'Just why?' CNN hosts blow up 'absurd' conspiracy theories about Baltimore bridge collapse

An onslaught of conspiracy theories that followed the Baltimore bridge collapse Tuesday was seen by tens of millions of people — many of whom heard the “absurd” claims before they even heard the facts of what happened, CNN reported Thursday.

“Why? Just why?” anchor John Berman asked. “The absurd, not to mention offensive, alternative reality, devoid of facts, was created as search and rescue efforts were underway.”

Correspondent Donie O’Sullivan spent time detailing several of the more widespread stories that spread — and easily debunked each of them.

They included claims that the ship's captain was stricken by illness caused by a Covid vaccine; that there was a foreign cyber attack; and that Ukraine and Israel were involved.

“It just kind of got a bit wilder and wilder,” said O’Sullivan. “After that there was an Obama, the Obamas produced a movie on Netflix that had a tanker ship run aground in it. So, therefore, the Obamas had something to do with this. And this now tragic event was then used as a political battering ram in our culture wars in this country at the moment, and people decided to blame DEI, diversity and inclusion policies, in some way for the crashing of this ship.”

The Dali cargo ship, en route to Sri Lanka, rammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge early Tuesday, causing the massive span to collapse into the water. On Thursday, searchers confirmed that two bodies had been recovered, though another four people are missing and presumed dead.

The ship issued a May Day call and lost power minutes before the crash.

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Some of the conspiracy theories were spread by politicians, including Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) who blamed Biden's infrastructure law, and TV personalities such as Fox's Maria Bartiromo who tried to link it to the border crisis.

O’Sullivan said there was no evidence to suggest it was anything other than a terrible accident.

But, he added, “By the time most of us woke up on Tuesday morning to that news of the collapse of the bridge in Baltimore, there were already wild conspiracy theories circulating online just hours after the event occurred.”

He went on, “It was tens of millions of people saw these posts. It's very possible that tens of millions of Americans woke up on Tuesday morning and, before they actually saw … the facts of what happened in Baltimore, they would have read some of these conspiracy theories.”

“Really, the notable thing about this is how it is not extraordinary. There are, there's an alternate reality, right? Being created every day. Whether it’s Taylor Swift in the Super Bowl, or whether it is the 2020 election being rigged in favor of Joe Biden, both of which are false, but more and more Americans are living in this world and, look, the people who are making this misinformation and disinformation, … they're being rewarded greatly because platforms like X, which was formerly Twitter, now owned by Elon Musk, pay in certain cases, for posts to go viral and viral posts can oftentimes be false and scandalous and outlandish and false."

“ …I think that really we should take a step back and just see this is the landscape that we're going into the 2024 election and you can just see how well-oiled a machine the disinformation industry is.”

Watch the video below or at this link.