A woman who was sitting behind Donald Trump when he survived his assassination attempt has sparked suspicion over her strange behavior.
Footage showing the unidentified woman — wearing sunglasses, a white shirt and a black hat — pulling out her phone as shots rang out at the Pennsylvania rally on Saturday has gone viral.
She did so while everyone else — including Trump — ducked down to the ground, in fear for their lives.
The images have added fuel to some of the crazy conspiracy theories being shared following Saturday’s shooting.
One post on X, asking people to ‘pay close attention’ to the woman, has been viewed more than 19 million times. Another viral post reads: ‘Gunshots ring out and her first instinct is to very, very calmly pull out her phone and film the whole spectacle.
Does that seem like normal behavior to you?’ Some X users even theorized that the woman gave ‘a nod’ before the first shot rang out – with one going as far as claiming that the woman was ‘an accomplice’, despite offering no evidence to support the wild allegation.
Others argued, however, that the woman’s calm demeanor was due to mass shootings being so common in America.
One social media user said: ‘Is this how numb we are to gun violence in America? Watch the woman in white with the black hat right behind Trump.
‘Rather than take cover or – I don’t know – protect the child behind her – She takes out her phone and starts recording.’
The attempted assassination of the former president has spawned a vast sea of claims — some outlandish — reflecting the frightening uncertainties surrounding the attack, as well as America’s fevered, polarized political climate.
That such wild speculation has exploded as Americans turned to the internet for news about the shooting is the latest sign of how social media has emerged as a dominant source of information — and misinformation — for many, and a contributor to the distrust and turbulence now driving American politics.
