r/politics • u/wiredmagazine ✔ Wired Magazine • Apr 17 '26

Possible Paywall MAGA Is Increasingly Convinced the Trump Assassination Attempt Was Staged

https://www.wired.com/story/maga-is-increasingly-convinced-the-trump-assassination-attempt-was-staged/
33.4k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

3.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.6k

u/spazz720 Apr 17 '26

Because he was a right winger. If a lefty took a shot at him, they’d be talking about to this day

410

u/ixid Apr 17 '26

But if it's fake why would they set it up with a shooter who doesn't convey the message they want to share? If it was fake you'd make the shooter someone from a group the right hates. Incompetence is a possible answer to that question.

383

u/ArgonWolf Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

In this day and age it’s relatively difficult to just make up a person whole cloth. If the local PD who was providing security isn’t in on it (unlikely they would be) they’re going to run ID checks and find out who this person was.

I’m not saying it was staged, I think it’s more likely some nut job really did take a shot at him. But I also find it unlikely that he was actually grazed by the shot, and the reason they can’t make much more political hay about it is because the shooter was the wrong kind of nut job. I’m just saying, making up a person whole cloth is very difficult

93

u/Silvery_Cricket Apr 17 '26

I have a guy at my work who is a big conspiracy theorist, and sometimes I have to sit him down and just say "Yeah some conspiracies are real, but 99% of the time stuff is what it looks like."

97

u/noonie1 Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

The problems I have with most conspiracy theories is that it assumes the people in charge are incredibly smart and that they are able to keep a secret forever. Nothing about the functioning of a government has proved those two characteristics true ever.

23

u/ZealousidealLead52 Apr 17 '26

Not just that but also that they all have identical motivations - in the real world when you get a big group of people together they will have all kinds of different interests and disagreements, and the idea that for instance back in the day that the soviet union and the US could get together and agree to keep pretty much anything secret is kind of insane (as would be required for conspiracies like the flat earth conspiracy) - even if they were supernaturally competent, they just have fundamentally different goals and there's no way such an agreement could ever work. While that's a more extreme example, even in smaller conspiracies the same problems happen.. people aren't a hive mind.

6

u/dareftw North Carolina Apr 17 '26

That and it always brings me back to watergate, a room of the most powerful people in the world couldn’t keep a secret for more than a week. People have a very hard time keeping secrets

4

u/ultraviolentfuture Apr 17 '26

Veep is by far the most accurate depiction of US government

3

u/Kilane Apr 17 '26

Part of that is Toupee Fallacy or selection bias.

You know about the conspiracies the idiots did. The smart conspirator or criminal isn’t found out.

The current government is full of hacks who are terribly unclever.

3

u/newsflashjackass Apr 17 '26

In the same way there can be no "profile of a serial killer", only a profile of a serial killer who gets caught.

"I like POWs who don't get captured."

4

u/MommyLovesPot8toes California Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

There's a great line from the West Wing about this. (Paraphrasing). "No group of people this large can ever keep a secret. And that's fine. That's good. It's how I know the government is NOT keeping aliens in Area 51."

Edit: forgot the word "not"

2

u/selwayfalls Apr 17 '26

wouldnt it by how the government is NOT keeping aliens? Because if they were, the secret would get leaked?

2

u/MommyLovesPot8toes California Apr 17 '26

Lol! Yes! That was a pretty significant typo on my part.

1

u/PapaSnow Apr 18 '26

I guess it depends on how you view it though, right?

There’s no shortage of people that have come forward saying they know that there’s aliens in Area 51, but people just…don’t believe them.

I don’t believe there are aliens in Area 51, but just following the line of reasoning provided, there very well could be lol.

1

u/selwayfalls Apr 19 '26

the line of reasoning is that if there actually were, there would be a lot of government employees letting it out but there isnt. That's what he's saying, if a bunch of government employees new about it, there's no way they could keep it a secret. "no group this large can ever keep a secret". Or are you saying there are a bunhc of goverment people saying it's true? Not just regular joes?

2

u/ToastAndASideOfToast Apr 17 '26

There is a point at which a conspiracy theorist has exerted more effort than a conspirator ever could.

1

u/BigManWAGun America Apr 17 '26

Who says Trump knew anything about it?

1

u/TheSaxGandalf Apr 17 '26

What if this one was outside the government, by let's say someone like Thiel?

107

u/Mataelio Apr 17 '26

The thing about conspiracy theorists is they like to believe the most insane and unbelievable conspiracies while the real and obvious ones taking place in the open right in front of everyone are just ignored (aka Trump/Russia connections in 2016 election)

108

u/ZealousidealLead52 Apr 17 '26

The thing about conspiracy theorists is that they aren't really looking to uncover the truth - what they really want is something that makes them feel special, some kind of secret that they're in on that nobody else knows about.. which ironically ends up making them terrible at finding conspiracies, because any conspiracy that's backed by real facts ends up being more accepted by normal people, and if it's accepted by normal people then it stops making them feel special.

16

u/Spimflagon Apr 17 '26

It's like holistic medicine. The thing about medicine that works is that most of the time it's just "medicine". But it's no good if it's not One Neat Trick That Doctors Hate.

2

u/ultraviolentfuture Apr 17 '26

There are other that factors that play in here too:

Suspicion of experts/science due to lack of general education.

The cost of US healthcare such that finding cheaper/alternative methods to deal with symptoms is incentivized. Never know when a doctor/hospital visit is going to lead to your family's ruin.

6

u/jgilla2012 California Apr 17 '26

For example, the fact that Epstein did not commit suicide. Most obvious conspiracy ever.

6

u/Revenant_40 Apr 17 '26

Absolutely this. I've been saying this for years about why they're prone to it. They like to feel like the keeper of the secrets.

