Jonathan Karl built his entire career on one claim: that he gets the story right.
Now Trump has proof he got the story backwards – and Karl's own phone confirmed it.
This is the moment ABC's most prominent White House reporter got caught making himself the story.
How Karl's Phone Call Story Collapsed in Real Time
Karl told his audience that Trump called him the morning after the April 25 assassination attempt at the Washington Hilton – allegedly to ask whether Karl was okay.
Someone opened fire near a security checkpoint trying to kill the President of the United States.
Cole Tomas Allen – 31 years old, investigators say he was armed and targeting Trump and possibly other Cabinet officials – was arrested at the scene.
And ABC News wants you to believe Trump spent the next morning calling a reporter to check on his feelings.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2051356466800636387?s=20
Trump went straight to Truth Social and destroyed it.
"No, this was a hit on ME, not HIM, and I didn't make such a call," Trump wrote Monday. "Why would I do that?"
Then came the detail that ended the story.
It was Karl who called Trump – not the other way around.
"He called me, but I didn't take his call," Trump said. "He just confirmed that to me when he called again."
Karl didn't just get the story wrong.
He inverted it entirely – and got caught because he called back a second time.
Trump didn't mince words.
"I would say that's very dishonest reporting. He's trying to make himself look important."
This Is the Second Time Karl Got Caught Fabricating Quotes
Jonathan Karl has four New York Times bestsellers about Donald Trump.
He was ABC's chief White House correspondent for nearly a decade.
He served as president of the White House Correspondents' Association – the group that hosted the dinner where the April 25 attack occurred.
He is, by every establishment metric, one of the most credentialed political journalists in America.
And this is the second time he's been caught misrepresenting a major story.
In 2013, Karl published a bombshell "exclusive" claiming he had reviewed White House emails showing the Obama administration had politically manipulated its Benghazi talking points.
https://twitter.com/ConservBrief/status/2051371761766138233?s=20
He hadn't reviewed them.
He was working from a source's characterization of the emails and told his audience he had obtained the originals.
He later apologized, acknowledging the email had been "quoted incorrectly" and that he should have been clearer about his sourcing.
Now, thirteen years later, Karl is telling his audience that Trump called him after the third assassination attempt in under a year – and Trump says that call never happened, that Karl is the one who called, and that Karl's own behavior proved it.
ABC News Lectures America About Truth While Their Top Reporter Invents Phone Calls
The Washington Hilton attack was the third attempt on Trump's life in less than a year.
The July 2024 Butler, Pennsylvania shooting put a bullet past Trump's ear and killed a supporter.
A separate plot was foiled at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, where a man waited with a concealed rifle as Trump played the course.
Ryan Wesley Routh was sentenced to life in prison in February for his attempt on Trump's life.
The networks covered each one looking for ways to change the subject.
https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/2051356029267411359?s=20
And when the most dramatic of those attacks happened – at the White House Correspondents' dinner, the one event where the entire Washington press corps is in the same room – ABC's most prominent White House correspondent decided the story was about a phone call he received.
A phone call that didn't happen.
Karl has spent years positioning himself as the authoritative witness to the Trump era – four books, a decade at the White House, the awards, the credentials.
And when the moment arrived that actually mattered, his first instinct was to put himself at the center of it.
That's the same instinct that drove the Benghazi fabrication.
Trump has been telling you for ten years that these reporters are more interested in their own importance than in the truth.
Jonathan Karl just proved it – with his own phone.
Sources:
- Donald Trump, Truth Social post, May 4, 2026.
- Nicole Weatherholtz, "Trump Accuses ABC Reporter of False Claim," Newsmax, May 4, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Justice, "Ryan Wesley Routh Sentenced to Life Plus Seven Years in Prison for Attempted Assassination," February 2026.
- NBC News, "ABC's Karl Expresses 'Regret' Over False Benghazi Report," May 20, 2013.
