The Republican National Convention has canceled a planned appearance from one of its speakers after she shared a lengthy Twitter thread that was rife with conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic accusations.
Mary Ann Mendoza was scheduled to speak Tuesday evening, the second night of the GOP’s nominating convention, in support of President Donald Trump. Her son Brandon, a police officer, was struck and killed in 2014 by a drunk driver who was in the U.S. without immigration paperwork.
On Tuesday morning, Mendoza shared a long string of Twitter messages from a user called WarNuse, adding: “Do yourself a favor and read this thread.” The tweets from WarNuse, a QAnon conspiracy theorist, included a potpourri of anti-Semitic tropes. They accused shadowy Jewish forces of trying to enslave non-religious “goyim,” and promoted “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” an anti-Semitic hoax text that claims Jewish people are trying to overthrow the world.
The Daily Beast was the first to report on Mendoza’s tweets. She deleted her posts amid growing outcry and later apologized, saying she’d shared the thread from WarNuse “without reading every post within.”
“My apologies for not paying attention to the intent of the whole message,” Mendoza wrote on Twitter. “That does not reflect my feelings or personal thoughts whatsoever.”
In a statement to ABC News on Tuesday, the RNC said Mendoza’s speech had been removed from that evening’s program. The RNC did not reply to HuffPost’s request for comment.
“We have removed the scheduled video from the convention lineup and it will no longer run this week,” a spokesperson for the RNC told ABC News.
According to her prepared remarks, Mendoza was slated to speak about undocumented immigrants, in support of Trump’s hard-line policy at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“President Donald Trump is the FIRST political leader we’ve ever seen take on the radical Left to finally secure our border and to end illegal immigration since day one,” she was scheduled to say, according to prepared remarks obtained by Politico. “I’ve met him many times and I know what’s in his heart. I know what he hopes and dreams for this country.”
Several speakers featured in the 2020 RNC have controversial histories. On Monday, Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters in June, defended their decision to do so, although they face felony charges over the matter. Monday’s event also featured an educator who once warned that U.S. schools were grooming children to be prematurely sexualized.