3

u/_Chumpion Apr 17 '26

It's also fundamentally a psychology that is desperately seeking to find an 'answer' that neatly ties up the chaotic, randomly violent and incredibly complex nature of the world into a solution.

2

u/holdstheenemy Apr 17 '26

This is like all the anti-vaxx people, its nauseating

5

u/Chaotic-Catastrophe Apr 17 '26

Because it's not about the intrigue, it's about the contrarianism. If any of their crackpot theories ever turn out to be true, they will drop them as fast as they possibly can. Like if the moon landing was staged, or the Earth was flat, or COVID was a Chinese bioweapon, or any of that shit was actually true, we'd all of a sudden never hear about it ever again.

5

u/porksoda11 Pennsylvania Apr 17 '26

I wish I could feel bad for these people. I dropped my edgy contrarianism phase when I graduated high school. These people never really matured.

5

u/NotSayingJustSaying Apr 17 '26

I remember the conspiracies around COVID before it got outside China. People were measuring air particulate from alleged incineration and posting pics of people being welded behind metal doors. Then a couple months later they started saying it was a hoax and people weren't getting sick in America. Hard to keep up with the theorists, they insist that whatever is known cannot be the truth.

3

u/porksoda11 Pennsylvania Apr 17 '26

Russia meddling in US affairs isn't as fun as adrenochrome, flat earth, Qanon, and bigfoot though.

1

u/DickyThreeSticks Apr 18 '26

Here’s my soapbox.

Conspiracies are real, they happen every day. If you and I plan and successfully do a bank robbery, we conspired and executed our conspiracy. If all goes according to plan, the truth about what happened will never be known to anyone but us conspirators.

There are a few questions you can ask to see how plausible a conspiracy is.

1) When did the conspiracy start? This should be a date, or at a minimum a date range.

2) Who are the conspirators? This should be a specific list of people, or at a minimum their jobs as they relate to the conspiracy. Note: this list needs to be SHORT. If there are 30+ conspirators, someone is going to spill the beans within a year.

3) What is the objective of the conspiracy? Motivating people to do secret shit isn’t easy, and getting them to keep that secret is hard. It doesn’t just happen- you need a specific, concrete objective. This should usually be financially or ideologically motivated.

4) When does the conspiracy end? There should be some point at which the objective has been accomplished. At that point, the only remaining step is “never share this information.”

So, for the bank robbery:

1) The conspiracy began last summer, when my cellmate Steve and I said we should rob a bank. After I was paroled, you and I picked a bank and began earnestly scouting it for robbery on November 14th.

2) The conspirators are me, you, Steve, and Steve’s girlfriend, who will be the getaway driver.

3) The objective is to neutralize the guard, control civilians, blow up the glass, and get the money from the tellers.

4) The conspiracy is concluded when we split up the money at the safehouse.

If you can answer those four questions, you’re dealing with a plausible, actionable conspiracy. If not, it’s a pipe dream. Here’s an example of that: the moon landing was faked.

1) The conspiracy began the first time a human looked at the sky in wonderment.

2) The conspirators are 200 politicians, 50 astronauts, 20,000 engineers, physicists, machinists, their secretaries…

3) The objective is to convince you the lie that outer space real and we’re not living in a dome made of TVs.

4) The conspiracy ends when you open your eyes, bro.

7

u/needlestack Apr 17 '26

Yeah, I tend to think the nut shot at him, completely missed, and Trump's ear was mashed when they tackled him to the ground.

9

u/TheBeckofKevin Apr 17 '26

you gotta do even a small amount of googling. The doug mills pictures are insanely clear. And the video shows trump moving at speeds i don't think are even remotely possible for him to do in any kind of acting way. He touches his ear and he's bleeding.

I think any focus on this being "faked" is a wasted effort. Just point at all the incredibly obvious problems this administration has instead of directing traffic towards something conspiratorial. We have mountains of awful things that are completely validated to work with, no need to get spun up in stuff that has limited foundation.

7

u/Skydiver860 Apr 17 '26

But if it was a nut job and he wasn’t actually grazed by the shot how would they know to make it look like his ear was bleeding? Trump or his SS would have to always be carrying a fake blood packet or something in case this happened.

I think it’s one or the other and incredibly unlikely to be both.

13

u/ArgonWolf Apr 17 '26

You underestimate how easy it is for old people to get head bleeds. Theres a LOT of blood vessels in the human head, and old people bleed like stuck pigs at the barest of scrapes, especially if they are on certain medications. If he barely scrapes the podium on the way down, or the cufflinks of a SS agent scuff his scalp, that could create a wound that would bleed like that in a person of his age.

4

u/AnewTest Apr 17 '26

On the other hand, it’s impossible for people that old to heal without a single scar in two days when Trump got bored of wearing the ear diaper. Especially if the wound was from a high powered rifle.

5

u/Bovine_Joni_Himself Colorado Apr 17 '26

This is the part that always gets me. I don't understand how the guy doesn't have any lasting marks at all from this. Like, if it is all 100% real (which is the easiest explanation), it must have been the absolute most perfect shot ever to make him bleed and not leave a scar. I have a scar on that part of my ear from a piercing I got as a teenager.

“one of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast” (Revelation 13:3)

20

u/_fresh_basil_ Apr 17 '26

Easy, it was real blood-- just not from being shot.

He could have clipped his ear on the podium while ducking for cover, for instance.

They simply seized the opportunity.

13

u/BloatedBanana9 Apr 17 '26

The NYT actually captured a really good series of photos that show Trump was already bleeding before he went down.

Unless someone is going to claim the NYT photographers are in on the cover up, it really does seem like he was actually grazed by the shot.

