Another Assassination Attempt, More Fertilizer for Conspiracy Theories

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner last weekend became the site of the third failed attempt to assassinate President Donald Trump. “I remember the feeling was very similar to when it was clear that the House had been invaded on January 6, 2021,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who was in attendance, tells The Intercept Briefing. “Everybody was afraid that somebody had come in with an AR-15 or something like that.”

This week on the podcast, host Akela Lacy speaks to Raskin about his experience at the dinner and later being asked by CNN’s Dana Bash about whether he’s thinking twice about his “heated rhetoric” toward Trump. “It was curious that, in the wake of this terrible episode, that she would try to equate the way that Democrats talk and the way that President Trump talks,” says Raskin. “He calls people crazy, insane. He calls people evil, wicked. He will buttonhole reporters and tell them that they're stupid, they're ugly. ... But we try to keep it at the level of policies and their actions.” Some examples, which Raskin discusses, is his forthcoming investigation into Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s role in the administration and conflicts of interest, and his fight in Congress to stop the reauthorization of warrantless surveillance on Americans.

After this latest assassination attempt on Trump’s life, claims that it was staged flooded the internet, from comments section to social media posts to videos of influencers dissecting alleged evidence.

“We are so conditioned to distrust what we are being told by authorities that people immediately began concocting conspiracy theories about it even before we even knew what had happened. Whether it was a shooting or just dishes breaking,” says journalist Mike Rothschild. He’s the author of “The Storm is Upon Us,” the first complete book on the QAnon conspiracy movement, and more recently, a 200-year history of conspiracy theories called “Jewish Space Lasers.”

Rothschild joins Lacy to unpack the growing world of conspiracy theories that question whether the multiple assassination attempts against Trump were staged. They also dive into other conspiracy theories currently capturing the public imagination, such as the dead and missing scientists and a wildfire in Georgia. “This is one of our more fun and disturbing interviews,” says Lacy.

Correction: May 4, 2026

In a previous version of this episode, there was an errant reference to Janet Mills and Graham Platner being close in the polls before Mills dropped out. That reference has been removed; Platner was ahead of Mills in polls just before Mills dropped out.

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