A flood of misinformation exploded online after United States President Donald Trump escaped a weekend shooting scare, fueling renewed yet unfounded claims that he has staged assassination attempts to boost his political fortunes.Trump and his top administration officials were evacuated Saturday from a media gala in Washington after gunfire erupted outside the ballroom, marking the third assassination attempt targeting the Republican in two years.
AFP's fact-checkers identified a series of social media posts from anti-Trump accounts circulating an unsubstantiated theory that the White House staged the shooting to distract attention from unfavorable news, including the unpopular US-Israeli war with Iran.
Posts advancing the claim garnered 80 million views on Elon Musk's platform X alone within two days of the shooting, according to the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard.
Many of the same accounts previously claimed that two assassination attempts on Trump in 2024 – in Pennsylvania and Florida – were also staged.
The narrative largely emanated from a left-wing conspiracy movement that researchers call "BlueAnon," a play on the right-wing QAnon cult.