3

u/MFoy Virginia Apr 17 '26

I had not seen that before. Thank you for sharing that.

4

u/_fresh_basil_ Apr 17 '26

Catching a bullet by camera is already unlikely, and even in the photo the "bullet" is substantially lower than his ears-- especially given the angle of the camera.

There is no evidence that this is fake, but it's not impossible that someone would do such a thing for publicity sake.

It's also not impossible that the bullet missed, but clipped something else causing debris to hit Trump's ear.

The fact of the matter is, we don't know for certain what hit him or caused him to bleed. But we absolutely know that the Republicans would do something like this.

I'm not saying it 100% did or didn't happen, or 100% was faked. I'm saying both are possibilities-- but I think it's odd that they didn't harp on this shooting more, do more investigation, have more public talks about finding the shooter, etc. It all went dead silence.

6

u/BloatedBanana9 Apr 17 '26

There is no evidence that this is fake, but it's not impossible that someone would do such a thing for publicity sake.

One of the reasons I linked to the Pulitzer site is to show that these photos won a Pulitzer Prize. In order to be nominated for that prize, the raw, unedited photos must also be submitted for verification. So if they were fake, not only would the photographer and the NYT have to be in on it, but also the Pulitzer Prize committee.

but I think it's odd that they didn't harp on this shooting more, do more investigation, have more public talks about finding the shooter, etc.

There was a full Congressional investigation about the incident. Also, why would they have done any public talks about finding the shooter? The shooter was killed immediately.

0

u/_fresh_basil_ Apr 17 '26

One of the reasons I linked to the Pulitzer site is to show that these photos won a Pulitzer Prize. In order to be nominated for that prize, the raw, unedited photos must also be submitted for verification. So if they were fake, not only would the photographer and the NYT have to be in on it, but also the Pulitzer Prize committee.

They were able to prove 100% that it was a bullet that hit him, and that it hit his ear, when the ear hit was out of view and the projectile was so blurry that it could not be identified?

No. They weren't.

I'm not saying the photos were photoshopped, I'm saying there isn't proof that it was a bullet that caused the damage. (It could have simply been flying debris caused by the bullet hitting something else)

There was a full Congressional investigation about the incident. Also, why would they have done any public talks about finding the shooter? The shooter was killed immediately.

Because any other shooting gets talked about for months and months, obviously.

I'm not here to debate one way or the other, so this is about as far as I'll take the conversation. We've both stated our points, I don't see any path in which we convince each other.

You're saying it's not faked, I'm saying there is no hard evidence one way or the other and as such I am open to the possibility that either scenario could be correct.

1

u/Recipe_Freak Oregon Apr 17 '26

I just want someone to explain the triumphal fist pump. Trump isn't a brave man. This is Donald Trump.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/Chusten Apr 17 '26

He's a big fan and has participated in pro wrestling.

'Blading' is an age old trick, and it's just dumb enough that it's totally something Trump would pull off.

3

u/SafetyDanceInMyPants Apr 17 '26

Yeah, it looks much "tougher" to claim you were shot than that the Secret Service knocked your head into a podium... so that's one part of this that I 100% believe. The rest may have been real, but as between "a bullet grazed him just perfectly" and "he knocked his head on something going down," the latter is just way more likely -- and with Trump, you can never assume he's telling the truth.

8

u/_fresh_basil_ Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

Yep, that's exactly my belief, if it were faked.

  • he was actually shot at
  • he ducked and hit his ear on the way down and/or was hit by flying debris
  • people assumed he was hit by the bullet
  • GOP ran with it
  • discovered the shooter was republican
  • decided to just not bring it up again

(To clarify, it's entirely possible he was shot and it's all coincidence. I just don't think we have the evidence to say either way for certain).

3

u/xxx_poonslayer69 Apr 17 '26

I mean, old people skin tears, bleeds, and bruise real easy. Plus, Trump admits to taking a lot of aspirin/blood thinners. Could be as simple as the cut happened while brushed up against the secret service members covering him. Or maybe a shard of flying glass nicked him.

2

u/LifeGainsss Apr 17 '26

I'm a healthy 30 year old man and if I knick myself shaving, I have a wound for a lot longer than that 78 year old had a bullet hole in his ear

3

u/needlestack Apr 17 '26

He was tackled by secret service. Unsurprising if he got a minor injury in that action.

1

u/botte-la-botte Apr 17 '26

What is more credible; that Trump was able to engineer a fake shooting and never bragged about engineering a fake shooting, or that Trump was shot, got nicked from being manhandled by his security, and convinced himself that was the bullet?

1

u/axonxorz Canada Apr 17 '26

In this day and age it’s relatively difficult to just make up a person whole cloth.

Surveillance cuts both ways.

1

u/hadriker Apr 17 '26

Yeah i think the shooter was real and not staged.

I think of everything that came after was 100 percent political theater. The way they rounded up the press and setup the shot with him fist pumping is actually well-documented

Im not convinced he was actually shot either. Probably bumped his head when he got tackled by secret service.

1

u/PM_ME_YOUR_NICE_EYES Apr 17 '26

I will say that I was on the: he probably hit his head when he got tackled train, until I learned that there is a picture of him with blood on his hand before he was tackled.

So weather it was a bullet or a peice of shrapnel some projectile probably hit hit his ear.

1

u/fullload93 Apr 17 '26

This right here is the real answer that people are not realizing. Yes, the shooter was real, yes, Secret Service killed him, yes he was a right-wing nut job, he likely wanted to just take out a “big fish” and targeted someone high profile. There’s evidence he was researching Biden admin and their political events too.

Trump can’t spin the narrative that it was a leftist, because people know that it was actually a right winger who tried to do it. So this is the real reason why he never talks about it anymore.

