Trump says QAnon followers are people who ‘love our country’

President Donald Trump on Wednesday offered encouragement to proponents of QAnon, a viral conspiracy theory that has gained a widespread following among people who believe the president is secretly battling a criminal band of sex traffickers, and suggested that its proponents were patriots upset with unrest in Democratic cities. “I’ve heard these are people that love our country,” Trump said during a White House news conference ostensibly about the coronavirus. “So I don’t know really anything about it other than they do supposedly like me.” When told by a reporter about the central premise of the QAnon theory — a belief that Trump is saving the world from a satanic cult made up of...