QAnon: Senior Republican says there is 'no place' for right-wing conspiracy theory in GOP

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy has condemned the QAnon, saying there is “no room” for the conspiracy theory in the Republican party.

In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Mr McCarthy, Republican representative for California’s 23rd district, was asked whether he was worried about candidates who have won primaries who were affiliated with groups like QAnon.

“Let me be very clear,” Mr McCarthy said. “There is no place for QAnon in the Republican party.”

“I do not support it and the candidate you talked about has denounced it,” he added, referring to Marjorie Taylor Greene who expressed support for the theory and won the Georgia congressional primary last week.

Ms Greene has since tried to distance herself from the group saying it does not represent her current views.

The QAnon conspiracy theory largely rests on the belief that the president is secretly working to save the world from a satanic cult of paedophiles and cannibals.

Last year, an FBI intelligence bulletin suggested that followers could represent a domestic terrorism threat.

On Thursday, when the president was asked at his daily press conference what he thinks about the movement, he said he didn’t know much about it other than they “like him very much, which I appreciate”.

When asked if QAnon was something he would be willing to get behind, the president said he was willing to put himself “out there” to help.

“Well I haven’t heard that, but is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing? You know, if I can help save the world from some problems, I’m willing to do it, I’m willing to put myself out there,” Mr Trump said.

Vice president Mike Pence dismissed the importance of the theory on Friday in an interview with CNN, insisting that he didn’t know anything about it.

“Honestly, John, I don’t know anything about that. I have heard about it. We dismiss conspiracy theories around here out of hand,” Mr Pence said.

The Biden campaign said Mr Trump’s response to QAnon was another example of the president “giving voice to violence”.

“After calling neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville ‘fine people’ and tear-gassing peaceful protesters following the murder of George Floyd, Donald Trump just sought to legitimise a conspiracy theory that the FBI has identified as a domestic terrorism threat,” Biden campaign spokesperson, Andrew Bates, said in a statement.