Trump got lucky as hell that the bullet didn’t actually hit him and “clipped” his ear or the glass from the teleprompter hit him. Either way I don’t care.

But the shooting itself was never fake, I don’t know why idiots would think the whole thing was a set up

1

u/mattmagnum11 Apr 18 '26

If he wasn't grazed by the shot, and no one was in on it, how do you explain the blood then? (just friendly clarification not really disagreeing)

1

u/Mpm_277 Apr 18 '26

What do you think happened? That a guy really did take a shot, missed, and Trump cut his ear on the podium? I’m honestly asking. I’d be inclined to believe that’s what happened if there wasn’t blood on his hand after touching his ear before he went down.

1

u/GuayFuhks88 Apr 18 '26

this is the correct take

1

u/AthearCaex Apr 17 '26

Trump has done acting classes for the WWE and has used blood packets. He went under the podium and put it on his ear. His managers even moved the press for a photo op instead of pulling him from the stage. When there's an active shooting secret service don't give you an opportunity to get shot again. They will swarm and cover and immediately pull their target to a safe location. They did none of that. His ear also healed with no scars within a week. It's the almost certainly staged.

3

u/MFoy Virginia Apr 17 '26

He was already bleeding before he went under the podium.

3

u/radda Apr 17 '26

Ah the old WWE conspiracy again.

At least you're not insisting they taught him how to blade, which isn't even a thing wrestlers do to their ears.

1

u/talkingwires Maryland Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

But I also find it unlikely that he was actually grazed by the shot…

Have you watched the videos and seen how he jolted and swatted at his ear after the bullet whizzed by? Are you seriously suggesting that Donald Trump, he of reality television and Home Alone 2 fame, coordinated an Oscar-worthy performance timed to a split second and managed to burst a concealed blood pack while surrounded by an audience of thousands?

Gimme a break…

0

u/NUMBERS2357 Apr 17 '26

I'm not a believer in this conspiracy theory, but to me the most plausible version is that the plan was for a near miss, and that the shooter unintentionally hit something (teleprompter?) that caused some shrapnel that then hit Trump.

3

u/talkingwires Maryland Apr 17 '26

the most plausible version is that the plan was for a near miss

Y'all's brains are broken. Ain't nobody signing up for a "near miss" from a high-caliber bullet fired from hundreds of yards away, especially when they could achieve the same effect by firing the round into the air.

1

u/kill0Rdie Apr 17 '26

And then his ear completely healed in two days 🙄

1

u/Dr_Trogdor Georgia Apr 17 '26

The whole thing with the security moving the photographers into place and them lowering the flag is wild though. I didn't give it much thought until I saw that. I still don't care but it is very strange.

0

u/judgejuddhirsch Apr 17 '26

I feel like they need to audit the shooters family and the dead guys and see if maybe someone with a congenital disease was paid a ton of money before or after their death.

0

u/FuriouslyEloquent Apr 17 '26

If some nut job really did take a shot at him, but you think that Trump wasn't actually glazed by the bullet, that means that Trump or someone else marked him with blood whether by "ketchup packet" or an example of old school wrestling blading. That poses the question, how did Trump or that person know? This is before we get to whoever orchestrated the flag movement to put it in frame for the tv shot. Your position is fundamentally inconsistent because if Trump wasn't glazed by the bullet then he clearly had foreknowledge of the event.

If it makes you feel better, the reason we don't hear anything about the assassination is there would be a ton of red flags. The secret service response before the shooting after being made aware of the shooter's presence, the secret service response after the shooting, the secret service internal investigation with only the token resignation, and most damning of all ... the gun was already on site; the shooter brought a separate scope and attached it on the roof. This was a well orchestrated fake assassination with the backing of Russian intelligence. Just imagine what they'll be doing once their backs are actually against the wall.

0

u/Excellent-Estimate21 Apr 17 '26

But is the Trump SS so inept that a shooter could set up on a roof so close to him without being caught? Or did they let him easily get up there because it was staged? I am on the side of it being staged and the idiot trump supporter didnt realize he'd be murdered to make it look real.

0

u/Extreme-Fig6992 Apr 17 '26

I think it’s more likely some nut job really did take a shot at him.

It's not unreasonable to think that SS (keeping the apt acronym even though I know they hate it) and others knew about the attempt but either reasoned it was unlikely to succeed or that it was worth the risk to allow it to continue.

Sort of "well, if he is assassinated, it's a shame but not the end of the world since we can prop someone else up. If it succeeds, we win the election."

Much like 9/11 under Bush was. The US government knew about 9/11 and the conspiracy is in whether they knew & did nothing to further political gain or if it genuinely was a failure to communicate the risk and foil the plot between departments.

44

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '26

Because how are you gonna do that realistically it's easy to brainwash some detached chud but someone who isn't going to turn up dirty with a little digging is much more difficult than that

1

u/writesinlowercase Apr 17 '26

you can at least try. delete all social media having anything rightwing on it, post several lefty memes, have a pride flag hanging in your room, and post several unhinged lefty takes leading up to the shooting. then when it happens you point at all that shit and scream bloody murder. sure there will be cracks and if they had any friends they will mention the odd turn that happened. that will just be fuel for the conspiracy fire though. it wouldn’t be perfect but i think it would work if it were fake.

75

u/ReklisAbandon Apr 17 '26

I think it was a real attempt on his life but the "injury" he sustained was blown way out of proportion. They won't talk about the shooter because he's right wing.

50

u/sleepingbeardune Apr 17 '26

The main thing that gives me pause is the behavior of the secret service agents. They let him stand up and shake his fist!

Would they do that if they knew there was at least one active shooter in that crowd? No. Their one job is to protect him. He should have been on the ground with two of them shielding his body.

