There is, to be very clear, no evidence that the White House Correspondents Association Dinner assassination attempt last weekend was “staged.” The man arrested in the shooting, who sent out a manifesto explaining his reasoning, has been indicted on federal charges, and if the shooting is somehow not what it seems, the accused gunman, Cole Tomas Allen, will presumably argue just that in court.
Conspiracism is very clearly on the rise, across the political spectrum, with conspiracy theories floated about everything from the killing of Charlie Kirk to the 2024 Trump Assassination attempt in Butler to numerous other calamities. The Butler shooting, in particular, has rival conspiracy theories — that it was “staged,” and that it was carried out by someone other than the man named as the shooter — on the left and the right.
Why is conspiracism growing, especially after the attempted shooting in Washington? HuffPost spoke with an expert this week about it.
Nathan Walter, a professor of media psychology at Northwestern University,
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“In a highly polarized media landscape, people aren’t always consuming information to get the most accurate account ― they’re consuming it to reinforce what they already believe, so the same event gets pulled in completely different directions depending on which media ecosystem you’re in,” Walter told the outlet.
Another explanation is that fast-moving events create space for a lot of misinformation to spread.
NEW THIS MORNING: Court documents reveal a chilling, minute-by-minute digital trail before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting. Investigators say the suspect tracked the president, armed himself and took a selfie minutes before he charged security. @7NewsDC pic.twitter.com/4jYWtICnQq
— John Gonzalez (@John7News) April 30, 2026
“Once those interpretations take hold, it’s very hard for accurate information, which arrives more slowly, to catch up,” the professor told HuffPost. “The result is that you see two seemingly opposite reactions that actually come from the same place: some people escalate into conspiracy thinking, while others disengage or seem unfazed.”
Walter also shared specific examples from the White House Correspondents Association Dinner incident.
“When there are unusual or ambiguous details, like an image that doesn’t match people’s expectations of how a crisis should look, that can momentarily pull even non-conspiracy-minded individuals into speculation,” Walter said. “Not because they’ve changed who they are, but because the situation leaves just enough uncertainty for interpretation to rush in.”
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
