Fox News Reporter Quotes Tweet from QAnon-Related Account On Air

As part of a Fox News piece on President Donald Trump's "free speech" on college campuses executive order, Fox and Friends First reporter Carly Shimkus quoted a tweet from a popular QAnon Twitter account that shares information about the far-right conspiracy theory.

The president on Thursday signed an order that the White House says will help protect freedom of speech for all students on college campuses. The order was signed before a crowd of mostly conservative students.

During her segment, Shimkus said she was reading from "another Twitter user," and the image on the screen showed a screenshot of one posted by @qanon76.

"Do not for one second underestimate the significance of this EO," reads the Tweet. "Thank you, POTUS, for reestablishing and preserving free-speech rights for ALL students."

The executive order requires colleges and universities to support "free speech" from all students, or perhaps risk losing federal dollars, according to realclearpolitics.com. This comes in a day and age where conservative activists say they feel "threatened" not just verbally, but physically.

Many supporters of the executive order point to incidents like one that occurred at the University of California at Berkeley in February. A Cal student who was recruiting for the conservative student group Turning Point USA got into a struggle with another person, who wound up punching the conservative, according to UCPD.

"A physical confrontation ensued when one of the two men slapped the phone out of the victim's hand," UCPD said. "The suspect then knocked over the table the victim was at and the two men struggled over the phone. During the incident, the suspect punched the victim several times causing injury to the victim's eye and nose."

The suspect, who at the time said he should "shoot" the right-wing activist, was later arrested.

QAnon has built a modest following on social through accounts like QAnon76, which has more than 160,000 followers, and through hashtags like #WWG1WGA, which means "Where We Go One, We Go All." Posts on these accounts lean heavily to the right and are almost without exception pro-Trump.

QAnon adherents believe Trump is quietly enacting a secret plan to undermine the "Deep State" aligned against him, and that this plan will ultimately culminate in the mass arrest of complicit politicians and celebrities. Specific dates have been given at various times for this supposed event, which some dub "The Storm" or "The Great Awakening," but it has never come to pass.

Some Q believers have contended that the now-closed Mueller investigation was actually a covert ruse by the White House to identify enemies of the Trump administration.

Q followers recently spread false claims that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died, and that her death had been covered up by Democrats with excuses that she was just taking time off to heal after surgery. Former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka even shared this unfounded theory after the justice had returned to her work.