Former President Trump loves his beautiful boaters, apparently even when they are publicly expressing support for the extreme QAnon conspiracy theory. Photos posted to Facebook purportedly show Trump standing by the lawn at his private Florida beach club, Mar-a-Lago on Sunday and waving over two boats, one of which was prominently decorated with a massive flag bearing his face and the well-known QAnon slogans “TRUST THE PLAN” and “WWG1WGA,” which is an acronym for “Where We Go One, We Go All.”
According to the woman who posted the pictures, Trump had a staffer rush out and invite the boaters to the club.
“Trump saw us on the boat and invited us inside,” wrote Judy Baldasaro in a Facebook post describing the incident. “He sent his aide to run out to tell us to come in for refreshments. See Trump waving at us in photos !!”
Baldasaro, who did not respond to a request for comment, is the wife of Al Baldasaro, a former Republican New Hampshire legislator and 2020 co-chair of Trump’s campaign in the Granite State. According to her Facebook post, she was with a group of boaters that included her husband, who has a history of making violent, racist, and Islamophobic statements while stumping for Trump. After his term ended in 2022, Baldasaro retired and decamped for Florida.
Reached via phone on Tuesday, Al Baldasaro shared the story of how the “little visit” unfolded.
“Trump didn’t come down, he was tied up at another function that was going on, but we were were invited over to the bar. … It was nice,” Baldasaro said. “We docked, beached our boats, and then went in.”
Baldasaro said Trump reached out by placing a call to the larger boat with the QAnon flag, which was being sailed by Robert Fix, a Florida man who has a long history of making prominent, public pro-Trump flag displays.
“Trump seen it from a distance. He was up there on the balcony, and then he told one of his guys to come call us, and one of his guys knew the cell phone of the big boat with the big flags because they do the flag waving for Trump,” Baldasaro explained.
According to Baldasaro, someone who was with Trump had Fix’s number because the boater had previously visited Mar-a-Lago under similar circumstances.
“He’d invited them in before,” Baldasaro said of Trump and Fix. “It’s not their first time.”
Fix, whose boat was the one flying the QAnon flag, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Baldasaro said he did not know the meaning behind the banner and was certain Trump was similarly unaware.
“I didn’t even know it was a QAnon. … I didn’t know that. I don’t think Trump caught it either because he couldn’t really notice it,” Baldasaro said. “I have no clue what QAnon signs are.”
Based on the pictures, there were about 11 different flags on the two boats. The QAnon banner, which appears to be about the size of a small car, was, by far, the largest of them all. Along with the shot of Trump waving down their boat, Judy Baldasaro’s post includes pictures of the ships seemingly docked on the Mar-a-Lago oceanfront and of the group inside the club’s ornate confines.
QAnon is a conspiracy theory that emerged on internet messageboards in 2017, which was Trump’s first year in office. It involves a complex mythology that positions Trump as part of an effort to root out a global conspiracy that involves elite and shadowy powers engaging in Satanism, systematic child abuse, and murder. QAnon supporters have been a consistent presence at Trump rallies and were a visible presence at the violent Jan. 6 attack. Over the years, Trump has repeatedly flirted with QAnon conspiracy theorists including amplifying their content on his Truth Social platform.
Pro-Trump “Boat Parades” emerged as a phenomenon during the 2020 presidential campaign. The demonstrations, which Trump cited as evidence of the strength of his support, involve boaters staging floating caravans of pleasure crafts decorated with pro-Trump flags. A few of the events were marred by nautical accidents that caused ships to go down.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment. On Facebook, Judy Baldasaro and her friends gushed over Trump’s invitation to the QAnon boaters in the comments under her post.
“He’s so normal !” one woman wrote of Trump.
Judy agreed via a personalized emoji that declared “Facts!”
