Candace Owens: on the Macron lawsuit, anti-Semitism and Trump

Candace Owens joined Freddy Gray on the Americano show last Friday to discuss her recent lawsuit with the Macrons, Trump’s intervention, the Epstein Files and accusations of anti-Semitism.

Here are some highlights from their conversation.

Why did Macron and his wife sue Candace Owens?

Freddy Gray: Candace is being sued or threatened with legal action by the Macrons, Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, the President and First Lady of France. Because, Candace, you believe that Brigitte Macron is a man. Why do you think the Macrons are choosing to sue you?

Candace Owens: Because they were trying to stop the story. I think it was an effective PR strategy. They had been suing and harassing the journalists that had initially brought this story forth to the French public for years, and then they lost their defamation suit against the two journalists, Amandine Roy, Natasha Roy. And that was pretty explosive news. So I think that they then filed suit against me and knowing that it would drive potentially the most media traffic to kind of say, “Oh no, but it still isn’t true at all. I know we lost this defamation case in our home turf, but we’re now going to try it in America,” just to kind of signal to the press that they’re not lying.

FG: If you wanted the story to go away, this is not a very sensible strategy.

CO: Yeah, actually if you look at the history of them as a couple, they haven’t been very good at PR… I do think it was poor advice. I think their advisors made the wrong decision, and we saw this even recently, the disaster of their PR when Brigitte was caught assaulting Macron on the plane. I mean, they lied, they forcefully lied, and then they essentially disappeared. The story the very next day from the French press. So they’re used to having that kind of power.

FG: It’s that clip that makes me think you’re wrong, because I’m pretty sure she punches like a girl. I mean, men don’t hit like that.

How did the theory start?

CO: The Daily Mail ran a headline, and Emmanuel Macron was on camera saying it’s not true, and freaking out about these rumors and saying how hurtful they were. And I thought that was odd. I said, “What could possibly be going on in France that the President is having to lower himself to respond to such a ridiculous rumor?” And when I was reading this article, I was sort of interested in the dog that wasn’t barking, which is that the Daily Mail didn’t do a good job of instantly debunking it. Obviously, tons of photos could debunk this… It wasn’t a deep internet web conspiracy. It was actually French journalists that were on the left who loved Brigitte Macron and wanted to celebrate her by doing their due diligence and telling the story of Brigitte Macron. These were feminists… They felt that they were being threatened by the Élysée Palace. They were asking basic questions, asking for pictures and feeling like they had done something wrong. And they were essentially being told that the only person that could get them what they were looking for was a woman named Mimi Marchand, who at that moment was running communications for the Macron couple. Mimi Marchand has since been charged with forging documents… So it was very organic how this story took off in France. People just trying to figure out like, hey, can we get some photos of you? There’s 30 years of your life that seem to be missing?

FG: It is definitely strange that nobody seems to be able to find a lot of evidence about Brigitte Macron’s upbringing. But what occurs to me – I’ve watched the series – I know the journalist you speak to, Xavier Poussard. He uses a facial recognition app to say that these images of Brigitte Macron’s brother must be her. There’s a sort of 80 percent likelihood. That strikes me as not necessarily reliable, and also the fact that, you know, siblings can look very, very alike. So the fact that Brigitte Macron’s brother looks a lot like her is not quite that surprising, is it?

CO: No, it’s not surprising at all. And you’re correct. This is not a 100 percent technology… What’s more compelling is that this brother of hers is missing. At this point you would have to have a terrible relationship with your brother if you wouldn’t just come out before you had to sue anyone and say, “Hi, it’s me, I’m Jean Trogneux. I love my sister very much. I’m a private person, but this is getting ridiculous.” Or even her children, right? Her children could release photos of them being raised by her growing up. But I don’t care how angry you are at your parents, at a certain level, you’d go, “Guys, this is getting ridiculous. Here’s me and my mom.” We’re just like, hey, 30 years of your life is missing. It’s getting a little uncomfortable with how many people in your orbit have been arrested for pedophilia. You’ve lied – objective lies – you told the press at the beginning of your relationship. Don’t forget, when he first ran for president, the public told the media he was 17. Now we’ve got them down to 15. And the truth is that he was actually 14 when he was in that play where she says she saw him perform. But it’s not helping the media story that they lie. From the very beginning they presented it as if Brigitte was this really irresistible, sexy teacher, when when they actually got evidence of what she looked like when she was teaching Macron. She looks homely. It’s definitely not a very attractive teacher that was wearing skirts. It looks like a male that’s in the middle of a transition, to be honest with you.

FG: I’ve listened to what Xavier and you said about that. And it does sound a bit like Xavier was sort of just angry at the media for the way that they manicured her image. But that’s what happens with powerful and important people. Their images are always being manicured, and often they manicure themselves.

