
"They really don't understand how many people we're reaching," Mr Stone told Mr Jones during the election night broadcast. "They really don't understand the reach of conservative alternative media, which is the new mainstream.
"They have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into a [cable] infrastructure that is outdated, [but] InfoWars is stone cold truth. We go right to the internet."
Mr Jones, who once bemoaned that "my IQ has been reduced by at least 20 points" from drinking "sodium fluoridated water" and that "the shadow of who I would have been calls out from the grave", describes himself as a "libertarian", a "paleoconservative" and an "aggressive constitutionalist".
"I'm a pioneer. I'm an explorer. I'm a human, and I'm coming," he screams, red-faced, in one characteristic rant. "I'm animated, I'm alive, my heart's big, it's got hot blood going through it fast. I like to fight, too. I like to eat. I like to have children. I'm here. I've got a life force. This is a human. This is what we look like."
He also called Barack Obama a "wicked devil", and described Ms Clinton as "evil", a "witch" and a "whore of Babylon drunk on the blood of the saints". During the election campaign, InfoWars began marketing "Hillary for Prison" T-shirts.
Towards the end of the campaign, InfoWars also began selling Bill Clinton "rape" T-shirts, mimicking the famous Barack Obama "hope" design.
The image made semi-regular appearances, with supporters ambushing Clinton campaign events and morning TV shows wearing the shirts.
Mr Jones offered his followers $US1000 if they appeared on national TV for more than five seconds wearing the shirt, and $US5000 if they shouted the phrase "Bill Clinton is a rapist".
One New Jersey man sued NBC for $US52 million claiming he was bashed by a "goon squad" after he attempted the stunt in the audience of the Today show.
Mr Jones' journalists, including "Millennial Millie" Weaver and Paul Joseph Watson, editor-at-large of InfoWars sister site PrisonPlanet, also played key roles in providing alternative coverage of the campaign, clocking up millions of video views and social media impressions.
After Ms Clinton denounced him by name, Mr Jones upped his attacks on Mr Obama and Ms Clinton, describing a "rotten smell of sulphur" around the pair.
In response, Mr Obama said during a campaign appearance that "a guy on the radio" had been calling them "demons" who "smelled like sulphur". "I mean, come on," he said, sniffing his hand.
Mr Stone, who first met Mr Jones in 2013 at a book signing, told The Washington Post he loved the attention. "They're merely making him bigger," he said. "They're only making him more important, I think it had the reverse effect."
Speaking to Mr Stone on election night, Mr Jones said he wanted to "retake the country".
"We're now taking back Excalibur that was given to us by our founders, and really realising America has always had the 10 foot-long you-know-what," he mused.
"These little a**holes hijacked the country, took it over, and they can't believe we're taking it back. Their confidence game is over, they're crapping themselves. It's just an incredible time to be alive."
