Meet the Trump Voters Who Believe He Staged the WHCD Shooting
As his popularity shrivels, some former supporters buy into conspiracy theories about the attempts on his life.
DONALD TRUMP’S CRITICS ON THE LEFT have taken a lot of heat for suspecting that the assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner two weeks ago was a false flag attack—perhaps intended to give Trump a boost in the polls or provide an excuse to build his new ballroom.
But it turns out that Trump supporters, already swimming in a sea of other conspiracy theories, don’t necessarily trust the WHCD shooting story presented by the feds, either. That’s one of the big findings of a recent focus group conducted by Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell’s Longwell Partners of nine people who voted for Trump at least twice (in 2020 and 2024). Those nine people were picked for the focus group because they all now say they disapprove of his presidency. As for the WHCD attack, six participants said they believed the assassination attempt attributed to California teacher Cole Tomas Allen was “a psyop.”
“It doesn’t make sense that somebody should be able to get that close this many times in that way to the president of the United States,” said one member of the focus group.
“I can’t even go to a baseball game and bring in a can of Diet Coke . . . or a concert without a metal detector or them emptying my pockets,” said another.
“I feel like it was a ploy to get his ballroom that he wants, and that’s his reason,” said a third.
To be clear: There’s no evidence to support the notion that the assassination attempt involved anyone besides Allen or was some kind of “false flag” attempt to get Trump his ballroom.
Like other WHCD false flag theorists, the focus group members relied mostly on a belief that too many people were trying to assassinate Trump for this attempt to be authentic—or they cited descriptions of ruthless Washington power games they had seen on TV (such as Netflix’s House of Cards).
Others focused on White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s remarks ahead of Trump’s WHCD speech that “there will be some shots fired” at the dinner (a promise, clearly, that Trump would come in guns blazing rhetorically, not a reference to actual gunfire) as proof that the White House was putting out coded messages about the assassination ahead of time.
“I think Karoline Levitt had made a comment, flippant and could be totally coincidental, ‘Shots will be fired tonight,’” one panelist said. “I mean, it’s almost like they’re toying with us or being playful in the [sense of] ‘We’re literally going to show you what we have done or what we’re about to do.’”
The ballroom, in particular, loomed large over the focus group. Some participants pointed to Trump’s tutelage under cutthroat lawyer Roy Cohn as proof that he would stop at nothing to get his ballroom, while multiple members of the panel were suspicious of how rapidly conservative media moved the discussion of the assassination attempt into a pitch for the ballroom’s construction.
“He had some weird . . . manifesto or something that came out,” one focus group member said of Allen. “And all of a sudden, all the conservative pundits are talking about ballrooms.”
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TRUMP HAS BEEN POLITICALLY victimized before by conspiracy theories (including those of his own making), most notably for refusing to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. But the idea that even people who voted for him think he staged the most recent attempt on his life underscores what a profound trust deficit he currently is facing among voters. It also underscores the degree to which our nation’s political discourse is now being shaped and directed by the conspiratorial mindset. We are at the point where the president’s own voters are doing QAnon-style symbol analysis of his White House. That’s a bad sign!
High-profile assassinations and assassination attempts have long fixated the conspiracist mind, and several participants in this focus group seemed to share that preoccupation. One participant expressed his belief that the WHCD assassination attempt may have been a psyop by weaving together his belief that the first assassination attempt against Trump (in Butler, Pennsylvania) and the successful assassination against John F. Kennedy also were staged. Another participant—who, again, voted at least twice for Trump—also claimed the Butler shooting was staged (“a paintball or something in his hand that he squished on his ear because I think he wanted to gain some support”), and referred to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels when explaining why he believed Trump may have staged a false flag assassination attempt against himself.
“I think this is all propaganda, just like Goebbels . . . in Germany in World War II,” he said.
A number of the participants said they saw this as a broader trend of false flags or cases where the government wasn’t giving the public the full story, citing the murder of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk last year. Eight out of the nine said they believed there was more to Kirk’s assassination than the lone-gunman story promoted by federal law enforcement and the mainstream media.
“I think it’s a psyop, just like him getting shot, and the Charlie Kirk thing,” one panelist said, connecting the WHCD attack to both the Butler shooting and Kirk’s murder.
Listing the reasons she’s disappointed in Trump, a repeat Trump voter who identified herself as a Candace Owens listener gave voice to her belief that Trump was ignoring new leads or covering up evidence of a broader conspiracy in Kirk’s assassination.
“I think he thinks it’s a shut-and-dry [sic] case, but I do listen to Candace Owens,” she said. “So I’ve been following very closely along with the facts that she’s been able to produce and the people that she’s brought on, and it seems like in no way should this be a cut-and-dry closed case.”
We’re at the point in Trump’s lame duck term where his once-committed voters are preferring the ravings of someone like Candace Owens over the word of the president himself. Good luck in the midterms, Republicans!
Occam's Razor of Stupidity, retooled for the modern age. Or otherwise "don't ascribe competence to people who are regularly incompetent."
In order to believe it was a false flag, you'd have to assume that everything you've seen with your eyes and heard with your ears is false. That the guys who can't seem to tie their shoes without running into walls suddenly came up with a cunning plan to fake an assassination attempt.
Or, put another way, this also assumes that, if they had been behind it, that it wouldn't immediately have been leaked to everyone. We know who gets locked out of their computers and who forgets what blankets on what planes. If someone planned a fake assassination, we'd hear about it immediately.
You simply can't believe that Trump, Hegseth, and Patel suddenly developed competence for exactly one thing and then immediately went back to being entirely incompetent. I'm not sure Trump is capable of ordering dinner right, he definitely couldn't coordinate a fake assassination.
And Patel? Definitely not.
Also, if Candace Owens believes it, chances are it's not true on principle.
I watched this entire podcast. I usually find myself needing to turn it off because I just end up yelling at my TV. This pod was excellent and David Frumm's analysis of these voters was really enlightening. What this pod proved is Trump and the GOP establishment thought they had a good thing going by stoking fear and distrust in their base. What they never expected was for Trump et al to now become victim of the same level of conspiracy and mistrust. A monster was created and it cannot be contained.