Embattled After being asked about the Sandy Hook shooting in an on-air interview, InfoWars host Alex Jones unleashed a full-blown rant – his first since a Texas judge ordered him to pay more than $50 million to the victims’ families.
Jones spoke publicly for the first time since the shocking defamation verdict in the interview with journalist and YouTuber Andrew Callaghan, known for his series All Gas No Brakes and his current show Channel 5.
During the interview, Callaghan, who is known for posing sometimes difficult questions to his guests, posed a question regarding the shooting to Jones, 48, prompting the infamously outspoken host to explode in apparent irritation.
In a bizarre two-minute diatribe, the talking head claimed sarcastically that he was responsible for the deaths of 20 children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2021, killed by 20-year-old Adam Lanza.
The figurative financial noose around the alt-right advocate’s neck continues to tighten as a tape of the exchange shared by Callaghan’s team over the weekend has gathered more than a quarter-million views and more than 17,000 likes.
After being asked about the Sandy Hook shooting in an on-air interview – his first since being ordered to pay $50 million to the victims’ families – Alex Jones unleashed a full-blown rant.
Jones spoke publicly for the first time since the landmark defamation verdict in the interview with journalist and YouTuber Andrew Callaghan (at left)
In the brief two-and-a-half-minute film, which was culled from a longer, 20-minute interview available on Callaghan’s Patreon, the journalist begins by asking a question that is likely on the minds of the overwhelming majority of his hundreds of thousands of members.
The journalist asks Jones, seated immediately across from him on Jones’ InfoWars stage, “Do you feel guilty for what happened to the Sandy Hook families?”
The loaded question quickly provokes a response from the host, who then mockingly claims culpability for the deaths of the victims.
Jones said Callaghan, in a tongue-in-cheek manner, “Yes, I killed the children” to establish a point, maybe that he is being unjustly blamed for a shooting that has already occurred and which he did not conduct.
Callaghan appeared to soon realize this, but attempted to maintain decorum and press for a more substantive discussion – only to be stopped by his loud participant.
But beyond that, I mean-‘ Callaghan began, but Jones interrupted and resumed his audacious remark.
“No,” he insisted, “I went into that school, drew a gun, and shot each victim myself.” I am guilty, that is true.
Callaghan continued to steer the conversation onto a more profitable topic, but Jones, who was now enraged, did not appear to play along.
“No, but-” an obviously irritated Callaghan begins before being again interrupted.
Jones repeats, “No, no,” before going on a more serious tangent about the verdict handed down last month.
Jones begins, “Let’s just-,” before gathering some calm and revealing what appeared to be his genuine view on the topic.
“Do I feel responsible that someone who played shoot-em-up video games while high on drugs went and killed a bunch of children, and then the internet questioned it, and I reported on it?” Jones inquired sarcastically, referring to Lanza, who committed suicide together with his mother on the day of the attack.
A Texas jury ordered Jones to pay nearly $50 million in damages to the relatives of the Sandy Hook massacre victims after he disseminated a crazy conspiracy theory claiming that the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012 never occurred and was staged.
‘No, I don’t feel responsible – and I’m not sorry,’ he stated, before again deferring to, ‘I killed the children,’ this time with a small chuckle at the quickly deteriorating scenario.
Callaghan persists and seeks to fulfill his journalistic responsibilities by formulating the beginning of another planned question, but Jones reverts to his old methods.
Callaghan asks, “Was there a definition?” before being again interrupted.
“No, I murdered them!” Jones asserts himself again, this time screaming, while his interviewer shakes his head in astonishment. “I murdered them!” Jones exclaims once more, this time with his hands in the air for emphasis.
Jones says, “No, I did!” to Callagan’s assertion that he did not kill the individuals.
Callagan then jokes, engaging in an almost childish back-and-forth with the InfoWars host, “No, you didn’t.”
Jones, however, maintains his sarcastic position, yelling in his signature raspy voice and waving his arms, “Everyone said it… I already admitted it, I killed them!”
In a moment of apparent contempt, the camera zooms in on Jones’s reddening face in a manner that is almost hilarious.
“I murdered them!” Jones exclaims again in the brief clip. “I am the villain!” “I am Satan!”
Jones then becomes even more dedicated to his caustic spiel, suggesting that the First and Second Amendments should be repealed because they, too, ‘killed the babies’
“The First Amendment murdered them, get rid of the Second Amendment, get rid of the First Amendment, they are horrible, they killed the children as well,” he continued before accelerating his diatribe.
The entire globe should be renamed Sandy Hook because both George Washington and Jesus slaughtered them. Everything! There should be vacations.
He said, “We should bow five times per day to New Haven, Connecticut in honor of the deceased children.”
“Every American is responsible, every gun owner is responsible, and so am I.” We are all responsible.
Jones then repeats four more times, ‘I killed them,’ before informing Callaghan that he is done talking about the shooting. Callaghan then courageously requested if the pair could discuss the trial in greater detail.
This question looked to be the final straw for Jones, as he reiterated that there was nothing to discuss before leaving the interview set.
“I’m not sure if I’ll be able to give this interview right now,” he says the journalist, visibly enraged.
The camera footage suddenly cuts to black, although conversation apparently between Jones and an InfoWars employee can be heard.
In the clip, the staff member advises Jones that he “should not continue doing that,” prompting Jones to insist once more that he murdered the children.
The alleged Infowars employee acknowledged that he understood the point Jones was attempting to make with his diatribe, but also reprimanded him, telling his employer that Jones’ actions were “not funny.”
Early in August, at the conclusion of a defamation trial in Austin, Texas, the famed conspiracy theorist was forced to pay $45 million in punitive damages to Sandy Hook parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis.
The jury then added $4.1 million in compensatory damages and $1.5 million in fines, bringing the total awarded to Jones to $8.4 million.
This has resulted in Jones owing more than $50 million for his manifestly false and defamatory assertions regarding the shooting.
Jones is the founder of Infowars, a website devoted to far-right conspiracy theories and fake news that he began 23 years ago under the umbrella of Free Speech Systems.
Earlier this month, a Texas jury ordered Jones to pay the families of the Sandy Hook massacre approximately $50 million in damages for spreading a crazy conspiracy theory that the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012 never occurred and was staged.
Twenty children between the ages of six and seven, as well as six adults, were killed in a shooting spree by 20-year-old Adam Lanza.
On December 14, 2012, a parent leaves the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, with her children following a shooting at the school.
Veronique De La Rosa, mother of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim Noah Pozner, wipes away tears during a press conference in Trumbull, Connecticut on February 15, 2022.
The Sandy Hook families’ attorney, Kyle Farrar, who doubts that Jones is bankrupt, asserts that he is fabricating these conspiracies to conceal money and dodge responsibility.
According to Mediate, he stated, “Alex Jones is not financially bankrupt; he is ethically bankrupt.”
The New York Times reported on Thursday that one of Jones’ bankruptcy attorneys, R.J. Shannon, said a response to the new move was forthcoming.