According to a recent poll, nearly half of Donald Trump believe in the conspiracy theory known as "Pizzagate," the New York Daily News reports. The story goes that Hillary Clinton is part of a pedophilia ring that's run out of a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C.—and believe it or not, this rumor is completely false. It started with a few fabricated tweets, and was quickly spread by conspiracy theorists and fake news sites.
The story exploded when Edgar Welch, a resident of North Carolina, drove to Comet Ping Pong (the aforementioned pizzeria) in Washington D.C. armed with a gun. His goal was to investigate the alleged sex ring. The only problem? There is no sex ring being run out of Comet Ping Pong, and Welch ended up being arrested. He now faces federal charges.
But how many people still believe this rumor that has proven to be demonstrably false?
Well, according to an Economist/YouGov poll, 46 percent of Trump supporters believe Pizzagate to be true. Even after Welch was arrested, only 29 percent of Trump supporters believed the unsubstantiated conspiracy to be completely false. This appears to show that a large portion of Trump supporters either haven't taken the time to investigate the fake story, or have decided to completely ignore the evidence that Pizzagate is not true. Even Welch himself, in an interview with The New York Times, wouldn't concede that the story was totally false.
The poll also showed that Trump supporters were far less likely than Clinton supporters to believe the CIA and FBI's reports on Russian hacking during the election, the Daily News reports. Approximately 80 percent of Trump supporters said that the intelligence community's findings were simply not true.
Furthermore, the poll reported that approximately 60 percent of Trump supporters believe Trump's false claim that millions of people voted illegally in the presidential election.
“Sometimes it seems that Americans will believe anything. And what we know as true or not true can depend on our political point of view,” poll takers said.