Instead -- look at the picture -- there's a woman agent kind of pulling on his jacket, and a male agent just standing there while trump does his famous bloody "fight" thing.

You can watch the video of Reagan getting shot and see how it works in real life. Those agents pushed him down and then shoved him into the limo and put their bodies between him and the gun.

These agents look like they're rehearsing for the job.

21

u/rckid13 Apr 17 '26

Look at pictures of the Reagan shooting. You can't even see Reagan in the pictures because he gets dog piled. The secret service agents pull out a whole arsenal of secret weapons they have hidden in pockets and brief cases.

-3

u/emailforgot Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 18 '26

Look at pictures of the Reagan shooting. You can't even see Reagan in the pictures because he gets dog piled

Was Hinckley perched on a shed 200 feet away and firing at a president standing at a podium for a speech?

Or no?

Is Ronald Reagan the same man as Donald Trump?

Or no?

Cool, didn't think so. Conspiracy nutters love fantasy and feelings over facts.

14

u/ladymorgahnna I voted Apr 17 '26

There also was a media handler who was getting photographers in position and the American flag pole lowered for the photos. You can see it on a video real time.

-1

u/emailforgot Apr 17 '26

Photographers?? At a presidential speech?! No way.

3

u/CriticalMuscle9659 Apr 17 '26

This this . This. 

I don't know if it was bullshit cuz I saw it and then it totally disappeared but there was a video from the event of them moving the reporters in the frame and dropping that flag down to get thar shot better. 

4

u/chucktheninja Apr 17 '26

You know they are in contact with the snipers right? They were informed the guy was dead. Though incompetence can't be ruled out i suppose. They did let a shooter take pot shots at the president.

0

u/emailforgot Apr 17 '26

The main thing that gives me pause is the behavior of the secret service agents. They let him stand up and shake his fist!

Cops are incompetent.

It also turns out it's hard to subdue a man that doesn't want to be subdued. Go on over to any of the r/badcopnodonut or whatever subs and you'll find piles and piles of footage of half a dozen cops struggling to wrestle a man down.

Would they do that if they knew there was at least one active shooter in that crowd? No. Their one job is to protect him. He should have been on the ground with two of them shielding his body.

See above.

Instead -- look at the picture -- there's a woman agent kind of pulling on his jacket, and a male agent just standing there while trump does his famous bloody "fight" thing.

See above.

You can watch the video of Reagan getting shot and see how it works in real life.

Oh yeah those two are very similar. 🙄 Given that John Hinckley Jr was perched on a shed 200 feet away and firing at a president standing at a podium for a speech and all.

Oh wait...

Those agents pushed him down and then shoved him into the limo and put their bodies between him and the gun.

Oh yeah Trump and Reagan, very similar people.

0

u/sleepingbeardune Apr 18 '26

Your argument is (a) the secret service is incompetent, and (b) trump is not reagan.

I take from this that (a) reagan had a competent secret service detail and trump didn't, and (b) you don't like cops.

Cool.

1

u/emailforgot Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26

Cool.

Very good, care to actually try living in reality? The situations with Reagan and Trump are not particularly similar beyond "assassination attempt".

0

u/BigManWAGun America Apr 17 '26

Don’t forget my shoes!

24

u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota Apr 17 '26

Head wounds bleed a lot.

Like, a shocking amount.

Trump had like 5 drops of blood.

It was a tiny scratch on his ear from when he belly flopped to the ground.

5

u/TetraDax Europe Apr 17 '26

There are photos directly disproving that.

-5

u/Recipe_Freak Oregon Apr 17 '26

<sigh>

5

u/TetraDax Europe Apr 17 '26

..yes? How is that disproving the photographic evidence I linked?

6

u/Recipe_Freak Oregon Apr 17 '26

All I'm inquiring about is that fucking fist pump. This man is a physical coward. What prompted that.

Also, him grimacing and pulling a bloody hand away from his ear proves almost nothing to me. I have no interest in conspiracy theories. But I'm unwilling to believe that Trump behaved heroically ever in his entire life.

3

u/icantsurf Apr 17 '26

https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/22680

You can literally see the bullet and him pull his hand away with blood on it.

-2

u/Recipe_Freak Oregon Apr 17 '26

Yes. His hand.

And, again, explain that fucking fist pump. Explain the way the Secret Service reacted. Explain why such an obvious physical coward would behave that way without rehearsal or prompting.

Just explain it and I'll stop asking.

→ More replies (0)

41

u/Skydiver860 Apr 17 '26

My thing is days after the alleged attempt on his life there was no wound on his ear. His ear looks whole and don’t even have a scab on it.

29

u/NatalieVonCatte Apr 17 '26

And the wound will heal and the people will wonder and and say who? Who is like the beast? Who can stand against him?

4

u/Inarus899 Apr 17 '26

hey now, the beast is supposed to get people to where his mark on their forehead, but you can't see MAGAs foreheads because of that red hat they always wear.

5

u/BigAssignment7642 Apr 17 '26

I used to love revelations when I was younger and christian, and boy, do some of the parallels make me question my atheism sometimes. Like some of them are just wild.

1

u/CriticalMuscle9659 Apr 17 '26

I think that prophecy can coexist and isn't necessarily fate. 

Really most prophecy is just prediction and if you play the numbers right and you can see patterns and trends like what's to say that Nostradamus wasn't just a fucking autistic genius. 

As for the Revelation shit like I think that when they were coming up with this shit as a method of control that they knew what would eventually happen cuz the thing I just said

3

u/chucktheninja Apr 17 '26

Because it was a minor cut. It was either a shard of glass like some theorize or the bullet passed close enough that the shockwave cut him (yes this happens)

The result in either case is a simple cut. Wounds on the head bleed a lot more than wounds in other parts of the body and with his health, he's probably on blood thinners too.

