In the minutes and hours after a 20-year-old repeatedly shot at former president Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, social media platforms, message boards, and encrypted chat groups lit up with conspiracies about the shooting.
From wild claims that the incident was a “deep state plot” devised by President Joe Biden to allegations that the entire incident was staged to boost Trump’s chances of winning the election, the conspiracies came from all sides of the political divide. They were driven not only by online conspiracists and random accounts online, but also by elected lawmakers.
“They tried to jail him and now they’ve tried to kill him,” Representative Greg Steube of Florida wrote on X.
“Joe Biden sent the orders,” Representative Mike Collins of Georgia wrote on X in reference to a recent call Biden held with donors, when he reportedly said, “It’s time to put Trump in a bull’s-eye.” The representative’s post has been viewed 5.7 million times according to the platform’s own metrics.
Meanwhile, Sean Davis, the founder of the right-wing website The Federalist, claimed the shooting was part of a Democrat-led plot to take Trump out. “They knew Biden couldn’t win so they incited one of their toadies to try and take out his opponent.”
As has become normal in breaking news situations, X was flooded with conspiracies and disinformation. X owner Elon Musk, who said he “fully endorses” Trump following the rally shooting, actively boosted conspiracies and suggested in a post that it may have been “deliberate” to allow the shooter onto the roof from where he fired the shots.
Two of the platform’s trending topics after the shooting were “staged” and “false flag,” both of which centered on the baseless conspiracy that Trump’s own campaign team orchestrated the attack to make the former president look like a hero. Similar conspiracies spread on all major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
“This is the most staged thing I've seen in a long time,” one X user wrote in a post viewed 1.6 million times. “He knows he's going to lose the election, so he fakes this shit and shouts to the crowd to fight.”
While the FBI has identified the shooter as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, in the hours immediately after the apparent assassination attempt many people online spread conspiracies falsely identifying other individuals. Numerous accounts on X boosted the conspiracy that an “antifa supporter” named Mark Violets was the shooter. In fact, the photo getting shared next to this claim was of an Italian soccer fan and YouTuber. Former Trump adviser Roger Stone also pushed the claim that an antifa activist named Matthew Yearick was the shooter, and despite being debunked, Yearick’s name was still being linked to the incident on Sunday morning by far-right and conspiracist accounts on X.
One X user purposely posted photos and videos of himself claiming to be the shooter, posts which were boosted by major accounts on the platform, including Trump ally Laura Loomer. In his videos, the man says “My name is Thomas Matthew Crooks. I hate Republicans. I hate Trump. And guess what, you’ve got the wrong guy.”
Alex Jones, the school shooting conspiracist, ranted in a video posted to X that this was the beginning of a much wider effort by the deep state to kill powerful figures in America, including Biden and Musk.
“Elon you should get to your bunker immediate [sic], this is a live coup,” Jones wrote on X in a post that has been viewed 6.4 million times.
Others stopped short of directly implicating the Biden campaign but claimed that campaign rhetoric inspired the shooter, though none of the accounts boosting this narrative shared examples to back up their claim.
“Today is not just some isolated incident,” Senator J. D. Vance of Ohio, who is among those in consideration to be Trump’s running mate, wrote in a post on X that has been viewed almost 9 million times. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination.”
No reports about the shooter’s motivations have been released at this time.
In conspiracy channels online, many Trump supporters pointed to an interview with a witness who saw the gunman climbing onto the roof with a rifle and told police about it minutes before the shooting. Law enforcement’s failure to act, posters claimed, is a sign that the apparent assassination attempt was coordinated by the “deep state.”
“Deep-State how do you miss a roof 160 yards away? He got 5 shots off then he dies!” one X user wrote.
Other Republican lawmakers blamed the media for the attack.
“The Democrats and the media are to blame for every drop of blood spilled today,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote on X. “For years and years, they’ve demonized him and his supporters. Today, someone finally tried to take out the leader of our America First and the greatest President of all time.”
“Trump-deranged Left wing LUNATICS that parade around MSNBC and other FAKE NEWS ‘outlets’ demonizing Trump and calling him Hitler are DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for this violent attack on President Trump’s life!! They have BLOOD on their hands,” Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas, who was previously Trump’s White House doctor, wrote on X. Jackson also said that his own nephew was grazed by one of the bullets fired at the rally.
In more conspiratorial corners of the internet, posters blamed everyone from China, to Mossad, billionaire philanthropist George Soros, former president Barack Obama, and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton for the attack—all claims that are not backed up by any evidence.
One of the wilder conspiracies spreading about the shooting involves a man named Vincent Fusca, who has been a major figure in the QAnon world for years. Fusca, who many QAnon adherents believe is John F. Kennedy Jr. in disguise, was sitting behind Trump at the rally on Saturday, and when the shots are fired he doesn’t move. This, according to people in QAnon Telegram channels, is proof that he was orchestrating the entire incident.
A number of pro-Trump accounts also flagged a video from three months ago as evidence that this was part of some grand scheme. In the video, an evangelical “prophet” claimed to have had a dream about an assassination attempt on Trump, where the bullet passed so close to his head that it shattered his eardrum.
Pro-Trump message boards were also celebrating Trump’s survival and lionizing the image of Trump surrounded by his Secret Service agents with a fist raised to the crowd.
“This will be a statue some day,” one member of the far-right message board known as The Donald wrote. “Just ordered a shirt with it on there. It's iconic enough to win an election if enough people see it,” another wrote, referring to a T-shirt featuring the image of Trump with his fist raised being sold for $35, with all profits going to the Trump campaign, according to the seller.
