Rick Wiles

Rick Wiles is an American far-right fundamentalist Christian conspiracy theorist, crank, and senior pastor of Flowing Streams Church in Florida. He is the host of TruNews, an internet kookfest and radio program.TruNews ran on international shortwave, via WRMI in Miami Florida, for several months in 2016 and 2017. The show is run on some broadcast stations in the United States, such as KCXL in Kansas City. He is a frequent guest on Jim Bakker's bizarre pseudo-religious prepper television show, and a sideshow freak of Right Wing Watch. Wiles is best known for his over the top, crazy, bigoted outbursts, oft-contradictory conspiracy theories of an unprecedented level of wackiness, and his tendency to believe everything he hears. Common subjects of his rants include Jews, gays, gay Jews, Muslims, black people, Mexicans, and his all-time adversary Barack Hussein Obama.
==On other religions==
Wiles has implied he supports the genocide of Muslims, saying they should be 'stomped out like cockroaches'.Brian Tashman, Rick Wiles: ‘Islam Must Be Eliminated From The Face Of The Earth, Stomped Out Like Cockroaches’ Right Wing Watch, 19 December 2014. Using highly dubious sources, he also claims that Muslim spies have infiltrated US churches, and are waiting on a signal to begin killing all Americans.Brian Tashman, Rick Wiles: Muslim Spies Embedded In Churches Will Kill Us All Right Wing Watch, 13 August 2015.
However, as with many of his other views, Wiles' views on Muslim terrorists specifically are often contradictory. Whilst claiming ISIS are 'demon possessed',"Barack Obama Is A Muslim Jihadist" Secular Talk, YouTube, 14 January 2015. he also claims that Muslim terrorists are 'sent by God' (therefore anything but demon possessed) to punish America for abortion.Brian Tashman, Rick Wiles: God Sending Muslim ‘Avengers’ To Kill Millions As Abortion Rights Punishment. Right Wing Watch, 11 August 2015.
Wiles' views on Catholicism are also a confusion; whilst his website supports major Christian denominations,"...while giving respect and honor to Christians of all major denominations — Evangelical, Orthodox, Anglican, Catholic, and Protestant." TruNews mission statement, trunews.com. he also believes in a Jesuit plot to destroy America, specifically by flooding the country with Roman Catholic immigrants.Brian Tashman, Rick Wiles: Obama, Hillary And Pope Francis Will Destroy America. Right Wing Watch, 19 February 2016.
Wiles' views on Judaism are much less confused and much more a case of aggressive anti-Semitism. According to Wiles, the "American people are being oppressed by Jewish tyrants""Rick Wiles Says ‘The American People Are Being Oppressed by Jewish Tyrants’" by Kyle Mantyla, RightWingWatch, 2021 May 7 who, as the "synagogue of Satan" ( and ), aspire to build a "Zionist empire" which promotes abortion and pornography and will be "the evil force that takes over the world in the Last Days and persecutes the body of Christ and makes war against the saints". According to Wiles, the impeachment of Donald Trump was a "Jew coup". To top it all off, Wiles personally believes that "Israel took out John Kennedy."
Wiles' virulent anti-Semitism in particular resulted in TruNews getting dropped by in January 2020, YouTube in February 2020,"YouTube Bans Anti-Semitic Channel TruNews After Founder Calls Trump Impeachment 'Jew Coup'" by Aila Slisco, Newsweek, 2020 February 20 and Facebook in April 2021."TruNews’ Antisemitism and Conspiracies Reach Growing Facebook Audience", ADL, 2021 March 25
==On Barack Hussein Obama==
Wiles believes Barack Obama, or "Jihad Barry",Miranda Blue, Rick Wiles: ‘Jihad Barry’ Leading An ‘Islamic Invasion Of America’. Right Wing Watch, 17 November 2015.Brian Tashman, Rick Wiles: ‘Antichrist’ Obama Is The True Leader Of ISIS. Right Wing Watch, 24 March 2016."Barack Obama Is A Muslim Jihadist". Secular Talk, YouTube, 14 January 2015. is literally a Devil from Hell.Brian Tashman, Rick Wiles: ‘The Man in the White House Is a Devil from Hell’ Right Wing Watch, 20 March 2013. Obama is by far the greatest adversary of Wiles; if you can name a conspiracy involving Obama, he promotes it, as well as several of his own, which far transcend the usual level of craziness. For example, he believes Obama will 'kill millions of american resistors in a bloody cleansing',Brian Tashman, Rick Wiles: Obama Will ‘Slaughter Millions Of American Resistors’. Right Wing Watch, 29 July 2015. possibly out killing "Pol Pot, Stalin and Mao" and may create an army of "zombie cannibals".Ed Brayton, Wiles: Obama Might Create Zombie Cannibals. patheos.com, 6 November 2014.
