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Posted on 05/14/2026 12:17:45 PM PDT by nickcarraway
At a time of historically high political violence in the U.S., a substantial number of Americans doubt the legitimacy of recent attempts against President Trump's life.
Trump has been the subject of three assassination attempts over the last two years, however, a NewsGuard/YouGov poll released Monday finds that 30% of Americans think at least one of those incidents was staged.
The findings come just weeks after a gunman allegedly attempted to storm the White House Correspondents' Dinner, where Trump was in attendance, but was stopped at a security checkpoint by law enforcement before reaching the main ballroom. In the weeks since, a wave of misinformation around the event has spread online.
The poll surveyed 1,000 Americans between April 28 through May 4 and asked about the shooting at the correspondents' dinner, the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Penn. in July of 2024 and the attempt on his life that fall while golfing in West Palm Beach.
When given the options of "true," "false" or "not sure," and asked whether each of the incidents "was staged," a majority of respondents said they thought each event was either staged or said they were unsure. A plurality — roughly 45% — said each was a "real attempt."
Members of the U.S. Secret Service counter assault team stand on the stage after a shooting incident outside the ballroom during the White House Correspondents Dinner on April 25 in Washington.
One in four respondents believed the attempted attack at the correspondents' dinner was staged, according to the poll. The same was true for Butler, where 24% of respondents believed the attack was staged. Sixteen percent felt the same about the foiled plot in West Palm Beach.
Those views came despite numerous witnesses in Butler and Washington, D.C., and detailed federal indictments against the suspects in the Florida plot and the shooting at the dinner. A Senate committee investigated the attack in Butler after a Secret Service sniper killed the perpetrator, and put out an exhaustive report detailing security failures at the rally.
Sofia Rubinson is a senior editor at NewsGuard, which tracks false claims that spread online. Claims posted on X within the week after the dinner garnered over 90 million views, she said.
"There's really not a lot of evidence that these social media users are citing or relying on," she said. "It's really just this belief and this distrust that the government is acting honestly and is giving us accurate information."
During an interview with 60 Minutes the day after the dinner, Trump dismissed claims that the incident was staged.
Suspected correspondents' dinner gunman is charged with trying to assassinate Trump "I think they're more sick than they are con people," Trump said, alluding to individuals pushing such conspiracy theories. "But there's a lot of con in there too."
The new poll finds that doubts about the assassination attempts are far more concentrated among younger Americans and Democrats.
According to the poll, Americans 18-29 were the most likely of any generation to believe all three events were staged.
It's a sentiment also more pronounced on the left, with 21% of Democrats feeling that way, seven times more than Republicans. When asked about all three incidents, larger shares of Democrats say each event was staged, with 34% saying that about the correspondents' dinner, 42% about Butler and 26% about Trump's golf club.
Though Republicans were less likely to think the events were fabricated, Rubinson notes a striking increase in the number of GOP voters who think the shooting at the dinner was staged — 13% — compared to the events at Butler (7%) and Trump's golf club (7%.)
"Still [a] much smaller percentage than Democrats. But we're seeing that Republicans are increasingly more likely to believe this, 'staged,' narrative," she said.
Rubinson acknowledged that while it's difficult to definitively explain that increase, it could be because of a "splintering" within Trump's movement over issues like the administration's handling of the Epstein files as well as the war with Iran.
"A lot of the traditional MAGA base is … maybe growing increasingly discontent with the Trump administration and more prone to believing these types of conspiracies."
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Showing that some leftist politicians and MSM are complicit.
Polls by any politically leaning organization are always suspect, if not flat out manipulated. But as I always say, the polls aren’t for us. They’re for the politically apathetic or independent voters.
And my own polling shows a majority of Americans think NPR is a useless gaggle of self-absorbed left-wingers that nobody listens to.
Does polling still show that most rational people think Barry Soetoro was not born here?
But you still pay for it.
Gee, what did NPRs sample look like?
Half or more of the respondents were Democrats, so that explains most of it.
The media constantly puts out the idea of the attempts being fake so as to maintain the idea as “well they might be fake, they keep talking about them being fake”.
Unbelievable, or rather, tragically believable by idiots and Democrats (but I repeat myself).
Hey, it’s got electrolytes, right?
The new poll finds that doubts about the assassination attempts are far more concentrated among younger Americans and Democrats.
NPR
That nick on the ear was a nice trick.
This poll reveals that a majority of people who listen to NPR believe in staged assassination attempts.
I’d be outraged but at some point you just take the 30%[!!], hand them their lollipop and ask them to go stand over there and suck.
Everything must be Trump’s Fault to the TDS people.
They are utterly delusional and detached from reality.
Well there you have it, a lot of stupid people take polls from npr.
I wonder if a legitimate news source ran this poll if the results would clarify the 25% of idiots in this country disbelieve their own eyes.
So like the latest guy shooting up the place was fake but yet these liberals thing he would risk going to prison for decades just to do a fake shooting? And with the Butler shooting, Trump was told to turn his head at the right time?
Why would anyone believe leftist polls. Not one person here should be dumb enough to believe them, otherwise why are you here ? I mean- Go hang out on CNN.
Think about it. So Trump staged a hit on himself, and had the gunman shoot so close to him that it nicked his ear. How dumb would you have to be to believe that ?
If this poll was a good and accurate one (unlikely) then it just shows how utterly stupid the American people are
They were real. But this kind of crap happens because the government has lied to us for a solid three decades now. Government lying has become the national sport.
They lie for fun, they lie for money, they lie for power. They lie when the truth would fit better. They lie more than a woman of reproductive age.
They brag about how Clinton could lie and make it feel almost charming.
And now all of this governmental lying has borne it’s perfect fruit.
Aesop wrote a fable about it even. Now people believe nothing of what they are told, and about half of what they see.
Pissgate, Lab Leak, Safe and Effective, two weeks to slow the spread, ISIS wasn’t a CIA creation, Assad gassed “Democratic” rebels. Most secure election ever. Russian “interference” in the 2016 election. If you like your doctor... The Affordable Healthcare Act, Too big to fail, global warming climate change until we want thousands of data centers, “An inconvenient truth”, Obama birth certificate.... Hell, even Putin called us the “empire of lies”.
The firehose of bullshit has sprayed too much over America. Now they have to prove everything IN SPADES.
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