Conspiracy theories that the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump was staged flooded the internet almost immediately after a shooting suspect opened fire on Trump as he spoke at a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Some of the claims said Trump staged it himself.
“Donald Trump continues to play in our faces!! This was SO staged!!! If someone REALLY wanted to take him out, they wouldn’t use a BB Gun!!,” one person posted on X a little over an hour after the shooting.
“If you think the ‘shooting’ at the trump rally was an assassination attempt, you are in a cult. This is the most staged thing I’ve seen in a long time. He knows he’s going to lose the election, so he fakes this s**** and shouts to the crowd to ‘fight,’” another X user wrote.
Some social media users even falsely claimed that Trump faked the blood coming from his ear with a “blood pill.”
“Trump staging a fake shooting at his rally is amazing theater,” one X user wrote. “We saw him smash fake blood on the side of his head. Those were not gunshot sounds.”
Some claims appeared on Meta, which was flagged as part of the platform’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
These claims are baseless.
The FBI is investigating the shooting as an assassination attempt. PolitiFact found no credible news reports or official accounts that the shooting was staged. It was witnessed by thousands of rally attendees, including dozens of news photographers and reporters.
The FBI identified Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the suspect who shot former President Donald Trump. Pennsylvania State Police said the shooter killed one person — whom the state’s governor identified as Corey Comperatore, a former volunteer fire chief and father of two — and critically injured two other people at the rally. Secret Service personnel shot Crooks dead shortly after he opened fire, the agency said. Law enforcement officials recovered an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle from a nearby building’s roof, according to The New York Times.
Law enforcement officials continued to investigate a potential motive the day after the shooting.
The shooter, the U.S. Secret Service said, fired multiple rounds from an “elevated position outside of the rally venue”; social media photos showed a body on a roof. Trump, who had blood trickling down his face as agents rushed him offstage, is recovering and safe, the agency said. Trump later said on Truth Social that the bullet hit the upper part of his right ear.
PolitiFact contacted the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI for comment but did not hear back by publication.
A Trump campaign spokesperson said Trump thanked “law enforcement and first responders for their quick action during this heinous act” and said he was fine after being checked out at a local medical facility.
Claims that violent incidents and shootings were “staged” to distract from other news are a common trope among misinformers.
The shooting suspect was said to be about 400 feet away from the rally stage. The BBC interviewed one witness who said he tried to warn police about the shooter as he saw him climbing onto the roof.
In a news conference, FBI Special Agent Kevin Rojek called the shooting an assassination attempt against Trump. Authorities said there would be a lengthy investigation into how the shooter was able to carry out the attack. Rojek said it was “surprising” the shooter was able to fire multiple times.
“A lot of things need to occur investigatively to make those determinations of what, if any, failures there were,” Rojek said.
Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said at the news conference that officials were following up on reports of witnesses warning police about the shooter, adding that law enforcement had responded to “a number” of reports of suspicious occurrences. The FBI confirmed it had no threat information before the event.
Experts say there are several reasons people turn to and believe conspiracy theories during breaking news, such as that these events were fake or planned.
“They distrust the media and police, whether because they view the ‘fake news’ and police as complicit with or dupes of the conspiracy,” Mark Fenster, a University of Florida law professor who has written extensively about conspiracies, previously told PolitiFact. “And they either already believe or are susceptible to believe in whatever the claim cites as the reason behind the elaborate set-up.”
Our ruling
Social media users said Trump staged the shooting at his Butler, Pennsylvania, rally.
There is no evidence to support this. Trump was visibly injured in the shooting, which thousands of people witnessed, and was later treated medically. One person was killed and at least two others were critically injured. The suspected shooter was shot dead, and the FBI is investigating the incident as an assassination attempt.
This claim is inaccurate and meritless. We rate it Pants on Fire!
This fact check was originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. See the sources for this fact check here.
