(Ken Silva, Headline USA) By all accounts, the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania was an authentic event—contrary to the conspiracies initially floated by liberals, and more recently by disenfranchised ex-Trump supporters, including former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Indeed, the bullets, blood, bodies and shrapnel were all very much real, while plastic surgeons have explained that yes, Trump’s ear really could have healed without a scar if it were just grazed. Meanwhile, Butler truthers have yet to articulate a cogent explanation for how Trump could have staged his own assassination attempt with the complicity of the Biden Justice Department, Secret Service and FBI, as well as with state and local authorities.
With all that said, an account on the social media app Telegram did post a video about a month before Trump was nearly killed, claiming that “white hats” in the U.S. government would stage an attempt on him. The term “white hats” is a reference to benevolent actors in the U.S. intelligence community.
The account in question has made numerous predictions that never came to pass, including inaccurate forecasts about nuclear war, cyber-attacks and economic events. The account has also made wild and unsubstantiated claims, including that the “real” Joe Biden was killed years ago.
Headline USA was hesitant to publicize the nearly two-year-old video when first discovering it days ago, knowing that the truthers will use it to support their theory that Butler was a fake event. But given the public interest in the issue, the timing of the video’s publication, and the fact that the video is out there and would’ve eventually been discovered by someone else, Headline USA is choosing to report on it, rather than suppress it, for transparency’s sake.
In the video, someone speaking with an AI-generated dog imposed over his face under the name “Jonny Puggle” says: “We are coming into a powerful event: This is the assassination attempt of Donald Trump.
I debated whether to post this b/c it gets into schizo territory–but this QAnon video from June 2024 did say that "white hats" would "stage" a Trump assassination attempt.
Publishing for transparency's sake only. This account made many other wild forecasts that never came true https://t.co/6S3untNns5 pic.twitter.com/GVTn79gPQ3— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) May 3, 2026
“It’s important to understand that the deep state wants to assassinate Donald Trump, but also the ‘white hats’ have military operations in place to counter this and to stage their own event of Donald Trump,” he said.
“You will know the event of how it will unfold because Donald Trump will survive the assassination attempt,” the account said, adding that the event was being staged to “expose” the deep state. The speaker didn’t elaborate on how a staged assassination attempt would expose anything—and his prediction certainly hasn’t been the case, as Trump’s own government has hardly released any information about the event.
The “Jonny Puggle” account appears to be the same person who also goes by the name “Q the Storm Rider”—an apparent reference to “QAnon,” who, according to the conspiracy theories, is a highly placed federal official with a “Q Clearance.” Among other claims, QAnon purports that there is a conspiracy amongst various law enforcement agencies to overthrow Trump.
Nearly two weeks after the July 13 Butler shooting, “Q the Storm Rider” posted a follow-up video under yet another alias, “Pepper the Magnificent,” purporting to explain what had happened. The video made more wild and unsubstantiated claims, including that the “white hats” had arrested the agents who really were trying to kill Trump—replacing them with pro-Trump agents who staged Butler.
“So, this fake assassination attempt that happened was a double assassination attempt. There were real CIA, FBI, military-government contractors that were planning to kill Donald Trump at the rally. But about 30 minutes beforehand, the deep state knew that they were in trouble—that they were infiltrated—so they called off, and they stopped the assassination attempt,” “Pepper” says—later falsely claiming that there were three shooters targeting Trump.
“And at this moment, the ‘white hats’ replaced them and arrested a lot of the other people. And also, at the same time there was a switch out. And that’s why there’s three shooters: There’s one on the [barn behind Trump], there’s one on the water tower, and there’s also one on that was on top of the building.”
After Butler, the same account did a follow-up video that made numerous BS claims, including that the real Joe Biden is dead, the agents who really tried killing Trump were arrested, and that there were 3 shooters at Butler pic.twitter.com/lcO7ncwXc9
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) May 3, 2026
Whoever is running the “Q the Storm Rider,” “Jonny Puggle,” and “Pepper” personas could not be reached for comment.
Throughout Trump’s presidency, the original “Q” posted cryptic messages on the websites 4Chan and 8Chan, and the persona’s followers would try to decipher their meaning. This often led to absurd conspiracy theories, such as that Trump was still secretly the president, Hillary Clinton would be executed at Guantanamo Bay and the deceased JFK Jr. would reappear to run for president in 2024 with Trump as his running mate.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
