Conventional scholarly wisdom suggests that armed groups claim credit for violent acts to send costly signals of resolve. However, many armed groups instead issue explicit denials of responsibility for attacks, posing a challenge to prevailing theories. If violence functions as a costly signal that builds reputation for resolve, why would armed groups disavow violence? Drawing on political psychology, we argue that denials are deliberate tools for narrative manipulation—crafted to create uncertainty, erode trust in government, and temper public outrage by activating cognitive processes, such as motivated reasoning and reappraisal, that allow individuals to reinterpret events in ways that reduce discomfort. To test this argument, we conducted a pre-registered survey experiment with a national sample of 1,616 U.S. adults. Participants were presented with a fictional attack attributed to an armed group by the government and randomly assigned to conditions in which the group denied, claimed, or remained silent about the attack. Our findings reveal that denials significantly reduce perceived culpability, undermine trust in government, and dampen outrage—demonstrating their effectiveness as psychological and strategic communication tools. This study refines theories of armed actors’ political communication and offers insights for countering misinformation and strengthening public resilience in contested information environments.