Conspiracy theories swirl around White House Correspondents' dinner attack
A flood of misinformation, conspiracy theories and false claims about the shooting at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner spread online at a notable and concerningly speedy rate, mostly about the baseless theory that the incident had been staged.
The speculation on social media began to swirl within minutes of the first reports of shots fired, picking up steam throughout Sunday despite journalists — the vast majority of the gala’s attendees — and authorities quickly releasing verified and evidence-backed information about the suspected shooter.
There is no evidence that Saturday night’s incident was staged. Authorities have released ample evidence that Cole Tomas Allen, 31, from Torrance, California, rushed the event while armed and was stopped by law enforcement. A senior administration official said Allen’s brother told authorities that Cole Allen had sent him and other family members writings displaying anti-Trump sentiment prior to incident.
Even the president, long known for distributing conspiracy theories online, took note of the speed.
“Usually it takes a little bit longer,” President Trump said in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday. “Usually they wait about two or three months to start saying that.”
This time, it was less than two or three hours. The response highlights how conspiracy theories and a knee-jerk skepticism of current events have become the default response for a growing number of Americans, deepened by the loss of trust in institutions and supercharged by starkly partisan politics.
“I would have been surprised if they hadn’t developed because we’re in a society that is absolutely saturated with conspiracism,” Michael Barkun, professor emeritus in the political science department at Syracuse University, said of the theories.
On Reddit, many of the platform’s most popular posts about the incident — including many in communities not dedicated to politics — either directly or indirectly poked at the idea that it had been staged, while comment sections were rife with the sensibility that believing anything else was naive. On Instagram, many posts from people arguing or theorizing that Trump or the White House had something to do with the situation drew thousands of engagements. On X, the word “staged” trended Saturday night and much of Sunday alongside “Butler,” a reference to the assassination attempt on Trump in that Pennsylvania city that has been the subject of similar conspiracy theories.
It did not appear that many high-profile Democratic politicians had engaged with the theories, while some on the right and left criticized the wild speculation.
The speed with which conspiracy theories flowed from Saturday’s event underscore just how common some of these claims have become. While staged or “false flag” attacks do have some historical precedent, they are exceedingly rare. That has not stopped the idea from becoming one of the most common conspiracy theory tropes. In recent years, some on the political right have labeled everything from the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot as a false flag.
But that idea has also more recently percolated on the left, particularly around the Butler assassination attempt.
“It comes in waves in the U.S.,” said Mark Fenster, the Marshall M. Criser Eminent Scholar chair in electronic communications and administrative law at the University of Florida, who has studied conspiracy theories and government transparency. “We have had periods in which there has been both political violence and this sort of fear of conspiracy. And there are times when it goes up and times when it goes down, when it’s quieter. One thing that’s different for today is the fact that it’s so observable … These things can circulate more broadly and more quickly.”
Beyond the claims of a staged incident, plenty of other false or misleading information surfaced online, adding to what is now the usual haze of infotainment that is particularly potent on algorithmically driven social media platforms. Fake images of Allen spread online, as did AI-enhanced security video of his sprint through a security checkpoint. One post on X theorizing that time travel was involved had accrued more than 1.2 million views as of Monday morning. What appeared to be an AI-generated video of Tucker Carlson floating the “staged” conspiracy theory also circulated.
A pro-Iran AI propaganda video also seized on the moment with a new clip poking at the theory.
Others online grasped at statements from Trump supporters before and after the attack as evidence of a conspiracy, including a red carpet interview with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt preceding the shooting in which she said, “shots will be fired,” referencing the contents of the president’s speech. Online, users clipped the interview in videos suggesting Leavitt’s comments as evidence of a staged incident.
Some posited that the attack was covertly orchestrated by the Trump administration for political gain and to support the building of a $400 million ballroom on the East Wing of the White House. As evidence, some pointed to the quick reaction of Trump and many of his most prominent supporters calling for the ballroom to be built.
Ashley St. Clair, a former right-wing social media influencer who has recently been critical of Trump, did not entertain the idea that the WHCD incident was staged but did say in a video on TikTok that she believed the ballroom messaging had been coordinated in the immediate aftermath, noting that she had been in group chats with other influencers for such purposes.
“I told you guys that all of MAGA is paid, and they coordinate their messaging in lockstep via group chats,” St. Clair said. “And what do you know? All of these people came to the conclusion that, after they saw what happened at the White House Correspondents’ dinner, their first thought was all independently, ‘Trump needs his ballroom.’”
St. Clair added in a follow-up video that there was a certain irony in Trump and his supporters being upset about conspiracy theories.
“It’s not so funny now that it’s happening to you boys now, is it?” she said.
Some on the left also sought to pin the blame for the conspiracy theories on Trump. Mike Nellis, a Democratic strategist, pointed to statements Trump made on “60 Minutes” related to the incident. Trump appeared to fall as Secret Service agents escorted him off the stage. Trump said in the interview that he was told to get lower.
“Lying about stupid s— like whether you fell down during a very chaotic situation is why half the internet believes the whole thing was staged,” Nellis wrote on X.
Barkun, of Syracuse University, echoed that idea.
“We’ve got a situation in which there are increasing numbers of people of very high visibility who proclaim themselves to be conspiracy believers and therefore legitimize it,” he said. “Notably, President Trump.”
Fenster and Barkun separately noted that the rise of conspiratorial thinking across the political spectrum comes with inherent dangers for U.S. society.
“The danger, obviously, is that it further stymies our political system, that our political system depends upon parties and branches of government that can get along well enough to enact laws and to enforce laws in a way that is even handed and legitimate,” Fenster said. “And to the extent that government actors and political parties and popular politics are based upon this sort of deeply ingrained suspicion, such that you simply cannot trust the other side to engage in good faith in politics and political bargaining and compromise and things like that, it really makes it that much more difficult to run a country.”
Even as the events were unfolding, some had already anticipated the reaction.
“You know right-wing media is filled with all kinds of conspiracy theories lately about how President Trump’s first assassination attempt was phony and fake?” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told NBC News as he left the dinner. “This is going to fuel all of that stuff, I’m sure.”
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