Phillips, Justin B.Carson, Andrea2025-11-252025-11-252025Phillips, J. B., & Carson, A. (2025). “Thoughts & prayers,” conspiracy theories, and laughing emojis: Facebook comments on the attempted assassination of President Trump. Journal of Language and Politics. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.25013.phi1569-2159https://hdl.handle.net/10289/17786This article examines online responses to the 14 July 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Using large language model embeddings and machine learning algorithms, we analyze 26 thousand Facebook comments in near real-time reacting to “breaking news” stories from six national mainstream media outlets covering the assassination attempt. The themes we identify are consistent with historical studies on political assassination attempts and death, indicating evidence of public dismay, but also other widespread reactions including conspiratorial thinking, mocking, and trolling. Facebook’s laughing emoji features as one notable troll-like response to this traumatic event, with news of the shooting prompting nearly nine thousand ‘haha’ reactions. Within this online language is a political response apportioning blame, where both the political left and right accuse one another of inciting political violence. Our paper further connects these empirical observations with literature on affective publics, digital mourning, and RIP-trolling.enThis is an accepted version of an article published in the Journal of Language and Politics. Contact publisher for re-use. © 2025 John Benjamins Publishing.Facebook commentsUS Presidentassassination attemptDonald J. Trumptopic modellingJournal Article10.1075/jlp.25013.phi1569-98624701 Communication and Media Studies47 Language, Communication and Culture4408 Political science4704 Linguistics5204 Cognitive and computational psychology16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions