Conspiracies abound after White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting

Leaders across Europe have condemned the shooting that took place at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on 25 April, which US President Donald Trump attended.

Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and Vice-President JD Vance were among those evacuated at the Washington Hilton hotel after gunshots were fired near the main security screening area for the annual event.

Suspect Cole Tomas Allen has since been charged with attempting to assassinate the president. He has not yet entered a plea, and the US Department of Justice says it has yet to establish a clear motive.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on X that she had spoken to and expressed solidarity with Trump following the attack, which has sparked plenty of speculation and numerous conspiracy theories.

In the aftermath of the incident, influencers and social media users flooded X, Bluesky and Instagram with allegations that the attack was staged, despite multiple journalists reporting first-hand on the incident.

Yet more accused the Trump administration of deliberately staging the shooting to stir up support for Trump’s White House ballroom project, which has faced legal challenges.

Trump claimed in the shooting’s aftermath that the planned $400 million (€342 million) ballroom within the White House itself is crucial for his safety, as it limits the need for him to host events outside and would contain an underground bunker.

But there is no evidence that the shooting was staged, despite this conspiracy theory taking hold of mainstream social media platforms with millions of views.

Some of these posts refer to an image that shows Trump’s reaction after the shooting. Others suggest that Fox News abruptly cut off a reporter as she began to imply that it was a false flag after Nicholas Riccio, husband of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, told her to stay safe.

The Fox reporter who supposedly had her call cut, Aishah Hasnie, later posted on X that her call only dropped because there was little signal in the ballroom of the hotel, and that Riccio only told her to stay safe in general terms, not as a warning of the attack that was to come.

“He was telling me to be careful with my own safety because the world is crazy,” Hasnie said. “Which is what my own father and other people have also said to me recently. He was expressing his concern for my safety.”

“I was going to say — before I lost my signal — that it was unfortunate that only a short time later, this all happened,” she added.

A similar claim suggesting that the attack had been staged pointed to an interview Leavitt gave to Fox News prior to the dinner, in which she said that “shots would be fired” in the room.

Some posts on X interpreted this remark as evidence that Leavitt had prior knowledge of the shooting.

However, the full interview makes it clear that Leavitt was teasing Trump’s planned speech, after Fox News interviewer referenced the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, at which the then-President Barack Obama and comedian Seth Meyers famously made jokes about Trump.

“He is ready to rumble, I will tell you. This speech tonight will be classic Donald J Trump,” Leavitt said. “It will be funny. It will be entertaining. There will be some shots fired tonight in the room. So everyone should tune in. It will be really great.”

Was the shooter given a signal?

Several posts showed a clip of a man standing next to Trump briefly holding up a card. Seconds later, shots can be heard in the background.

Social media users claimed that the person holding up the card may have been giving a signal to someone else to begin the attack.

However, the cardholder was Oz Pearlman, a mentalist and performer. According to an interview he gave to CNN, he was performing at the moment this clip was taken.

“It was a pivotal moment in the trick where you’re just about to do the reveal of like ‘wow’, and we hear commotion,” Pearlman said, explaining that at first he thought there was a medical emergency in the room.

Despite a complete lack of evidence, these theories were amplified online, with some tying the motive of the shooter to Israeli causes.

Others were amplified by Russian state media, some of which have since taken down reports that suggested that the attack was staged.

It’s not the first time social media users have speculated that shootings involving Trump are false flag operations, with a similar theory spreading after the attempt on his life during a rally in Pennsylvania in 2024, despite a lack of evidence.