Why So Many Americans Think the White House Correspondents' Dinner Shooting Was Staged
For more than a decade, Trump has waged a successful campaign to get us to distrust our institutions and everything and everyone associated with them.
Frank Figliuzzi, the host of The Frank Figliuzzi Show on Lincoln Square, is an FBI Assistant Director (retired); 25-year veteran Special Agent; and author of the national bestseller, The FBI Way, and Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers. Subscribe to his Substack.
For an extended period, many of the 3,000 journalists, government officials and their guests attending Saturday’s White House Correspondent’s Dinner struggled to learn what had happened to cause President Trump, the Vice President and others in the line of succession to be evacuated from the room.
Even though they witnessed the dignitaries’ swift exit, most participants were in the dark as to the shots fired and the man in custody on a higher level of the Washington Hilton Hotel. Ironically, the picture was clearer for those watching from home who were privy to images, videos, and eyewitness reports of what seemingly transpired.
Yet notably, for many of those viewers, the problem wasn’t a lack of visibility, it was a lack of trust.
In the coming days we may understand more about the alleged gunman, the venue security concerns, and Trump’s continued response. Though moving forward, what we also need to understand more about is why and how so many Americans, on both sides of the political aisle – to the degree social media is even a partial indicator, instantly concluded that this incident was “staged” or “fake.”
I’d submit that while there has long been deeply distrustful language emanating from influential figures in both parties, the leader most responsible for engendering disbelief is the person who appears to have been the target of Saturday night’s violence: Donald J. Trump.