Ana Navarro, co-host of ABC's The View, has strongly pushed back against conspiracy theories circulating after the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. During Monday's Hot Topics segment, Navarro and her fellow panelists discussed the incident, which occurred at the annual black-tie event at the Washington Hilton on Saturday.
The sound of gunfire prompted President Donald Trump and other administration officials to be rushed from the room. Secret Service agents apprehended the suspected shooter, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, who has been charged with attempting to assassinate the president.
Navarro expressed her dismay at the widespread online speculation that the shooting was "staged" by the Trump administration. "I don't think that," she said. "Let me just be clear. I don't think that." She continued, "But where are we in America? When Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981, nobody would have thought about that. And so I think people have to take stock of just the level of influence that misinformation, that the lies have had on the American psyche, that the first conclusion so many people reach because of the polarization and because of some of the things that our elected officials have done, frankly."
The Republican commentator also criticized Trump's statement following the shooting, in which he argued that the incident justified his proposed $400 million White House East Wing ballroom. "It's crazy to me that one of the first things Trump did after this was... to go push for a ballroom," Navarro said, adding, "I just think school children have as much a right to have safe schools as politicians do to have a secure ballroom."
Recent data shows that social media posts containing the word "staged" surged by over 300,000 over the weekend as unfounded rumors spread. These theories ranged from claims that the shooting was a "distraction" from the war in Iran to assertions that it was a ploy to justify Trump's ballroom. There is no evidence to support these theories, and police and government officials have dismissed them. Trump himself, in an interview on CBS News' 60 Minutes, said that those spreading misinformation are "more sick than they are con people."
