False claims of a conspiracy within the “deep state” spread rapidly in the hours after a gunman tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump.
And an exclusive poll shows a shocking number of people believe the shooting was an inside job.
About 21 percent of respondents to Dailymail.com said they believe the FBI was responsible for the attempted murder.
That number includes a third of Republicans.
In contrast, less than half (46 percent) accept the official explanation that the attack was carried out by a lone gunman.
Blood can be seen coming from Donald Trump’s ear where he said he was shot. Trolls online claimed the event was staged immediately after it happened
The results come from a poll of more than 1,000 likely voters conducted last week by JL Partners.
According to Columbia University Political Science Professor Robert Shapiro, the numbers of people who believe conspiracy theories are alarming.
“It’s high, but it’s not surprising,” he said, “because you have what we call perceptual biases, which are partisan and polarized, and we saw the same thing with respect to the winner of the 2020 election.
“These are mainly Trump supporters who believe these conspiracy theories. This is now a well-known phenomenon.”
In other words, the repeated attacks on the FBI for its role in the Trump investigation and subsequent lawsuits have left his supporters deeply distrustful of federal agencies.
The election campaign was turned upside down on the evening of July 13 when a gunman’s bullet grazed Trump’s ear while he was giving a speech in Pennsylvania.
Secret Service agents quickly opened fire, shooting and killing the would-be assassin, who was later identified as Thomas Crooks, a 20-year-old kitchen worker.
He was spotted on a nearby roof before opening fire. Since then, a number of Secret Service and law enforcement lapses have been identified that indicate moments when he could have been stopped.
Investigators have not given a possible motive for the attack. But they said they believed Crooks acted alone.
JL Partners asked 1,054 likely voters for their views on a range of political issues
Actress Amanda Seales posted a video online claiming that the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, which left one man dead and others injured, was staged
Still, questions about how he could shoot the world’s best-protected man led to a series of conspiracy theories suggesting there was more to the shooting than met the eye.
For example, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of social media platform X, posted: “Extreme incompetence or it was intentional. Either way, the SS leadership must resign.”
Others went even further. Alex Jones, who falsely claimed the Sandy Hook massacre wasn’t real, said the attack was part of a “failed coup” by the “deep state.”
Some doubted whether the shooting was real.
“It looks very staged,” said another user on X in a post that quickly reached over a million views.
“Nobody in the crowd is running or panicking. Nobody in the crowd heard a real gun. I don’t trust it. I don’t trust him.”
Joseph Uscinski, a University of Miami professor and expert on conspiracy theories, said he was not surprised by the large number of people who said they believed in a larger conspiracy.
He said it is wrong to think that conspiracy theories are a “one-off idea” but are spread by people who already believe in them.
“In this case, the believers likely already have a worldview (not measured in your survey, but likely reflected indirectly in support for Trump and RFK) in which conspiracies tend to dictate events and circumstances… for these people, that’s just how the world works,” he said.
“To them, it makes perfect sense that there was a broader conspiracy behind the attempted assassination of Trump.”
Some theories are quickly debunked.
A message purporting to have come from a sniper present at the rally, in which he claimed he had been ordered not to shoot the shooter, turned out to be a hoax when it turned out that no one by that name was present at the event.
Secret Service agents rushed to the stage and pushed Trump to the ground after shots were fired
Other social media users posted a photo of an unharmed Trump, but it turned out to be from 2022.
Many Republicans blamed President Joe Biden for creating the conditions for someone to take matters into their own hands. They saw the election as the last chance to save democracy, even saying he wanted to target Trump during a call with donors.
Republican Rep. Mike Collins went one step further, posting the following message on X: “Joe Biden sent the orders.”
Meanwhile, some on the left wondered whether Trump had staged the whole thing to garner sympathy.
An adviser to Democratic donor and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman emailed reporters saying that “this ‘shooting’ was encouraged and perhaps even staged so Trump could get the photos and profit from the negative reaction.” Dmitri Mehlhorn later apologized.
And in a now-deleted social media post, actress Amanda Seales said it was a stunt to help Trump show his strength.
“I’ve lived in Harlem long enough to know that gunshots don’t sound like you’re popping popcorn on the stove,” she said.