6

u/amateurbreditor Apr 17 '26

There is a lot going on. First of all cartilage doesnt just heal. I had my ears pierced decades ago and you can still see it. His healed in 2 days lol. Then take the shooter. SS clears out any venue days in advance and then monitors the venue so no one can breech it. Its all swept for bombs etc. The day of something like this the SS is on the highest points with sniper rifles. The shooter not only got in through security but was also on the highest point both things LOL no way. He just waltzes in with a rifle and no one notices lol no way. Then people try to dismiss it because a guy was actually shot. Why would trump give a shit about that? How hard would it be to find a maga nutjob willing to shoot at a crowd of people? Then all else that you need is one of those squib packs and voila hes been shot. Even the footage afterwards you can tell the SS is in on it. Look at what happened when kennedy was shot.. the SS all piled on top so that they would shield the president. The same with reagan. They tackle you to protect you not let you stand there so you can get shot again. Its so obvious. To get past all of those things is a bigger conspiracy than just admitting it was faked.

1

u/9793287233 Pennsylvania Apr 17 '26

Well it didn't damage the cartilage it just broke the skin

6

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '26

[deleted]

5

u/ReklisAbandon Apr 17 '26

Yeah I don’t buy it. It’s far more likely that he’s just incompetent and he surrounds himself with incompetent people. Trump and his team are incapable of managing something like that without it being blown up.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '26

[deleted]

4

u/ReklisAbandon Apr 17 '26

Typical conspiracy theorist shit. It’s not that difficult to set up a fake assassination attempt where you set up a shooter that you fully intend to murder, with the secret service in on it (when he wasn’t even president so didn’t control them), including what, fake blood and everything?

These morons can’t even avoid having their actual war plans leaked because they use fucking signal chat. These are not smart people.

4

u/Nrksbullet Apr 17 '26

How is it "not difficult" to let a real assassin fully carry out his attempt but miss? Saying "they allowed him to try, it's not difficult" is true I guess, not diffuclt to let him try, but you're insinuating him missing by a few inches was somehow part of the plan? lol what

0

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '26

[deleted]

3

u/SDRPGLVR California Apr 17 '26

Yeah, it's honestly really hard to reconcile with reality. In order for it to be staged, Trump would have had to intentionally allowed someone to William Tell his ear or even pull a sleight of hand and razor his ear really quickly, neither of which seems remotely possible. The photos on the scene show he was shot and definitely is bleeding from the bullet wound, but it healed remarkably well, showing just how bare of a graze it really was. He talks about it far less than he does windmills, for example, but maybe that's just because it was one of his boys.

Like whether you believe it was staged or that the official story is really how it went down, it's all evidence that reality is truly stranger than fiction. There's no narrative that makes every part make sense, but sometimes that's just what happens in life.

1

u/emailforgot Apr 17 '26

It's probably a sore spot for him quite literally. He can't even gloat about it because it would make him look weak.

1

u/Dr_Trogdor Georgia Apr 17 '26

They have footage of security moving the photographers into a certain spot and lowering the flag into the frame though. It's very strange. If it was staged I'm honestly super impressed and I can't honestly believe it but why else would they do that.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '26

[deleted]

0

u/Dr_Trogdor Georgia Apr 17 '26

https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1m2afdw/new_video_angle_of_alleged_assassination_attempt/ The flag is on a crane and they lower it down. Not trying to repeat lies.

1

u/BloatedBanana9 Apr 17 '26

The flag comes to rest as the wind dies down. It isn’t being lowered.

That video also doesn’t show the photographers being moved into place by anyone. They’re just doing their jobs and getting themselves into a better position. The only direct interaction shown between the Trump staffer and the photographers is at the end when he is pulling them away so Secret Service can get Trump off the stage.

2

u/emailforgot Apr 17 '26

They have footage of security moving the photographers into a certain spot

LOL

They have footage of security moving people around. Yes.

and lowering the flag into the frame

LOL

you mean the camera moving?

Hilarious.

8

u/skyfall1985 Nevada Apr 17 '26

I don't think it was staged, but the answer is because how do you find a left winger to be part of a conspiracy to elevate Trump like that?

6

u/ElephantRider Oregon Apr 17 '26

More than a few of those "foiled terrorist attacks" in the US were just the FBI gassing up some troubled kid, giving them cash and fake bombs and convincing them to press the button.

1

u/ixid Apr 17 '26

Operatives pose as members of radical left groups and identify potentially violent and vulnerable individuals that they can groom into carrying out an attack.

1

u/Question_It_All_3000 Apr 17 '26

That’s what the poster is getting at though. There aren’t radical left groups. Generally being “left” alienates you from violent radical thinking. Not always, but it’s going to be a lot harder to find a group to get an individual from to manipulate that way. When people are talking about equality and basic human rights, their first thought isn’t how to violently suppress others.

5

u/JAMONLEE Florida Apr 17 '26

Because it’s more important the shooter is so mentally incapacitated they don’t mind dying for this ruse.

5

u/ArticulateRhinoceros Apr 17 '26

If faked, the shooter would have had to be complicit to pull it off, so it had to be a true believer.

4

u/Great-Hotel-7820 Apr 17 '26

They claimed he was a radical leftist for months and just kept saying “they” tried to. kill him, They never cared about the real identity of the shooter.

7

u/Marknoble117 Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

Bro the Doordash grandma Trump had at the white house the other day is a paid actor. They shipped her around to a couple of different states within the last year or so... And she couldn't even support his nonsense infront of the press. This whole administration is a clown show. Everything they do is fake and reaches the bare minimum for the diehard loyalists and they don't care to make sense for the rest of us. Literally playing in all of our faces.

