Why do people believe the Trump assassination attempts are fake?
5/1/202625 min
A 31-year-old man has been charged with attempting to assassinate Donald Trump, after a thwarted attack at Saturday’s White House correspondents’ dinner. Immediately after this, conspiracy theories spread online that the assassination attempt was fake. This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Rachel Leingang about why conspiracy theories such as this about the US president are so prevalent
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 1· Soundbite0:00
This is The Guardian.
Jonathan Freedland· Host0:01
[upbeat music] After a man attempted to enter the White House Correspondents' Dinner with guns last weekend, conspiracies immediately started to fly online.
Rachel Leingang· Guest0:20
Assassination attempts in particular are basically conspiracy catnip.
Jonathan Freedland· Host0:24
So why did people believe the attack was a hoax?
Rachel Leingang· Guest0:27
He's no longer this sort of outsider-insider playing both roles. He's that guy. He's the president.
Jonathan Freedland· Host0:33
I'm Jonathan Freedland, columnist at The Guardian, and this is Politics Weekly: America. Rachel Leingang is a Guardian US politics correspondent based in the Midwest. Rachel, very good to have you on the show again. I know you've often sat in this chair, but you have, um, had quite a year of it in 2026. We've obviously heard from you covering the federal violence in Minnesota with ICE and so on. You were, uh, at an event on Saturday where violence was very much not part of anybody's expectations. On the contrary, it's normally a time for coming together, politicians from both sides of the aisle, together with their media scrutineers coming together. Did you have any worries at all going into the White House Correspondents' Dinner?
Rachel Leingang· Guest1:26
My worries were more about the ethics of the event,