My armchair assessment is he loves money and he found a herd of morons that is willing to throw millions at him if he behaves like a maniac and says outlandish things. He basically performs like any religious huckster, knowingly feeding people lies for dollar bills. Here he is on JRE walking back his Sandy-Hook-being-fake-claims and he presents as a perfectly reasonable, informed dude: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QzpXMbM-kos