The gunshots rang out. Then the conspiracy theories erupted online

Four minutes after the first report of a shooting at a rally for Donald Trump on Saturday, an anonymous account on the social platform X posted, “Joe Biden’s antifa shot President Trump.”

Within half an hour, another account on X with links to the QAnon conspiracy theory claimed without proof that the attack against Trump had probably been ordered by the CIA. Shortly after that, far-right activist Laura Loomer posted on X about some recent remarks that President Joe Biden made about Trump and then wrote, “They tried to kill Trump.” She did not provide evidence.

An hour later, with official details of the assassination attempt still scant, the narrative that Biden and his allies had engineered the attack on Trump was being amplified by Republican lawmakers, Russian sympathizers and even a Brazilian political scion. By the time 24 hours had elapsed, posts about the unverified claim had been viewed and shared millions of times.

The idea that Biden was behind the shooting of Trump was perhaps the most dominant conspiracy theory to emerge after the attack in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. The unproven conjecture surfaced almost instantly, hardened into a narrative and then catapulted between platforms large and small, even as information about the episode was limited. It was a striking example of the speed, scale and stickiness of rumors on social media, which often calcify into accepted truth far more efficiently than efforts to debunk or pleas for restraint.

That the subject this time was Trump, who frequently claims to be victimized by powerful forces while demonizing his enemies, helped fuel the conspiracy theory. Its acceleration was also enabled by years of distrust stemming from tales of shadowy cabals of elites — which Trump has called “the deep state” — engaged in nefarious plots.

“The result was a perfect storm of righteous fury, blame-casting and conspiratorialism, at a moment when absolutely everyone was paying attention,” said Emerson Brooking, a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, who studies online ecosystems.

Baseless claims of a left-sanctioned hit job on Trump were only part of “a massive online spread of false claims” about the shooting, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit research group. References to false assassination narratives amassed more than 100 million views in 24 hours on X alone, the group said Monday. That far exceeded the 35.1 million views for content related to false flag rumors and other conspiracy theories after a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022.

Other unsubstantiated theories were fueled in part by left-wing accounts, including that Trump had deliberately staged the shooting to improve his election chances, slashing his ear with a hidden razor, popping a concealed blood capsule or otherwise fabricating a fake gunshot wound. Fingers were also pointed at other imagined culprits, including the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, Jews, trans people and Ukrainians.

But the unverified storyline that Biden and the Democrats were responsible stood out. According to the data firm PeakMetrics, the largest portion of discussion about the shooting on X and Telegram in the first seven hours — about 17% — involved expressions of solidarity and prayers for Trump. The next largest chunk, about 5%, accused Democrats of instigating the violence.

On July 12 and July 13 — the day of the shooting — there were 83,000 mentions on X of the phrase “inside job,” a 3,228% increase compared with the 48-hour period immediately prior, according to NewsGuard, which monitors online misinformation.

In a statement, a Biden campaign official said that after “this horrifying attack, anyone — especially elected officials with national platforms — politicizing this tragedy, spreading disinformation, and seeking to further divide Americans isn’t just unacceptable — it’s an abdication of leadership.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The timeline of the conspiracy theory focused on Biden and the Democrats’ culpability was documented by think tanks, private companies that monitor misinformation and research groups, including Advance Democracy, the Anti-Defamation League, the Atlantic Council and Cyabra.

The first signs of that unproven idea emerged minutes after gunshots sounded at Trump’s rally around 6:11 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. At 6:15 p.m., the anonymous X account pointed fingers at Biden’s “antifa,” a reference to the loosely organized left-wing antifascist movement, for the attack. At 6:19 p.m., a user in a Trump fan forum called Patriots.win wrote, “I guess they really do want war.”

Fourteen minutes later, a pro-police group with 107,000 followers on X criticized “those who have been using inflammatory, dehumanizing rhetoric creating an atmosphere for violence.” In the next 60 seconds, another account on X made the outlandish claims, without proof, that the CIA had been involved, and also accused Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama of having tried to kill Trump.

At 6:45 p.m., Loomer wrote on X about Biden’s comment to donors earlier in the week that “it’s time to put Trump in the bull’s-eye.” She did not mention that Biden had made the remark as part of an appeal to pivot public focus away from his disastrous debate performance last month and toward his political rival.

Minutes later, Loomer, who has just less than 1 million followers on X, said that “they tried to kill Trump,” suggesting that the attack was arranged by the Democrats to take attention away from Biden’s age.

“Do I think the rhetoric led to this? Yes, I do,” Loomer said in an interview Monday. “A bull’s-eye is a target. It doesn’t matter if it’s a different context, it’s the imagery.”

After Loomer’s posts on X, other Biden critics seized on Biden’s “bull’s-eye” language. Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., posted on X at 6:47 p.m. that “Joe Biden sent the orders.” His post has been seen more than 16 million times.

Only an hour had passed when the oldest son of Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right former president of Brazil whom Trump had endorsed, weighed in. Flávio Bolsonaro wrote on X at 7:12 p.m. that “the left” tried to kill Trump.

By 8:30 p.m., at least six Republican members of Congress had blamed the assassination attempt on rhetoric from Democratic politicians and the media. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, who was named by Trump as his vice-presidential pick Monday, wrote on X that the language used by the Biden campaign “led directly” to the shooting. The post, which has amassed 17 million views, went up hours before the FBI named Thomas Matthew Crooks as its suspect Sunday.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., also addressed Democrats and the news media on X, posting, “YOU are responsible” and “they tried to murder President Trump.” (Law enforcement have not offered insight into the motivations of Crooks, who was a registered Republican.)

At 11:21 p.m., a pro-Russian account on Telegram also mentioned Biden’s “bull’s-eye” remark, alongside a photograph of Trump’s wounded ear, picking up hundreds of thousands of views. RT, the Russian state television network, later went on X to amplify claims that Biden and the Democrats were at fault.

Many of the conservative voices who lodged the accusations against the president and other Democrats have long histories of violent rhetoric themselves. Greene repeatedly called for executing Democrats before she was elected to Congress. Collins has endorsed violence toward immigrants. Several, including Greene and Vance, are scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week.

Outside the convention Monday, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said the speculation online was “not helpful,” adding that “I see no evidence of” Biden or other Democrats inciting violence.

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