It was meant to be a milestone evening. On Saturday night, President Donald Trump attended the White House Correspondents' Dinner for the first time as a sitting president, taking his seat at the head table inside the Washington Hilton's ballroom alongside First Lady Melania Trump and senior administration officials. Within minutes, the night unravelled.
The Washington Metropolitan Police Departmentsaida suspect charged a security checkpoint at 8.36 pm carrying a 'shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives.' Trump, seated at the head table on the stage, was swiftly surrounded and escorted off by Secret Service agents. Armed guards in tactical gear appeared on the dais. Many of the roughly 2,600 attendees abandoned their burrata salads to take cover under tables.
Before law enforcement had finished clearing the scene, a wave of conspiracy theories had taken hold online. Posts across X labelled the incident a 'false flag' and a 'staged hoax,' with some accounts claiming Trump had orchestrated the attack to distract from falling approval ratings and stalled Iran negotiations.
Conservative commentatorMatt Walshaddressed the claims directly in a post on X, walking through why the logic collapsed under scrutiny. Walsh wrote that the theory required believing all involved were 'working against their own interests with no real discernible benefit to any of them,' adding the motives were 'unclear if not insane.' He signed off by saying he believed it anyway 'because I'm a very smart person' — a pointed, sarcastic dismantling of the conspiracy crowd.
The account@DailyIranNewsnoted that Trump had 'skipped EVERY correspondent's dinner' across his presidencies, then added: 'And all of a sudden there's a shooter in the lobby,' pointing to his sliding poll numbers, faltering Iran talks and the unbuilt ballroom as context for the timing.
I’m officially convinced. It was a hoax. The Trump Administration recruited a leftist Kamala Harris voting Trump hater to participate in a staged assassination that would include the shooter getting shot at and then locked in federal prison for the rest of his life. The Kamala…
Investigators have not publicly named the suspect, but multiple US outlets identified him asCole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California. He earned a master's degree in computer science from California State University, Dominguez Hills, in 2025 and previously studied mechanical engineering at the California Institute of Technology. He later worked as a teacher at tutoring centre C2 Education in Torrance, where he was named 'teacher of the month' in December 2024.
The suspected gunman referred to himself as 'The Friendly Federal Assassin' in amanifestohe shared with family members minutes before the incident, according to a source familiar with the document. The manifesto stated that Allen intended to target Trump administration officials. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told NBC's 'Meet the Press' that 'it does appear that he did in fact set out to target folks that work in the administration, likely including the President.'
One Secret Service agent was struck in the chest but was wearing a bulletproof vest and is expected to recover, according to law enforcement sources. A total of roughly five to eight shots were fired. The gunman was taken into custody alive and transported to hospital.
Even before the night was over, Trump had turned the incident into a political argument. Hepostedon Sunday morning: 'This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough!'
Source: International Business Times UK
