Even Trump’s own supporters suspect latest assassination attempt was staged

U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 25, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

President Donald Trump was seemingly the target of an assassination attempt on Saturday — yet millions of Americans believe the event was “staged.”

“Trump’s focus on his planned redecoration in the face of an apparent attempt on his life – the third in less than two years — has provoked a barrage of conspiracy theories,” wrote The Telegraph's Ed Cumming on Monday. Mere hours after Cole Thomas Allen allegedly tried to storm the White House Correspondents Dinner to shoot Trump, Trump called a press conference to demand completed construction of his proposed $400 million White House ballroom, Cumming pointed out, fueling the conspiracies.

“The most prominent is that Trump and his administration staged the attack to help shore up the ballroom project, which he hopes to have completed before he leaves office in early 2029,” Cumming reported. “Authorities have stated they believe Allen acted alone and left a ‘manifesto’ in which he clearly stated he wanted to target officials in the Trump administration. But according to a report by The New York Times, the term ‘staged’ appeared in more than 300,000 posts on X by noon on Sunday.”

He added, “On Bluesky, the social media network with a more Left-wing user base, many posts simply stated ‘staged’. Several prominent accounts reshared theories — without evidence — that were skeptical of the official version of events.”

The skepticism is not limited to liberals. As Cumming pointed out, the flurry of supposed assassination attempts on Trump — as well as his habit of politically exploiting them to vilify his critics and push his agenda — has raised suspicions everywhere.

“In recent months, former Trump supporters, such as Tucker Carlson, have suggested the FBI was involved in the Butler attack. Joe Kent, the former US National Counterterrorism Center director who resigned over the Iran war, used an interview with Carlson to raise his own doubts, including claiming – without evidence – that investigations into the Butler shooting were shut down prematurely,” Cumming wrote. “Some prominent Right-wing accounts have suggested that Saturday’s incident may have been staged, too, possibly in order to facilitate Trump’s ballroom.”

He added, “Despite the rapid destruction of the old building, the new facility has run into trouble recently. In March, Judge Richard Leon temporarily halted construction, upholding a complaint by the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) that Trump’s planned improvements required congressional approval. Work has resumed after an appeal, but is only allowed to continue until another hearing — due to take place on June 5 — is held.”

Indeed, lending credibility to these conspiracy theories, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) posted shortly after the shooting, “I'm dropping a bill tomorrow. Let's build the Ballroom.” Similarly Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who often crosses over to support Republicans, likewise posted that critics of the ballroom have “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (TDS).

“We were there front and center,” Fetterman posted on X on Sunday. “That venue wasn’t built to accommodate an event with the line of succession for the U.S. government. After witnessing last night, drop the TDS and build the White House ballroom for events exactly like these.”

As Cumming reported, skeptics of the assassination attempt point to reactions like these as evidence that the whole thing was planned to help Trump advance his agenda.

“Guy. It was staged.” political commentator Tom Santos posted on X. “We’re not stupid. Well, not all of us anyway. They’ve figured out the only thing that shifts public opinion is the idea of an assassination attempt. There are going to be many fake claims at pivotal political moments, for the rest of his term. Bookmark this. It’s near certain.”

The influential activist Beks wrote on X, by contrast, that the proof the whole thing was staged was that the “grifters got their marching orders,” quoting social media posts from conservative activists Tom Fitton, Jack Posobiec, Libs of TikTok and Wall Street Mav urging the ballroom to be built.

“The more that right wingers talk about the ballroom, the more it's going to seem staged to many people,” commentator David Pakman posted on X. “Jumping from ‘security should have been better in the lobby' to 'build Trump’s scam bribe ballroom’ is just ridiculous.”

By contrast novelist Joyce Carol Oates cast doubt on the possibility of the ballroom shooting being staged… although she said she thinks one of the other supposed attempts on his life was not genuine.

“Though I think it is highly possible that exceedingly awkward Butler PA was staged, I don't think that last night's D.C. shooting was staged,” Oates posted on X. “... For one thing, there was no bravado photo-op for [Trump], so no image to play on TV; nor was the shooter killed, the usual protocol for a staged incident. in addition, the shooter got nowhere near [Trump], so no dramatic pay-off. Just a chaotic, unglamorous scene of some panicked people running [and] others remaining behind, like Fetterman, intent upon their meals.”

Perhaps summing up one point on which the “staged” and “not staged” crowds can agree, one Democratic strategist observed that the overall conversation speaks to deep distrust about Trump’s honesty and that of his top officials.

“The sad reality is most people just don’t care if that half-assed ‘attempted shooting’ was staged or real,” wrote Democratic strategist Jon Cooper on X. “Trump lies constantly about everything, calls anything he dislikes ‘fake news,’ and his administration can’t be trusted. Trump brought this credibility collapse on himself.”

Hugh Dougherty, the executive editor of The Daily Beast and an attendee at the WHCD, admitted that although he now believes the shooting attempt probably was real, he understands why the weight of evidence makes that difficult to believe.

“To believe that the WHCA shooting was real, you have to believe that,” Dougherty wrote before listing the numerous implausibilities. “A man can waltz into a hotel with a shotgun and ammunition, and other weapons, a day before the president and two-thirds of the line of succession are known to be coming to dinner; The man can sprint past Secret Service-controlled magnetometers before he is stopped; Multiple shots are fired but nobody, including the shotgun-wielding shooter, is wounded; The president continues to take part in a routine with Oz the Mentalist while people shout ‘get down,’ and plates crash to the ground; At this precise moment, the shots were heard, but the routine by Oz the Mentalist kept going momentarily. JD Vance — not Trump — is taken first from the stage, and the president apparently either falls, or stops to inspect what is going on; Law enforcement have so little clue about what is going on that about an hour after Trump and his cabinet have fled, an announcement is made, ‘Could any members of Congress come to the stage?’ while officers wander the tables, asking if anyone has seen representatives or senators; The president musters a press conference, laughs and jokes at what has happened, and his base — in apparently perfect lockstep— amplifies his demand for a ballroom, all within two and a half hours of the shooting.”

He added that, not even three hours after the supposed shooting, “the president was cracking jokes and laughing with his minions." He also pointed out that the Secret Service offered shockingly sub-par security to the event, especially given that President Ronald Reagan was nearly assassinated outside the Washington Hilton in 1981.

“That is not even an exhaustive list of what it takes to believe that the WHCA shooting was real,” Dougherty wrote. “It does not cover the outlandish facts that Karoline Leavitt claimed ‘shots will be fired,’ just before they literally were; that some guests kept eating while others sheltered on the floor; that cabinet members slowly trailed out in the same direction as the shooting had been; that Oz the Mentalist went to the microphone and said the program would resume; and how members of the media elite appeared to keep chatting and drinking in the ballroom after the shooting for well over an hour?”

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