The White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night turned into a chaotic scene after a shooting incident left several high-profile officials and journalists shaken. In the aftermath, social media platforms like X, Bluesky, and Instagram were flooded with conspiracy theories claiming the shooting was “staged.”
By midday Sunday, data from TweetBinder showed that the word “staged” appeared in more than 300,000 X posts, reports The Daily Beast. These theories came from both left- and right-wing influencers and anonymous accounts, with some suggesting the shooting was part of a plot to distract from President Donald Trump’s war in Iran or to justify his vanity ballroom.
Trump, 79, hit the floor and was escorted out of Saturday night’s event surrounded by Secret Service agents. Moments before the shots were fired, the family of Cole Tomas Allen, 31, received a manifesto from the suspected gunman.
Trump pushed back on conspiracy theories but acknowledged they are part of a larger, ongoing pattern
During a Sunday evening interview with 60 Minutes correspondent Norah O’Donnell, Trump was asked about the growing theories online. He said he had not heard any of them until O’Donnell brought them up. “I think they’re more sick than they are con people,” Trump said of conspiracy theorists. “But there’s a lot of con in there too.”
When O’Donnell presented Trump with excerpts from Allen’s manifesto, where he stated he was “no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” Trump replied, “I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you’re horrible people. Horrible people.” He then added, “Yeah, he did write that. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.”
O’Donnell also brought up other Trump-related conspiracy theories, including claims that the 2024 attempt on his life at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, “didn’t happen.” Trump extended the list himself, suggesting some people believe Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel “didn’t happen,” and that “World War II didn’t happen and the Holocaust didn’t happen, and many things didn’t happen.”
On social media, influencers and anonymous accounts shared memes suggesting the shooting was staged, reports Wired. Some pointed to a Fox News clip featuring the station’s White House correspondent Aishah Hasnie, who told viewers that before the shooting, press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s husband allegedly told her, “You need to be very safe,” before the call was cut off.
Hasnie later clarified in a social media post that her cell service had dropped in a spot with notoriously bad service, adding, “He was telling me to be careful with my own safety because the world is crazy. He was expressing his concern for my safety.” Despite this, conspiracy theorists continued to share the clip as supposed evidence of a coordinated plan.
Leavitt herself also became the focus of conspiracy theories. In an interview before the dinner, she said “shots will be fired,” referring to the jokes Trump was set to deliver, and her pre-dinner quip aged very badly within minutes of the attack. Following the shooting, X users called the comment “strange,” “sus,” or a “curious choice of words,” while sharing memes claiming the shooting was staged.
During the same interview, Trump also addressed Allen’s manifesto claims directly, saying, “I’m not a pedophile. Excuse me. Excuse me. I’m not a pedophile.” Separately, Trump also drew attention for turning the shooting into a sales pitch for his White House construction project during the chaos. As the investigation into the WHCA shooting continues, no new information has been uncovered about the alleged shooter’s full motivation.
Published: Apr 27, 2026 01:45 pm