Alex Jones, school shooting conspiracistA video posted on X said this was the beginning of a much broader effort by the Deep State to take down powerful figures in America, including Biden and Musk.
“Elon you should go to your bunker immediately [sic]“This is a live coup,” Jones wrote in a post on X that has been viewed 6.4 million times.
Others avoided directly blaming the Biden campaign but claimed that the campaign’s rhetoric inspired the shooter, though none of the accounts promoting this narrative provided examples to support their claim.
“Today was not just an isolated incident,” Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, a potential running mate of Trump, wrote in a post on X that has been viewed nearly 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. This rhetoric is what led to the assassination attempt on President Trump.”
No reports have been released at this time regarding the shooter’s motive.
On online conspiracy channels, many Trump supporters pointed to an interview with a witness who saw the gunman climb onto the roof with a rifle and told police about it minutes before the shooting. Posters claimed that law enforcement’s failure to act was a sign that the apparent assassination attempt was coordinated by the “deep state.”
One x user wrote, “Deep-State, how could you miss a rooftop 160 yards away? He got shot 5 times and then he died!”
Other Republican lawmakers blamed the media for the attack.
“The Democrats and the media are responsible for the drops of blood that were shed today,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote on X. “For years and years, they have demonized him and his supporters. Today, someone finally tried to remove our America First leader and the greatest president we’ve ever had.”
“The Trump-obsessed left-wing lunatics who demonize Trump and call him Hitler on MSNBC and other fake news ‘outlets’ are directly responsible for this violent attack on President Trump’s life!! They have blood on their hands,” Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, who was formerly Trump’s White House doctor, wrote on X. Jackson also said his own nephew was hit by one of the bullets fired at the rally.
In more conspiratorial corners of the internet, posters blamed everyone from China to the Mossad, billionaire philanthropist George Soros, former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the attack — all claims not supported by any evidence.
One of the biggest conspiracy theories spreading about the shooting involves a man named Vincent Fusca, who has been a prominent figure in the QAnon world for years. Fusca, who many QAnon followers believe is a pseudonym for John F. Kennedy Jr., was seated behind Trump at the rally on Saturday, and didn’t move when the shots rang out. According to people in QAnon Telegram channels, this is proof that he was plotting the entire incident.
Several pro-Trump accounts were also flagged a video A photo from three months ago is proof that this was part of a larger conspiracy. In the video, an evangelical “prophet” claimed he had a dream about an assassination attempt on Trump, in which the bullet passed so close to his head that it ruptured his eardrum.
Pro-Trump message boards also celebrated Trump’s survival and praised an image of Trump surrounded by Secret Service agents with his fist raised to the crowd.
“This will become a statue someday,” wrote one member of a right-wing message board known as The Donald. “I just ordered a shirt with this on it. It’s iconic enough to win an election if enough people see it,” wrote another. According to the seller, the T-shirt with the image of Trump with his fist raised is being sold for $35, with all profits going to the Trump campaign.
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