President Donald Trump walked into yet another high-stakes moment on Wednesday and immediately fell back on his oldest habit — pointing fingers, dodging blame, and launching into a fury before the facts had even settled.
In the wake of the tragic shooting of two West Virginia National Guard members in Washington, D.C., when his leadership was needed, Trump once again fell back to his old tricks and blamed the Biden administration.
It’s the reflex he falls back on every time. But this time, the script collapsed almost instantly. CNN cut through his claims with a brutal fact-check that undercut the entire narrative he was trying to build.
What came next from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is what sent the internet into a full-blown conspiracy frenzy. Viewers said Hegseth’s rambling and unsteady press appearance flipped the lid off what critics now believe was the real agenda all along.
Trump called the attack “a monstrous ambush-style assault” and “an act of terror,” using the moment to escalate his rhetoric rather than calm the nation.
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“This heinous assault was an act of evil, an act of hatred, and an act of terror. It was a crime against our entire nation. It was a crime against humanity,” Trump raged in his speech.
He also bashed former President Joe Biden, claiming that Biden let the suspect, identified as 29-year-old Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, into the U.S. But here’s the rub. Lakanwal was actually approved for asylum and allowed to stay in the country in April of this year under Trump, according to CNN.
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Moments later, Hegseth stepped confidently in front of reporters and spoke for over three minutes where he confirmed the additional deployment of 500 National Guard troops to Washington. Claiming the incident “stiffened their resolve.”
He ignored questions from reporters shouting about Venezuela and instead assumed a question and offered an answer, “We will find you, we will fix you and we will finish you. We have all the rights in the world … we will kill you.”
That sent social media spiraling.
“Is this a set up by Trump? To call a national emergency?” this Threads user speculated.
Another chimed in guessing, “Trump has no respect for the military so I think it’s a modus operation by the government. Then he can declare martial law.”
Threads user Eric Gipson used the video clip to offer his theory that went viral.
Gipson pointed out, “Here’s the first piece of evidence folks. Note two things.1) The massive overreaction and immediate politicization of the ‘shooting’.2) Using this as a pretext to go into ‘other cities’ not involved in any way. Both of these are tell tail signs of a false flag.”
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Users flooded the comments with their respective theories and confirmation.
“Notice how unsteady he is when talking about the guardsmen that just got shot, like he’s being super careful about what to say. The second Venezuela comes up he just starts shooting off at the mouth so confidently,” observed one commentor. Adding, “Body language is everything. This stinks of a CIA false flag.”
“They are so willing to throw lives away for an agenda. They’re so fking dangerous. It’s one dog & pony show after another,” said another furious viewer.
Critics are raging that the National Guard members could have been home with their family instead of being used as political pawns and props” by the Trump administration.
Of the two members shot, Sarah Beckstrom, 20, succumbed to her injuries on Thursday. She was a specialist with the West Virginia National Guard, serving since 2023.
During a late-night social media post, framed as a “very happy Thanksgiving” message, the President announced an aggressive expansion of his anti-immigrant policies, stating his administration would “permanently pause” migration from what he termed “third-world” countries.
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The extensive post, shared on his Truth Social platform after 11 p.m., further declared a policy to “end all federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens” and mandate the removal of “anyone who is not a net asset to the United States.”
The statement relied on broad, unsupported rhetoric, blaming migrants and refugees for domestic issues like high crime and the rising deficit, and failed to specify how such a migration “pause” would be legally enacted, given previous administrative bans have faced significant challenges in both the courts and Congress.
