Over the weekend, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., published multiple posts on X questioning authorities’ accounts of the July 2024 attempted assassination of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Greene said Trump won’t “release the information” about the would-be assassin, Thomas Crooks, and accused the president of a “cover up.” She suggested without evidence that Crooks acted in concert with others who have yet to be identified, and asked why Trump has failed to cracked down on them. She boosted a post by a delegate from Texas during the 2024 Republican National Convention, who put scare quotes around the term “assassination attempt” when describing her questions about what happened in Butler that summer day and described his “fight, fight, fight” photo as suspiciously polished.
It can’t be that Trump lied to them or has no principles, it must be a conspiracy.
Greene is, of course, a seasoned conspiracy theorist, so her posts aren’t exactly surprising. But what’s striking is how she’s advancing a trend: right-wing critics of Trump floating unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about the Butler assassination attempt — sometimes suggesting that Trump himself may have staged the event. As Trump alienates elements of his right-wing base, he’s at risk of being engulfed by the kind of conspiratorial worldview he once commanded to his own advantage.
Several other right-leaning commentators and political figures have floated conspiracy theories about Butler. Tim Dillon, a comedian and podcaster who has supported Trump and helped build support for him among young men, said earlier in April, “I think [Trump] should admit” that he staged his own assassination attempt. In November, Tucker Carlson said the “FBI lied” about Crooks’ online footprint.
What’s going on? And why does this idea seem to be gaining more traction in recent weeks?
Former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent appeared on Carlson’s show the day after he resigned from his position in the Trump administration in March over his objections to the war in Iran. Their conversation offers some clues as to how some in the MAGA mindset have come to believe some strange ideas about their own ideological leader.
During the interview Kent claimed “we’re not allowed” to ask questions about possible links between the attempted assassination of Trump and other plots, including the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. “And by no means am I saying like, you know, the Israelis did this or any of that, but I’m saying there’s a lot of unanswered questions there,” he said on Carlson’s show, adding, without evidence, that he believed investigations into Butler were prematurely shut down.
Asked by Carlson what he thinks could be motivating Trump to attack Iran, Kent hinted at a “darker” explanation possibly swirling in lingering questions about the attempt on Trump’s life in Pennsylvania and the assassination of Kirk in Utah. “There is enough data to at least say that there’s a good chance that President Trump feels like he is under threat,” he said.
Kent’s language is so vague, and the insinuated ideas are so shadowy, that it’s unclear exactly what he means, but it seems to imply that Trump may be under duress or being coerced, perhaps by members of the “deep state” national security apparatus, or some kind of international cabal. (The antisemitic subtexts of his invocation of Israel are not a coincidence, including in his resignation letter in which he suggests Trump was “deceive[d]” into starting the Iran war by Israeli leaders, as opposed to being persuaded by them.)
Kent’s evidence-free ideas offer insight into how some of Trump’s disillusioned supporters are coping with his failure to fulfill his promises. It can’t be that Trump lied to them or has no principles, it must be a conspiracy. This is fitting for a movement with abject mistrust in the government and other institutions, and no consistent threshold for evidence to back its claims.
While Kent’s theories allow him to preserve Trump as virtuous by describing him as manipulated, other MAGA critics’ theories don’t necessarily extend that charity to him. Instead, they see Trump as having sold out to the corrupt establishment he had promised to fight. Figures like Greene, who criticized Trump for many of his deviations from her vision of right-wing nationalism before she resigned in January, are painting Trump as a deeply flawed leader who warrants the kind of vulgar suspicion that he himself once promised to apply to the government.
The subtext of the staged assassination conspiracy theories is also significant. Its proponents are effectively pushing a narrative of Trump as a showman who values the spectacle of martyrdom over actually getting things done. It’s basically a conspiracy theorist’s way of saying, “Maybe Trump is a bulls–t artist.” That’s not a good place for Trump to be with his base — and there’s no obvious way for him to wrest back control of the narrative.
It’s not a coincidence that Greene, Dillon, Kent and Carlson have all criticized Trump over his war in Iran, nor is it a coincidence that they are all turning to conspiracies to help explain their declining esteem for Trump. The more Trump doesn’t follow through on his MAGA promises, the more he resembles an establishment politician, or at least a politician beholden to the establishment. Thus, he grows more vulnerable to being seen as part of some hidden, truth-obscuring deep state apparatus. Whether they blame Trump or some other shadowy actor for making him this way, it allows them to apply their conspiratorial worldview for explaining a hard truth to swallow: Trump lied to them.
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