Since then Since the July 13 assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the former president and his allies have been spreading baseless conspiracy theories and directly blaming Democrats for the violence. The effort appears highly coordinated. Everyone from J.D. Vance to Trump’s sons to MAGA Republicans in Congress have used the same rhetoric to declare that Trump’s political opponents were trying to kill him at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. No one has provided evidence to back up the claim. And while Trump himself was relatively quiet on the matter during the initial aftermath, he has since been adding fuel to the fire. In a campaign speech in Atlanta on August 5, Vance introduced Trump by emphasizing that his opponents “even tried to kill him.”
Trump took the story to the next level in a softball interview with TV host Dr. Phil that aired this week. The first quarter of the hour-long conversation focused on Trump’s death as a divine miracle, a major theme at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee just days after the attack. Trump told Dr. Phil that “God must come” after surviving the shooting. He suggested that the assassination attempt could end up like the 2017 Las Vegas Strip massacre, in which hundreds were shot and killed.
Later in the interview, President Trump, without any directive, returned to commenting on the shootings, criticizing President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I think it’s partly the fault of Biden and Harris, and I’m the other side. Look, they weaponized the government against me, they used the entire Department of Justice to come after me. They didn’t care about my health and safety,” he said, without evidence. He also suggested they played a role in weakening his security. “They made it very difficult for us to get the right people on the Secret Service side.”
“I’m not saying they wanted you shot,” Dr. Phil said. “But do you think they would be OK with it if you were shot?”
“I don’t know,” Trump replied. “There’s a lot of hate.” (Biden, Harris and other Democratic leaders condemned the shooting, and Biden called Trump to offer prayers and support. Trump called the call “very good,” according to a leaked conversation with RFK Jr.)
Trump repeated the same argument he made in his August 5 speech. “They’re saying I’m a threat to democracy,” he told Dr. Phil. “They’re going to say that. (a) Standard dialogue, if you keep talking, you’ll find that the assassin or potential assassin can move… maybe that bullet is because of their investigation method.”
The dead 20-year-old gunman was a registered Republican voter, as national media reports have noted, and as I have reported in the days and weeks since the attack, there appears to be no clear evidence that he was motivated by partisanship or ideology. An extensive FBI investigation, which included analysis of his digital devices and interviews with more than 450 people, found no clear motive, according to congressional testimony from FBI Director Christopher Wray. FBI officials reiterated those findings on a call with reporters Wednesday. They suggested that the gunman, who had also considered attacking a Biden event, was seeking notoriety and chose the Trump rally as a “target of opportunity.” (I reported five days after the attack on new indicators of this behavioral profile common to political assassins, as I document in my book, Trigger point.)
The provocative rhetoric from Trump and his allies is not only unfounded but also disturbingly dangerous. Threat assessment and law enforcement leaders say the messaging is fueling the risk of political violence heading into the election. The sources also said that potential violence from MAGA extremists has become a top concern as Trump’s political rhetoric has become more broad and increasingly focused on a grand conspiracy to steal the election from him. “They’re adding to the idea that the opposition is trying so hard to get Trump that they’re trying to kill him, and therefore retaliation is justified,” one source said. Another source described the conspiracy theory about Trump’s shooting as giving extremist groups “a really big storyline” for retaliatory violence.
The J-13 Forum, a fake congressional hearing hosted by Trump associates at the Heritage Foundation, was full of speculation and satire.
The narrative of blame from Trump and his allies expanded this week when Florida Republicans Corey Mills and Arizona Republican Eli Crane convened an “independent” hearing at the Heritage Foundation (home of Project 2025) called the “J-13 Forum.” They and several associates conducted congressional testimony-style interviews with participants including former Secret Service agent and right-wing media personality Dan Bongino and former Blackwater CEO and Trump political operative Erik Prince. Indeed, many key questions remain about the catastrophic security failure in Pennsylvania. The ongoing investigation by the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and a bipartisan congressional task force could take months, if not years. Nevertheless, the “J-13 Forum” leaned heavily into speculation and metaphors about what could explain the disaster, and Mills suggested from the beginning that a sinister conspiracy would inevitably be revealed.
“At this stage, I don’t think you can distinguish between criminal negligence and willful intent,” he said.
The fake congressional hearing included a variety of unsubstantiated claims about Butler’s tactical response to the gunman, and a heated rhetoric from Bongino about the role of DEI policies in the Secret Service. At one point, Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gates urged Prince to highlight the risk that a foreign terrorist team could carry out such an assassination attempt on U.S. soil. “I’m very concerned,” Prince responded. “I don’t think they have any idea what’s coming.”
Mills, in particular, has been involved in the narrative of blame from the beginning. He was one of the Trump allies who used the same line of attack in the early aftermath. “What was the rhetoric when President Biden said it was time to target Trump?” Mills asked in the Fox interview. Bunny & Co. Five days after the shootings, Mills made his case (despite Biden’s earlier apology for his word choice, which Mills and others have taken out of context in the aftermath). “They tried to silence him. They tried to jail him. And now they’re trying to kill him.”
