Within minutes of the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, a false flag conspiracy theory began to spread on social media.
Users latched onto a quote from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt during a red carpet interview that aired on Fox News in the hours leading up to the dinner.
“It’ll be funny, it’ll be entertaining, there will be some shots fired tonight,” she said with a grin. “Everyone should tune in, it’s going to be really great.”
The “shots fired” line was very clearly a reference to the upcoming speeches at the dinner, which serves as an annual venue for prominent comedians, journalists and presidents to roast each other on stage. This was Donald Trump’s first appearance as president, and given his well-documented distaste for the media, he was almost certain to trade some rhetorical salvos with his audience.
Instead, real shots were fired outside the underground ballroom at the Washington Hilton hotel, where hundreds of people were seated before the president.
By Sunday afternoon, investigators and White House officials — including the president himself — had already released a trove of information, including the suspect’s name and photos. They also divulged clues to his alleged motive and targets — which may have included Trump and administration officials. But in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, when no tangible evidence was available, the conspiracists of the internet turned their attention to the Leavitt quote.
“False flag confirmed,” wrote user @ProudSocialist on X, an account with nearly half a million followers.
The baseless false flag claim — that the shooting was orchestrated to somehow benefit the Trump administration — spread quickly across social media, fueled in part by a number of legitimate news outlets raising questions about Leavitt’s quote in headlines. Trump himself propelled the claim by offering the shooting as a reason to fund his expensive and tumultuous White House ballroom project, parts of which are paused because of a legal ruling.
The baseless false flag claim — that the shooting was orchestrated to somehow benefit the Trump administration — spread quickly across social media, fueled in part by a number of legitimate news outlets raising questions about Leavitt’s quote in headlines
“This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House,” he posted Sunday on Truth Social. “It cannot be built fast enough!”
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Saturday’s event in particular was fertile ground for conspiracy theories to thrive; content creators and armchair detectives had already spun fantastical narratives about the other times Trump was targeted by shooters — this attack has already served to crystalize those beliefs, even though the target is not yet clear.
Adding fuel to the conspiracy fire, dozens of prominent right-wing X accounts — including current and former Trump administration officials — posted what appeared to be a coordinated campaign of support for Trump’s ballroom in the moments after the incident.
“We MUST have the Ballroom completed to protect @POTUS and his guests,” wrote former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who Trump fired weeks ago.
Since then, lawmakers and administration officials echoed the right-wing accounts on X, also calling for the ballroom to be built as a safer alternative for mass gatherings including the president, given arguments about security lapses surrounding the dinner.
This was confirmation enough for a section of the internet that’s desperate to identify a shadowy cabal behind every big news event. On Bluesky, a liberal-leaning alternative to X, dozens of accounts posted the word ‘STAGED’ repeatedly through Saturday night and Sunday.
“Wait … it looks like a false flag to justify a ballroom,” wrote one X account with 300,000 followers. “He’s used to getting what he wants at ANY and all costs!!”
Andy Campbell is the Senior Enterprise Editor for MS NOW Digital. He is the author of "We Are Proud Boys: How a right-wing street gang ushered in a new era of American extremism."