Humorously, as with so many of his other views, Wiles' unconditional belief in any Obama conspiracy leads to several contradictions, for example, despite once claiming Obama to be a "Muslim Jihadist", he later claimed Obama murdered Scalia as a pagan sacrifice.Brian Tashman, Rick Wiles: Obama Killed Scalia As A Pagan Human Sacrifice. Right Wing Watch, 16 February 2016. If this is to be believed, Obama is a Muslim and a pagan at the same time.
==On diseases==
Wiles has spoken approvingly of the Ebola virus, stating that it could solve Americas "problems" with "Atheism, Homosexuality, Promiscuity, Pornography and Abortion".Brian Tashman, Rick Wiles: ‘Ebola Could Solve America’s Problems With Atheism And Homosexuality’. Right Wing Watch, 6 August 2014. True to form, in the midst of the outbreak of Zika virus in Latin America, Wiles blamed the outbreak on God's judgement for the worship of Santa Muerte, a Mexican Saint of death. Stating that "they’re worshiping death and so he's giving them death".Brian Tashman, Rick Wiles: Zika Virus God’s Punishment For ‘Worshiping Death’. Right Wing Watch, 12 February 2016. God has clearly done a half-assed job at punishing Mexicans, since Zika virus is non-fatal.
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, before the virus had reached American shores, Wiles similarly spoke approvingly about the COVID-19 virus, suggesting that it was a "death angel" sent by God and saying that "God is about to purge a lot of sin off of this planet.""Evangelical pastor claims coronavirus is God’s ‘death angel’ to ‘purge a lot of sin’" by Lee Brown, New York Post, 2020 January 29 Later, Wiles blamed Jews for spreading the COVID-19 virus because they are not Christians, spouting venom such as "God is spreading it in your synagogues! You are under judgment because you oppose his son, Jesus Christ."Conservative pastor says spread of coronavirus in synagogues is punishment from God (March 29, 2020 2:21 pm) Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Wiles also admonished the Chinese government for unleashing the pandemic on its citizens, and stated that the pandemic would stop if the Chinese "give their hearts to Jesus Christ."Adam Forgie, Christian broadcaster: If China repents and accepts Jesus, coronavirus will stop. kutv.com, 26 February 2020. After months and months of pushing wacky COVID-19 conspiracy theories and condemning disease-fighting vaccines,Kyle Mantyla, Rick Wiles Says COVID-19 Vaccines Are a Plot to Carry Out ‘Global Genocide’. Right Wing Watch, 3 May 2021. Wiles' Florida-based Flowing Streams Church experienced a COVID-19 outbreak in May 2021. Shortly thereafter, church officials announced that Wiles had been hospitalized, presumably suffering from COVID-19.Jason Lemon, Pastor Rick Wiles Apparently Has COVID After Refusing Vaccines He Called 'Global Genocide' Newsweek, 30 May 2021. Wiles confirmed that both he and many members of his family contracted the "CCP COVID genocide" on 1 June 2021."RICK WILES - I SURVIVED THE CCP COVID GENOCIDE ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!", Rick Wiles, TruNews.com, 2021 June 1, archived on June 2 2021
==On liberals==
Wiles maintains liberal activists should be rounded up and tortured, he stated, “They have to be outed, they have to be hunted down, they have to be given a trial, and that trial could be a military trial, (...) Once you’re declared a terrorist organization, you don’t have constitutional rights. Where are you taken to? Guantanamo. You may see people in these far-left organizations transported to Guantanamo and waterboarded to confess who’s funding the organizations.”Beth Stoneburner, Rick Wiles: Liberal Activists Should Be Taken to Guantanamo and “Waterboarded” friendlyatheist.patheos.com, 5 June 2020.