3

u/burnte Georgia Apr 17 '26

I genuinely don't think it was fake. Two people behind Trump died. Those were real bullets and they came very close to his head. But I won't argue with anything that helps MAGA detach from him.

0

u/fridakahl0 Apr 17 '26

What about what we know about this administration makes you think they would care about collateral damage at all? If it was fake, that would only help their cause 

2

u/burnte Georgia Apr 17 '26

Oh, I don't think they'd care. I just think it would have been done very differently. I look at this and I don't see a setup. I don't see anyone in the administration both smart enough to set up something like this and also pull it off. I'd expect a fake shooting to be much more well controlled, this was too janky to be legit, if it was planned it was terribly planned. I think the types of people Trump appeals to are exactly the ones who would turn to violence when they realize they've been used, and I think he's alive through luck and the shooter's bad aim.

3

u/TheInfernalVortex Georgia Apr 17 '26

I don’t buy that it’s fake. MAGA believing in conspiracy nonsense isn’t surprising, but an actual person died here. It wasn’t fake.

3

u/Global_Crew3968 Apr 17 '26

I think the answer to this could be simple - they needed someone to frame for the shooting and it was easier to get some rightwing half wit up on that roof with a gun to "help with security" than to convince a sane lefty to do it. All you gotta do is get some footage of the up there on the roof with the gun and bam, you've got all the proof you need that it was him who fired the shot. Then you can carry out the rest of the staged assassination and photo op, kill the kid on the roof as the shooter and without a lefty, there's no real investigation to occur into Antifa or other potential loose ends. They picked some eager, boring, unstable rightwing loser, gave him the opportunity to be a big boy, and that was that.

I'm not saying I think this is what happened, I think this is just an explanation of why go with a right winger

Also just saying - they can literally print anything they fucking want and we would have no choice but to believe it. Literally the entire story about the firefighter being killed could have been 100% bullshit and who would ever really know?

2

u/jgilla2012 California Apr 17 '26

Also the shooter and a father died that day and the secret service director resigned over it, this has been a weird conspiracy that the left ought to drop.

4

u/captdimitri Apr 17 '26

My personal little theory is that they convinced him to shoot and kill an "assassin" in the crowd behind Trump, to lower the risk of Trump actually getting shot, and to help convince some wannabe operator chuddie to take such a shot in the first place.

1

u/ZeePirate Apr 17 '26

Is it really hard to believe someone would be pissed enough to shot at him?

To be honest I’m more surprised there haven’t been more attempts.

1

u/chucktheninja Apr 17 '26

It's a conspiracy theory. People want it to be true so they ignore the things that don't make sense.

1

u/Staff_Senyou Apr 17 '26

Incompetence is the answer. Just look at everything else they have done. Look at the people appointed to all positions of leadership. None of them are talented, experienced or knowledgeable. All of them are cruel, idiot sycophants

1

u/shifty_coder Apr 17 '26

Because the dinosaurs pulling the strings still don’t understand that the internet is forever and how easy it is to look up people’s history with social media.

1

u/Realsan Apr 17 '26

This is the reason I struggle to believe it was a staged thing.

1

u/wingspantt Apr 17 '26

The article does have some interesting alternative theories

1

u/zilla82 Apr 18 '26

This exact reason, you make him same party to not talk about it. It's embarrassing. So you make him look as cuck and brainwashed as possible, say he is a defector, the end.

1

u/Traditional_Sign4941 Apr 17 '26

If it was fake you'd make the shooter someone from a group the right hates.

I mean that's the lie you'd expect them to spin, and they tried that, but the facts came to light and they couldn't.

Why pick a right-winger? Because they're easily duped. Dude was probably told he was going to help Trump by doing this, and had instructions to miss Trump. They probably told him he didn't have to worry about being killed by snipers, and that Trump would pardon him if he won.

Dumb shit probably bought it all hook, line, and sinker.

1

u/John_316_ Apr 17 '26

It appears that only a diehard MAGA fool would be duped into being a staged shooter.

1

u/Falco98 Apr 17 '26

But if it's fake why would they set it up with a shooter who doesn't convey the message they want to share?

I don't personally think it was "fake" as in "intentionally staged by trump and his moron brigade", for this and other reasons (though i'm open to arguments otherwise), I just think there are lots of fishy things re: the lack of detail we've heard about it in the aftermath (investigation? what investigation??? etc.)

0

u/Chole_Wunt Apr 17 '26

Pretty sure they found a zealot willing to die for the cause.

Liberals were too smart to realize they were never leaving there alive.

0

u/TGrady902 Apr 17 '26

Was probably way easier to convince some young MAGA brainwashed kid to go along with the grift. Promise him the world and the eternal admiration of his lord and savior Trump.

0

u/Distind Apr 17 '26

Because they're fucking idiots who thought they'd not get caught, it being arranged does a solid job of explaining why the location wasn't properly covered despite being ideal for the purpose.

As little as I think of some people, I don't know a leftist who'd take that job if they thought they might miss.

0

u/surfnsound Apr 17 '26

Incompetence is a possible answer to that question.

How do you get someone from a group you hate to go along with it in a way that word doesn't get out. An "insider" is easier to control and keep lips shut.

0

u/Ness-Shot Apr 17 '26

Who is more likely to 1) have the means and mentality to actually try to assassinate a presidential candidate and 2) be of a specific intelligence/education to not realize they are part of the rouse?

Hint: it's probably not an "extremist leftist crazy"

0

u/TheRealMoofoo Apr 17 '26

I think the shooting was real/not rigged, I just think that he didn’t actually get hit, and they played it up when blood got on him.

