Left-wing conspiracy theorists are spreading the claim that the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump on Sunday was “staged.”
The rumors began swirling shortly after gunfire erupted on Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. A Secret Service agent, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, opened fire after spotting a rifle in the bushes several hundred yards from Trump’s location.
An individual, 58-year-old Ryan Routh, was taken into custody after attempting to escape. Law enforcement located an AK-47-style rifle with a scope, two backpacks, and a GoPro camera at the scene.
Anti-Trump liberals on X reacted to the news by suggesting that the former president orchestrated the assassination attempt. A fundraising email sent out by the Trump campaign not long after the shooting was cited as proof.
“I don’t buy your story for a second. So vague, with so little detail trickling out, like you’re making it up as you go. No footage, no real details,” one user said in a post tagging Trump. “Yet somehow, you had fundraising emails ready to go in minutes? Feels completely staged.”
“The email sent out immediately following the shooting story this afternoon,” another user said. “This tells me all I needed to know about the validity of the story.”
“Trump is fundraising from these shooting incidents, it’s almost like these are staged,” a third user added.
And over on TikTok, left-leaning users expressed similar views.
“I don’t know, y’all,” one TikToker said. “This feels a little staged. I mean approval ratings were going down, behind in the polls, not getting his way, and then all of the sudden, another one? Twice in the same election cycle? I don’t know. Something smells fishy.”
Others pointed to proof the shooter voted for Trump in 2016 to prove it was an inside job.
The shooting over the weekend came just two months after Trump was injured in a separate assassination attempt.
Just like now, left-wing conspiracy theorists immediately claimed then that Trump had staged the shooting to curry favor during the election season.
Yet conspiracy theories on the issue are coming from the right as well. After the first attempt on Trump’s life, conservatives alleged that the situation had been part of a Deep State plot.
And once again with Sunday’s shooting, Trump fans are yet again churning out unfounded conspiracy theories about who is responsible.
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