CO: Which is totally fine. It’s every piece of the Brigitte Macron story that has required so many lies. And yeah, they they did that, perhaps because they didn’t want people to realize that something really strange happened at that school. And it doesn’t help that when Emmanuel Macron entered office, they got to work trying to lower the age of consent to 13. It doesn’t help that Emmanuel Macron’s mother worked in her career assisting transgendered people in getting identities. The person that’s dressing Brigitte Macron that works with LVMH and Louis Vuitton specializes in androgynous dressing, trans people and of getting models that are trans. There’s so many other elements that are just peculiar. I want people to also know that before we published the first episode, we were in touch with Brigitte’s team. We said, “Look, we’re not interested in spreading conspiracies. Answer these basic questions. Could you produce some photos of your living for 30 years? Did you live as Jean-Michel? Have you ever lived as a person named Veronique?” And they forcefully declined to answer any of those questions.

French pedophilia?

FG: I think you’re sort of insinuating that the real scandal behind this is a kind of pedophilic elite in France.

CO: I believe that’s been a problem that’s happened in Paris for a very long time.

Owens mentioned Sigmund Freud, Richard Duhamel, Richard Trumbull, Eric Moretti and André Gide as examples of French pedophilia.

FG: Well, like me, you’re a Catholic. You’re a recent convert to Catholicism. And I know from my French Catholic family that there is this obsessive hatred in France of the French government and the secular French government and the French left, and this assumption that they are satanic somehow or Satanic driven. Is that something you think you’ve latched on to?

CO: Well, no, I was not aware of French politics. I got into this quite organically. I don’t follow French politics. I don’t speak French… The idea that there are is an orbit of people who could commit crimes and then have the audacity to sue people for writing books or sue people that are talking about it. It offends me. It offends my senses as a Christian and as a mother. And I felt that it was very important for the world to kind of look and go, what’s going on in France? … It definitely wasn’t driven by some idea of a satanic panic happening in France.

Trump tells Candace to stop saying Brigitte is a man

FG: The Donald Trump story. He leant on you himself to stop talking about the Brigitte Macron story.

CO: Yeah. Back in February, Macron was in the White House ostensibly to discuss Russia and Ukraine. I was contacted by the White House and told that he took Trump to the side and wanted me to stop talking about Brigitte. And the person who relayed this to me before Trump called me the next day, said that it was a contingency on the Ukraine-Russia conversation, which is ridiculous. When Trump called me the next day. He basically said he was very surprised. But Macron took him aside and asked if he could get me to stop talking about Brigitte. I said to him that I would not speak about Brigitte for a few months while he was looking for a signature on some document pertaining to the EU. But then certainly, of course, I would speak about it months later, which is exactly what I did.

The Candace-Trump fallout

FG: You were a keen supporter. He was a fan of you. And then it seems you’ve completely fallen out and largely over Gaza. Am I correct in saying that?

CO: You are correct in saying that. What’s happening in Gaza, to me is just a moment of are you a human? Are you not a human? And also the Epstein fumble as well – the gaslighting of the Epstein case. To effectively gaslight your supporters and say, why? Why are we still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? What do you mean, why aren’t we still talking about Jeffrey Epstein if there’s been a blackmail ring, and politicians are supporting things because they have been blackmailed. I’ve been very disappointed in him.

FG: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that he’s in the files that he sent this card, this bawdy card, to Jeffrey at birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein.

CO: I don’t buy the birthday card because Trump immediately came out and said, this is not true and sued. In May when Pam Bondi sat down for a meeting and said, you’re actually in these files, he never debunked that. Do I believe that Donald Trump was on Epstein Island? No. Do we know that he parted with Epstein in his youth? Yes, we know that… The bigger point is that he he could have come to his supporters and said, “look, I’m very surprised to hear this. I have nothing to do with anything that happened on that island.” He could have gotten ahead of it. When you choose to gaslight the public, you have become exactly what you knew that we hated when we sent you into DC.

Do you ever think you’re a conspiracy theorist, Candace?

FG: Do you ever feel that you’ve maybe taken crazy pills and you’ve become a conspiracy theorist?

CO: Absolutely not. The Macron story is one of the most fascinating stories ever. And in a sane world, I would be given a Pulitzer.

Owens responds to accusations of being anti-Semitic

FG: There’s a lot of suspicion of you that you have gone from that criticism of Israel into full-on Jew-hatred. How do you respond to that allegation of anti-Semitism?

CO: It’s nonsense to say that I have hatred for Jews. I worked for Prager University. It is a literal Zionist enterprise that is run by an IDF intelligence. I then worked for the Daily Wire, which is run by Ben Shapiro. Prior to that, I worked in private equity for two Jews in New York for four years. And I almost married a Jew, actually, while I was in New York… I’m the same girl who stood up to Black Lives Matter. I don’t care about your identity. I know when people are calling people racist because they are trying to stop the conversation. They said, “You’re a self-hating black.” I know exactly what’s happening when you start using your identity as a shield, and it just doesn’t work with me. What’s happening in Gaza is atrocious.

FG: Well, you married a self-hating Brit instead. Not self-hating, sorry. I meant to say you married a Brit. Let me say that again. I don’t know whether your husband’s self-hating. I’m self-hating.