Trump Spox Falsely Claims Google is Censoring Information About First Assassination Attempt

Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt falsely claimed that Google was censoring search results relating to the first assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.

Leavitt made the claim on Monday’s Fox & Friends when the hosts raised comments made by former secretary of state John Kerry at a World Economic Forum panel in a clip circulating among conservatives online. In it, Kerry mentioned that the First Amendment was a “roadblock” to a quick fix for online “misinformation” and “disinformation” about climate change.

Host Lawrence Jones rolled back the clip before co-host Brian Kilmeade ran a further clip by comedian Joe Rogan on his podcast, arguing that if Vice President Kamala Harris gets into office the government will “clamp down more” on how social media companies manage speech on their platforms.

Jones asked Leavitt: “What happens if they win?”

Leavitt responded: “It will be a very scary time for our country. I think this election is a choice between freedom and communism. Standing for the First Amendment vs. Censorship that is led not just by Big Tech but the federal government, aiding and abetting that censorship.”

She continued: “We saw it in the 2020 election and lead up to that. We are seeing it now, for instance, Big Tech is trying to just memory-hole the first assassination attempt on President Trump’s life. If you try to Google it doesn’t come up in search history. Unbelievable, that’s an assassination attempt on the former president of the United States and they don’t want the American people to have that honest information.”

Mediaite tested Leavitt’s claim that Google was blocking search for the assassination attempt against Trump in Pennsylvania and found search results were available.

Leavitt, however, does appear to be in reference to claims made in July 29 by multiple MAGA media personalities, and echoed by GOP lawmakers, that Google was engaging in election interference because of the lack of autocomplete results, which predicts what users are trying to type, in its search suggestions relating to Trump’s assassination. Within one day, by July 30, autocomplete was populating with relevant search suggestions.

At the time, however, according to the Associated Press, Google denied it was censoring the information and attributed the issue to existing protections against autocomplete predictions associated with violence. “No manual action was taken” to suppress information about Trump, it said.

Notably, the issue with autocomplete predictive search is not the same as the allegation of blocking searches for the event entirely, as Leavitt suggested Monday. Yet Leavitt’s false claim was later cited back in the show by Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt as she listed the ways she believed Big Tech was censoring conservatives.

Watch above on Fox & Friends.