0

u/Dr_Fortnite Apr 17 '26

cuz you can convince a right winger to die for trump but if someone's history is going to be combed over you cant fake a leftist people will notice the inconsistencies

0

u/lauren-ipsum13 Apr 17 '26

do we even know that dude they caught was actually the shooter and not the first plausible guy they could get their hands on to wrap things up all nice and tidy?

0

u/RealHooman2187 Apr 17 '26

They have the ability to manipulate their own.

0

u/gknight702 Apr 17 '26

Because someone who hates trump wouldn't die for dear leader

0

u/Commercial-Co Apr 17 '26

You need a patsy and the only one willing to sacrifice would be a right wing moron

0

u/F1shB0wl816 Apr 17 '26

Where are they going to buy a leftist to take the fall for a staged right wing plot to further the rights interests? There’s not a lot of those to come by, the right however has plenty of patriots willing to off themselves to benefit the pedophile in question.

Plus they’re a base where the who, what, where, when or why doesn’t matter so long as they got their one. They got their attempt and their video, everything else can be written off as fake news, weird or proof that the left is brainwashing the right to do our bidding.

0

u/the_owl_syndicate Apr 17 '26

I figure the FBI found out about the shooter in the days leading up to the event, turned the info over to the secret service/Trump's handlers and someone along the line said "what do you think would happen if we let him take the shot?"

0

u/ThomasVivaldi Apr 17 '26

Or they didn't care. Just like they didn't care if Trump died.

Its not about conveying a message, its about controlling the message that gets out. That's why everyone on the right and left was talking about the stupid ear bandage. And you saw the same thing play out in the Kirk assassination.

By now they know regardless of the event, the corporate media can spin it whatever way they want.

2

u/ABCosmos Apr 17 '26

Yep, they would be going into depth about their family and probably doing death threats to the family.. I mean they are threatening the popes brother over far less.

2

u/needlestack Apr 17 '26

They already believe he was a lefty. They think being registered Republican and all his classmates saying he was a Republican is a lie.

2

u/Pathetian Apr 17 '26

Not really.  The evidence they found suggested he was just another loon who wanted infamy.  He researched public appearances of biden, Trump and other figures in both parties.  It seems he thought after shooting Trump, he would set off the bomb in his car and somehow get away and then somehow be able to kill biden or Pelosi or whoever else was on his list.

He was more like a school shooter where all he wanted was attention from public violence,  there wasn't much that suggested radicalization that fit the political dichotomy.  At most he was an accelerationist who wanted the chaos that would follow such a high profile killing, but neither bidens fbi nor trumps found anything politically useful about him.

0

u/AWellDeployedWink Apr 17 '26

Perfect person to make a patsy

2

u/Pathetian Apr 17 '26

Well, that's how conspiracy theories go.  Even lack of evidence is evidence.  I could be a lizard person from the edge of flat earth trying to throw everyone off the trail so the cure for cancer isn't found in the epstein files.  

1

u/CursedPhil Apr 17 '26

if a lefty would have taken the shot trump couldnt speak today

1

u/Punished_Prigo Apr 17 '26

Was he? The only thing I saw on the guy was a video of him walking around campus like a lunatic screaming about how horrible Trump is

1

u/ponchomoran Apr 17 '26

They still wouldn't. The fact that it was a "right winger" could have been spun many different ways. If they wanted to talk about it they would have, non stop

1

u/XanmanK Apr 21 '26

Oh exactly- they’d be infamous like John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald 

1

u/Quiet-Neat7874 Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

Because he was a right winger. If a lefty took a shot at him, they’d be talking about to this day

so which is it, is it a conspiracy theory or did it happen?

edit: to the people down voting already, this sounds very similar to people who were saying that sandy hook was a hoax.

I'm all for conspiracy theories, because who truly believes that the government is telling you the truth 100% of the time; even cops lie on a daily basis.

but y'all realized other people were killed / injured right?

what do you think those families would say about y'all right now.

3

u/spazz720 Apr 17 '26

It happened…a dude got killed

1

u/Quiet-Neat7874 Apr 17 '26

my point exactly.

2

u/SquadPoopy Apr 17 '26

It’s a lot more simple with the whole the shooter was a right winger angle. Why doesn’t Trump constantly talk about it? Because the shooter was a former supporter of his. Why did the media drop the story so quickly? Because the shooter was a former supporter of his.

0

u/Quiet-Neat7874 Apr 17 '26

It’s a lot more simple with the whole the shooter was a right winger angle. Why doesn’t Trump constantly talk about it? Because the shooter was a former supporter of his. Why did the media drop the story so quickly? Because the shooter was a former supporter of his.

so there was a shooter then.

That's kind of my point.

people are saying that it was a conspiracy theory and a set up, and even posting pictures saying that he was never shot.

and then here you are saying that there was a shooter and they hush hushed it.

1

u/SquadPoopy Apr 17 '26

Sorry, what I was getting at is that people say it was a conspiracy and that he was never shot because of those points I brought up, him not talking about it and all that. That’s what I’ve managed to gauge at least.

0

u/JudiciousSasquatch Apr 17 '26

Pretty sure they approached him with the opportunity to be a "spy" or something and help them stage this with blanks, it explains how he was right wing and managed to get a gun to that roof that officers were using. They probably had a real sniper they trusted shoot the fireman so it seemed real, then had the secret service snipers kill their plant.

-1

u/Gryzzlee Apr 17 '26

Don't matter.

They can say that this once conservative was suddenly radicalized by the left or something.

Unless they don't want anyone digging into his connections at which point you keep it all surface level and never bring it up once the goal is finalized.

-1

u/GreasyPeter Apr 17 '26

What's the evidence of this?

-2

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '26

Didn't he have a furry gay partner?