A disturbing conspiracy theory is trending online Read more: 👇👇

Trump himself confirmed at a press conference after the shooting that he had prepared ‘really rough’ jokes for the evening. “I was all set to really rip it,” he said, adding that he set them aside as inappropriate given the circumstances.

After that, Leavitt posted on X making clear the event had been ‘hijacked by a depraved crazy person.’ There is no credible basis for the claim that her use of the phrase ‘shots fired’ constituted foreknowledge of anything.

The post on Reddit also pointed to the timing of the shooting as politically convenient, citing Trump’s declining approval ratings and noting that the 2024 Butler, Pennsylvania shooting — in which Trump was genuinely grazed in the ear at a campaign rally — boosted his poll numbers.

This is a form of argument that proves nothing: the fact that an event has political consequences does not mean it was manufactured. The same logic could be used to question almost any crisis affecting a sitting president.