Alex Jones is the proprietor of InfoWars, a conspiracy website that has asserted that the Sandy Hook massacre never happened and that 9/11 was planned by the U.S. government. He is also, he told the New York Times in a piece published Sunday, in regular touch with our president, Donald Trump:

[Jones] is apparently taking on a new role as occasional information source and validator for the president of the United States, with whom, Mr. Jones says, he sometimes speaks on the phone.

We already knew that Trump praised Jones during an appearance on his radio show and that they reportedly spoke in November after the election. Now the White House appears to have confirmed, to the Times, Jones’ contention that he and Trump are phone buddies:

Mr. Jones told me that he had spoken with Mr. Trump since that call [in November], though an aide to the president, communicating on the condition of anonymity, played down the frequency of their contact.

Playing down the frequency of their contact isn’t exactly denying that they’re in contact, is it?

[Expletive].

Update, 11:35 a.m.: I forgot to mention that Jones told the Times that Sandy Hook “may have happened,” in the newspaper’s words. This is a contradiction of the host’s emphatic previous statements on the issue.