Wiles upped the insanity further in late July 2020 when he called for outright violating one of the ten commandments in regards to the (sparked by the in Minneapolis in late May 2020, and escalated in Portland in July 2020 by Donald Trump sending in federal border patrol officers). Believing that Barack Obama had stockpiled two billion hollow-point bullets for the purposes of rounding up "Christians and constitutionalists under a President Hillary Clinton", he urged Trump to "put the hollow-point bullets to good use and get out there and put down this communist revolution so the rest of us can live our lives peacefully”."Pastor begs Trump to use ‘hollow-point bullets’ on Portland protesters" by Mikael Thalen, Daily Dot, 2020 July 25"Christian TV Host Asks Trump To Use ‘Hollow-Point Bullets’ On Portland Protesters" by Michael Stone, Patheos, 2020 July 24
==Additional insanity==
Wiles appears to believe that retail store Target's decision to remove gender labeling from their toy section and to allow trans persons to use the restroom that conforms to their gender will directly lead to nuclear war with Russia.Miranda Blue, 'These Freaks Are Going To Get Us All Killed': Rick Wiles Warns Target Restroom Policy Will Spark Nuclear War. Right Wing Watch, 20 April 2016. This is a common theme in his ramblings; previously he has suggested that Vladimir Putin will nuke America and cause a 'nuclear holocaust' due to gay rights in America.Brian Tashman, Rick Wiles: Nuclear Holocaust Will Kill Us All Thanks To Gay People. Right Wing Watch, 19 December 2014. He has also warned, in the aftermath of Obergefell v. Hodges, that the U.S. will invade third world countries and force them to accept homosexuality. He also believes the ruling will pave way for 'witchcraft', and that America has become 'Babylon' with its citizens being Babylonian pagans.Olivia O’Hea, Rick Wiles Renounces His American Citizenship In Response To Marriage Equality Ruling. Right Wing Watch, 1 July 2015.
Wiles has described the popular game as Satan "targeting churches with virtual, digital, cyber-demons" and that "this technology will be used by the enemies of the cross to target, locate and execute Christians."Brian Tashman. Rick Wiles: Satan Using Pokémon Go To Spawn 'Demonic Powers' And Murder Christians. rightwingwatch.org. 13 July 2016. Retrieved on 18 July 2016. He also claimed that him being banned from YouTube for violating the site's community guidelines is evidence that the left plans to execute Christians and conservatives in the street.Kyle Mantyla, After Getting Booted From YouTube, Rick Wiles Warns That Leftists Will Soon Start Executing Christians. Right Wing Watch, 3 April 2018.
==Luminary guests (or lack thereof) on "TruNews"==
Wiles' radio show has somehow managed to attract the attention of former CIA director R. James Woolsey.Brian Tashman, Former CIA Director Stops By Insane Conspiracy Theory End Times Show. Right Wing Watch, 11 August 2015. Other than this, the show is largely a magnet for the craziest right wing cranks. Highlights include:
*Robert SpencerMiranda Blue, Robert Spencer: We Must Consider ‘Very Seriously’ That Obama Is Betraying America On Behalf Of Islamists. Right Wing Watch, 30 March 2016.
*Scott LivelyBrian Tashman, Scott Lively: Homosexuality An ‘Infection’ That Kills Society. Right Wing Watch, 2 December 2014.
*Shoebat, father and sonKyle Mantyla, Glenn Beck Is Luring Christians Into Islamo-Mormon Deistic Universalism. Right Wing Watch, 19 June 2013.
*Larry PrattMiranda Blue, Rick Wiles: Obama Cried At Gun Violence Press Conference Because ‘He’s So Happy’ To Be Starting A Civil War. Right Wing Watch, 6 January 2016.
==External links==
*TruNews
*Profile of Rick Wiles at the Encyclopedia of American Loons
==References==
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