A tidal wave of conspiracy theories hit social media as soon as news broke that shots were fired at the Washington Hilton hotel during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday.
That was to be expected, but some say the dynamics are shifting, with theories coming from liberals and progressives as well as right-wing accounts that are critical of U.S. President Donald Trump.
“We saw it in 2016, but this time it’s much stronger, where we’re starting to see the adherence to conspiracy theories on the political left, especially after they’ve mocked everyone who’s been attached to them,” said Carmen Celestini, who teaches at the University of Waterloo and studies disinformation, extremists and conspiracy theorists.
The shooting at the dinner attended by Trump played out in front of a room full of prominent reporters and editors, who provided detailed real-time accounts from the scene.
Still, with the gunman on a different floor of the hotel, some details took time to crystallize, and others remain muddy. And in some cases, the actions U.S. officials have taken since the shooting have fuelled theories that the shooting was staged for political reasons.
Democratic congresswoman, Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, was among those who played into those theories, with a post on Threads early Sunday.
“Has there ever been a president have this many close ‘attempts’ on their life?” Crockett wrote. “Maybe it’s lax gun laws, maybe it’s lack of mental health funding, or maybe it’s fake … who knows …”
All about the ballroom?
On social media platforms like X and Bluesky, users claimed the incident was staged to distract from the unpopular Iran war, to boost Trump’s popularity ahead of the midterms or as a push for the completion of the controversial White House ballroom.
Dozens of prominent Trump backers promptly made similar X posts about the need for the ballroom within minutes of the shooting on Saturday, sparking claims that the response, and the shooting itself, were part of a co-ordinated campaign.
Former MAGA influencer Ashley St. Clair said in a TikTok video that it appeared the conservative influencers had agreed to push the same talking point. “Everything in MAGA is fake, staged and coordinated,” she said.
Trump and other U.S. officials have continued the ballroom push in the wake of the shooting, which Celestini says has perpetuated the theories circulating online.
CBC News correspondent Paul Hunter was inside the ballroom and heard shots as an armed man stormed the lobby outside the White House correspondents’ dinner attended by U.S. President Donald Trump.
“We need the ballroom,” Trump told reporters Saturday. He also claimed later in a post on Truth Social that the shooting never would have happened with the “Military Top Secret Ballroom.”
The U.S. Justice Department has used the shooting to try to pressure preservationists into dropping a lawsuit over the $400-million US project, a point that acting attorney General Todd Blanche emphasized at a Monday news conference.
Also on Monday, Republicans in U.S. Congress pushed for legislation to speed construction of the ballroom using taxpayer dollars, citing increased security concerns.
Smirks, cut calls and … time travel?
Some are taking small signals — images of Trump with a smirk on his face as the commotion unfolded or press secretary Karoline Leavitt telling Fox News before the dinner that “there will be some shots fired tonight,” in a metaphorical reference to Trump’s speech — as evidence that the White House knew what was going to happen beforehand.
In one widely circulated clip, Fox News reporter Aishah Hasnie is cut off mid-sentence while speaking on air from the Hilton, which some social media users claimed was evidence that she was about to expose a “false flag” operation. Hasnie refuted this in an X post, saying, “Our calls were dropping, because there is barely any service in that ballroom.”
One of the more outlandish theories posits that a time traveller predicted the assassination attempt. This is based on a 2023 post on X by a faceless account that posted the name Cole Allen. The accused’s name is Cole Tomas Allen.
A single X post is at the centre of a viral, time travel-based conspiracy theory about the latest assassination attempt against U.S. President Donald Trump. CBC News’s visual investigations team looks into the case of the mysterious X account that some are claiming predicted this weekend’s shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner — and uncover a Canadian connection that throws cold water on the theory.
“Conspiracy theories articulate a sense of injustice, real or perceived, and they articulate fear,” Celestini said.
She said people who feel disenfranchised under Trump’s administration, particularly on the left, are feeling like they are in a never-ending disaster and they have to find a reason why.
And “it can’t be because the Constitution or democracy is failing,” Celestini said.
U.S. officials on Monday laid out the charges against 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen after a shooting incident at the White House correspondents’ dinner Saturday night, including the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump. U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said more charges will be laid as the investigation continues.
On the right, she says the Trump administration is fuelling distrust with claims and actions that are “removed” from the average citizen’s reality — hailing inflation numbers and promising lower gas prices while many are seeing day-to-day costs increase and continuing a war with Iran that has sparked fears that Americans could be drafted to fight overseas.
“There’s a sense of broken promises for some of the people who support him, and we’re seeing that fracturing happening, which allows these conspiracy theories to not only develop but become believable in some people’s lives,” Celestini said.
‘Flood of information’
Jen Golbeck, a professor at the University of Maryland who studies conspiracy theories, said a lack of trust in institutions and an inability to sort fact from fiction create a “textbook recipe” for such rumours.
“The thing about conspiracy theories that makes people enjoy them, even if they’re not politically extreme, is that you get to go looking for breadcrumbs,” she told The Associated Press.
“It’s a way to feel smart and accepted when you come up with a nugget to contribute and people like it.”
Emily Vraga, a professor at the University of Minnesota who studies political misinformation, told AP that sometimes more information is not necessarily better, especially in such a polarized time when people can pick and choose the facts they like and assemble their own narrative puzzles.
“We just can’t process that much information,” she said. “And so when there is just this flood of information and it’s contradictory and ever-changing as new information comes in, that can actually reinforce this tendency to go to a simplified, understandable narrative. And that narrative can include conspiracy theories.”
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