United States President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House has been marred with assassination attempts way before it even started, from when he was running for the office in 2024 to the latest alleged one on Saturday at White House correspondents’ dinner.
Saturday’s shooting incident at the White House became fodder for conspiracy theories and misinformation on social media, with many users rushing to claim that the alleged assassination attempt was staged for political gains.
The US President, Vice President, and senior members of the Trump administration were evacuated and escorted to safety on Saturday after gunshots were fired outside the ballroom. This would be the third assassination attempt against Trump in the last two years.
Also read: White House dinner shooting suspect charged with ‘attempt to assassinate’ US President
Social media users claim White House shooting staged
Several users on social media, mostly anti-Trump accounts, began to circulate unsubstantiated claims that the shooting was staged by the White House in order to take away attention from other news such as the US’ war with Iran, news agency AFP reported after fact-checking.
According to disinformation watchdog NewsGuard, posts which propagated this claim amassed as many as 80 million views on X (previously Twitter) within two days.
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Most of these accounts, according to the AFP report, made similar claims during earlier assassination attempts on Trump in Pennsylvania and Florida.
“Many of the anti-Trump accounts baselessly claiming that the WHCD (White House Correspondents’ Dinner) shooting was staged made identical claims after the 2024 assassination attempts,” AFP quoted NewsGuard’s Sofia Rubinson as saying.
Also read: Trump reacts to blunt question ‘Why does this keep happening to you?’ after WH shooting
“Some viral posts we’ve seen explicitly cite those earlier incidents as ‘evidence’ that staging shootings is part of Trump’s playbook — to generate sympathy and distract from unfavorable coverage,” she added.
These claims were largely driven by ‘BlueAnon’, a left-wing conspiracy movement.
No evidence supports the claim that the White House press dinner was staged.
‘Left-wing cult of hatred’
The suspect behind Saturday’s shooting, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, was charged with attempting to assassinate the US President and could face a life sentence if convicted.
The White House blamed the shooting on what it called a “left-wing cult of hatred”.
The conspiracy theories did not stop at the ‘shooting was staged’ claims and went on further to include assertions such as the suspect had links with the Israeli military. These claims were allegedly amplified by state media of Russia and Iran, according to the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
However, it is not only the so-called left-wing users on the social media making and backing such claims as, according to the AFP report, there has been an increase in MAGA influencers giving into the theory that the 2024 assassination at Trump during his Pennsylvania campaign rally was staged.
According to Mike Rothschild, a researcher who studies conspiracy theories, the ring-wing users have started to believe in such theories as they “lose faith in Trump”.
“The theory casts him (Trump) as a master manipulator…And it uses as ‘evidence’ either misconceptions, other viral videos, or things that people have just made up,” he said.
This particularly comes at a time when Trump is facing backlash from not only his critics but also supporters over the war with Iran, which has now been going on for two months with no solid sustainable plan to stop it even as it lies under a temporary ceasefire.
(With inputs from AFP)
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