A wave of conspiracy theories hit social media as soon as news broke of a shooting at the Washington Hilton Hotel during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday.
That was expected, but some say the tide is shifting, with views from liberals and progressives and right-wing accounts critical of US President Donald Trump.
“We saw it in 2016, but this time it’s much stronger, where we’re starting to see conspiracy theories on the left of politics, especially after they mocked everyone who was attached to them,” said Carmen Celestini, who teaches at the University of Waterloo and studies disinformation, extremists and conspiracies.
The shooting at a 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.
However, since the gunman is on a different floor of the hotel, some details took a while to come to light, while others remain blurry. And in some cases, the actions taken by US officials since the shooting fueled speculation that the incident was politically motivated.
Democratic congresswoman, Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, was among those who played on those ideas, in a post on Threads earlier Sunday.
“Has there ever been a president who had so many ‘attempts’ in his life?” Crockett wrote. “Maybe it’s lax gun laws, maybe it’s a lack of mental health funding, or maybe it’s a lie … who knows …”
All about the ballroom?
In social networks such as X and Bluesky, users say that this incident is designed to distract from the Iran war, to increase Trump’s popularity before the midterms or as pressure for the completion of the football stadium at the White House.
Dozens of prominent Trump supporters quickly made similar X posts about the need for a playroom within minutes of Saturday’s shooting, sparking suspicions that the response, as well as the shooting itself, was part of a coordinated campaign.
Former MAGA organizer Ashley St. Clair said in a TikTok video that it appears conservative activists have agreed to push the same talking point. “Everything in MAGA is fake, organized and coordinated,” he said.
Trump and other U.S. officials continued to push the ballroom after the incident, which Celestini said fueled the opinions circulating on the Internet.
CBC News reporter Paul Hunter was inside the ballroom and heard gunshots when a gunman stormed the lobby outside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner attended by US President Donald Trump.
“We need a ballroom,” Trump told reporters on Saturday. He also later said in a Truth Social post that the shooting would not have taken place in the “Military Top Secret Ballroom.”
The Department of Justice in the US used the incident to try to pressure conservationists to withdraw the case regarding the US project worth 400 million, a point that emphasized the acting attorney General Todd Blanche in a press conference on Monday.
Also on Monday, Republicans in the US Congress pushed legislation to speed up the construction of the ballroom using taxpayer dollars, citing increased safety concerns.
Smiling, hanging up and … time travel?
Others took the small signals — pictures of Trump with a smile on his face as the riot unfolded or press secretary Caroline Leavitt telling Fox News before dinner that “there’s going to be a shot tonight,” referring to a metaphor in Trump’s speech — as evidence that the White House knew what was going to happen ahead of time.
In another widely circulated clip, Fox News reporter Aishah Hasnie was cut off mid-sentence while speaking on air at the Hilton, which some social media users said was evidence she was about to expose a “false flag” operation. Hasnie dismissed this in X’s post, saying, “Our calls were being cut off, because there is no service in that room.”
One of the most unusual theories is that a time traveler predicted an assassination attempt. This is based on a 2023 post on X by an anonymous account that posted the name Cole Allen. The defendant’s name is Cole Tomas Allen.
One X post is at the center of a viral, time-lapse theory about the latest assassination attempt on US President Donald Trump. A CBC News investigative team looks into the case of the mysterious X account that some say predicted the weekend shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner — and uncovers a Canadian connection that throws cold water on the theory.
“Conspiracy theories evoke a sense of injustice, real or imagined, and evoke fear,” Celestini said.
He said people who feel disconnected under the Trump administration, especially on the left, feel like they’re in a perpetual crisis and need to find out why.
And “it will not happen because the Constitution or democracy fails,” said Celestini.
US officials on Monday charged Cole Thomas Allen, 31, after the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night, including attempted murder of President Donald Trump. DC’s attorney Jeanine Pirro said more charges will be filed as the investigation continues.
On the right, he says the Trump administration is fueling mistrust with claims and actions “removed” from the reality of the average citizen – praising inflation numbers and promising low gas prices while many see daily costs rising and continuing the war with Iran that has fueled fears that Americans may be recruited to fight overseas.
“There is a sense of fulfillment of promises to some people who support him, and we see that crack that happens, which makes these conspiracy theories not only develop but believable in other people’s lives,” said Celestini.
‘Information floods’
Jen Golbeck, a professor at the University of Maryland who studies conspiracy theories, said distrust of institutions and the inability to sort fact from fiction creates a “textbook recipe” for such rumors.
“The thing about conspiracy theories that people enjoy, even if it’s not overly political, is that you get breadcrumbs,” he told the Associated Press.
“It’s a way to feel smart and welcome 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 disinformation, told the AP that sometimes more information isn’t better, especially in a time when people can’t pick and choose the facts they like and piece together their own narrative puzzles.
“We just can’t process that much information,” he said. “And so if there’s this flood of information and it’s contradicting and constantly changing as new information comes in, that can really reinforce this tendency to go to a simple, comprehensible story. And that narrative can include conspiracy theories.”
