Tennessee GOP official and congressional candidate Charlotte Bergmann recently said on her online program that the deadly July 4 mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, was a “planned” and false flag event designed to take away people’s guns. Bergmann has made similar remarks about other mass shootings, including after the Uvalde, Texas, tragedy.
Media Matters has reported on how right-wing media figures who have run for office have pushed conspiracy theories about mass shootings supposedly being false flags. Such conspiracy theories are popular with media figures like Alex Jones and have been spread through social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube.
The Tennessee Republican Party states on its website that Bergmann is a member of its State Executive Committee, which acts as the governing and policy board for the organization.
She is running for the U.S. House in Tennessee's 9th Congressional District after losing several other times in prior cycles. Media Matters previously documented that Bergmann is a QAnon supporter who cited “Q” in claiming that the 2018 mail pipe bomb attempts were false flags. On January 6, 2021, as the Daily Dot’s Claire Goforth noted, she tweeted: “So thankful that our militia rose up and defended our country against King George III. FREEDOM COMES WITH A COST.”
She has appeared on Fox News and co-wrote a book in 2019. She also hosts the online program Political Talk with Charlotte, which is streamed on Facebook.
On the day after the July 4 mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, in which seven people were killed, Bergmann said on her show: “You cannot tell me that this was not planned.” She added that “the shooting is not just random. There is an agenda behind the shooting. There is an agenda. And that agenda is to make sure that our guns are taken away.”
