Both left-wing and right-wing accounts claimed, without any evidence, that the attack was fake.
President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and dozens of other high-profile administration officials and journalists were attending a dinner at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., when a suspect, later identified as Cole Thomas Allen of California according to media reports, reportedly ran toward the event, bypassing security. They were detained by law enforcement while the President and Vice President were evacuated. Police said they believed Cole acted alone, but did not elaborate on who his target was or what his motive might have been. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch told NBC, “We believe the suspect was targeting administration officials.” meet the Press Sunday morning.
On Bluesky, whose user base is predominantly left-wing, many people repeatedly wrote the word “STAGED”, echoing the reaction to Trump’s assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania in 2024.
At the time, many claimed that the firing was done to drum up support for Trump’s plan to build a new ballroom at the White House. The president referenced the ballroom in a press conference after the incident and in a Truth Social post on Sunday morning. Several prominent online Trump boosters echoed the need for the ballroom, including far-right podcaster Jack Posobiec, Libs of TikTok creator Chaya Raichick and Tom Fitton, the right-wing activist who runs Judicial Watch.
Conspiracy theorists claimed that their quick reaction was evidence of a coordinated operation after the shooting. “Is this another staged incident,” asked one X user in a post that has been viewed more than 5 million times.
Other social media users who claimed the incident was staged pointed to a Fox News clip showing the station’s White House correspondent Aisha Hassani speaking from the Hilton Hotel. Hassani told the audience that before the shooting, press secretary Carolyn Levitt’s husband had reportedly told her, “You need to be very safe”, before hanging up on the call.
“Fox News cut one of their reporters because they felt like the shooting was a premeditated false flag,” one X user wrote in a post that has been viewed more than 2 million times. Hassani later clarified in an
“I don’t want to promote conspiracies,” Angelo Carusone, president and chairman of Media Matters at Bluesky, wrote about the Fox News interview. “But I mean…it was very weird. Very weird.”
Levitt himself has been the focus of conspiracy theories, referring to a joke Trump made in an interview before the dinner when he said “shots will be fired”. Following the attack, X users shared memes claiming the comment was “weird”, “sass” or a “curious choice of words”, suggesting the shooting was staged. At least one mainstream outlet also extended the conspiracy theory, calling Levitt’s comments “appalling” and “bizarre.”
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