More than a month after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, left-wing conspiracy theories claiming the shooting was staged continue to circulate on social media platforms such as X, racking up millions of views.
Hashtags like “#Staged,” “#StagedbyTrump,” and “#StagedAssassinationAttempt” continue to see hundreds of insane posts on social media every day, many of them posted by proudly anti-Trump and left-leaning accounts.
One anti-Trump poster posted a video of the aftermath of the shooting simply asking, “Does anyone else think the Trump campaign faked this?” The video has been viewed 8.4 million times and generated more than 20,000 comments, most of which agree with the premise.
“True story… The Trump campaign hired this boy to fire into a crowd but avoid shooting Trump, to stage a fake assassination attempt, and then blame the Democrats and possibly start a civil war… They knew this boy would not live to tell the tale,” reads the image, which has been repeatedly reposted on X.
“Fact,” wrote one of the many users who reposted the image.
Another commonly posted video, taken from behind the stage at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, shows the shooter, Thomas Crooks, running across rooftops, with Trump claiming to be tracking the shooter and having a bag of fake blood ready to smear on his face when gunshots rang out.
“Watch as he chases the shooter and drops the red dye pack,” one person wrote, though no such blood packs are in sight.
Countless enthusiastic posts feature Spirit Halloween listings for $12.95 fake blood packs that can be discreetly stored behind your ear.
“Just fit snugly behind your ear, smack it with your hand and scare your friends with the most realistic bloody ears ever!” the product listing reads, with posters claiming that Trump has undoubtedly used such a product to disguise his blemishes.
Others have focused on Trump's hat, alleging it contained fake blood packs, and the suited-upon agent who retrieved it after Trump was taken away by Secret Service agents.
Photographs of Trump's ear after the bandage was removed have also played a central role in the conspiracy theory, and are frequently paired with photos of the gruesome wound in his ear as evidence that Trump was not, in fact, shot.
“What kind of assassination of a former president would get you to straighten your wig, scream for heels on your shoes and stand for long periods of time for a photo op? Fake, fake, fake. Not fight, fight, fight, fight,” one X poster who describes himself as “super woke” wrote on Sunday.
However, the FBI confirmed that Trump was in fact shot in the ear.
“The bullet that struck former President Trump in the ear was either a whole bullet or a fragmented bullet fired from a deceased individual's rifle,” the department said in a July statement.
The bullet came very close to being fatal, but missed because Crooks happened to turn his head just as he pulled the trigger when he was about 130 yards away.
A heroic firefighter in the crowd was killed by Crooks' gunfire, two others were seriously wounded, and Crooks himself was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper seconds after the shot was fired.
Company X did not respond to a request for comment.
