On July 13th, former US President Donald Trump was shot during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in an apparent assassination attempt by a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man. The shooter, whose motives are still unclear at the time of publication, was a registered Republican but had previously donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a Democratic-aligned action committee. The shocking event sparked rapid, fervent condemnations from leaders on both sides of the aisle but also stoked fears of escalating political violence in the country. The online discourse surrounding the assassination attempt quickly became saturated with disinformation and conspiracy theories from domestic users across the political spectrum, as well as from foreign actors. 

In the wake of the assassination attempt, GDI observed a wide range of narratives questioning the truth of the event and seeking to place blame on political rivals. Far-left actors framed the violence as a “staged” event intended to benefit Trump’s campaign for President. Far-right actors, meanwhile, claimed that the “deep state” organised the attempt to stop Trump from reclaiming the presidency. Outside the domestic sphere, Russian state-sponsored actors capitalised on the event to further inflame political divisions and implied involvement from the Biden administration. While the Chinese government’s response was more muted concerning disinformation, commentators on Chinese social media circulated conspiracy theories. 

On the left, “Blue Anon”, a loose network of Democratic voters, politicians and media personalities who spread left-wing conspiracy theories, emerged on social media and other digital spaces to question the validity of the assassination attempt. Dmitri Mehlhorn, a Democratic strategist for LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, suggested that the attempt was “staged” to boost former President Trump’s standing in his quest for the presidency. He eventually apologised for those comments, but the “staged” narrative nonetheless proliferated. On the fringe social media platform Rumble, users suggested that Trump had slathered fake blood capsules on himself to make the attempt appear real. 

On the right, users blended elements of conspiracy theories with narratives undermining civic integrity, claiming that the assassination attempt was an inside job by members of government agencies and the Biden administration itself. Congressman Mike Collins (R-GA) posted that President Biden had “sent the orders” for the attempt on his social media and subsequently posted that the Butler County district attorney should “immediately file charges against Joseph R. Biden for inciting an assassination.” Far-right conspiracy websites pointed to rhetoric from Biden on a fundraising call with donors a month earlier, in which he said “it’s time to put Trump in the bullseye,” as alleged proof that the administration had, at best, incited the violence or at worst, actively orchestrated it. Anti-semitic narratives circulated on fringe right-wing social media platforms Gab and Communities.win sought to blame Jewish people for the attack. Former President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, a member of the right-wing faction in Brazil, compared the shooting to his own experience being stabbed on the campaign trail in 2018, claiming that “only conservative people suffer attacks.” This statement is in spite of recent attacks on prominent left-wing politicians as well, such as the 2022 assault on Paul Pelosi, spouse of former US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or the murder of British MP Jo Cox in 2016. Additionally, misogynistic narratives surrounding the alleged incompetence of the female Secret Service agents present during the attack circulated on the right, with users decrying them as unqualified Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) hires. 

Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) actors seized on the attack to promote their agendas. Russian state-sponsored media suggested that Trump’s political opponents had orchestrated the attack out of a deep fear within the political establishment of Trump taking over the presidency. Prava-DE, a German language site that is part of the Portal Kombat campaign - a Moscow-based network of websites created to disseminate pro-Russian news stories - implied that the Biden administration may have been directly involved or have some connection to the assassination attempt. The spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, criticised American intelligence agencies for failing to protect the former President and framed the US allocation of funds to assist Ukraine as taking away necessary resources from other agencies to maintain law and order. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that the Kremlin did not believe that the Biden administration had directly orchestrated the assassination attempt but that “the atmosphere created by this administration” had prompted it. Additionally, Kremlin-aligned influencers implied that a concerted effort exists against political leaders who oppose NATO’s policies regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Jackson Hinkle, an American political commentator known for his pro-Russia views, posted a picture of Trump and Robert Fico - the Slovakian Prime Minister who also suffered a recent assassination attempt - with a caption reading, “if you try to stop WWIII, they’ll kill you.”

The Chinese Communist Party, by contrast, had a more reserved response. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman stated, “President Xi Jinping has expressed sympathies to former President Trump.” However, Chinese commentators on social media were not as measured, with users espousing conspiracy theories and shedding doubt on the attempt. Jin Canrong, a prominent Chinese academic known for analysing and commenting on China's foreign policy and U.S.-China relations, echoed the “deep state” conspiracy theory. One user on the popular Chinese social media site Weibo cited the unusual angle of the shot, rumours about blank shots and alleged claims of false injuries as reasons to question the validity of the attack. Other users drew comparisons between the attack on Trump and the assassination of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, claiming that Trump survived while Abe did not due to the latter’s perceived inadequacies. 

It remains to be seen what impact, if any, the assassination attempt and disinformation surrounding it may have on the election. Nonetheless, during a period of fraught political tensions and so close to a significant US election, it is clear that these narratives are, at the very least, unhelpful in maintaining civic integrity and ensuring a trustworthy information ecosystem. The risk of escalating political violence in the US is real, and a critical step towards mitigating that risk is identifying harmful, disinforming narratives such as these.