There could have two, of the happiest widows alive on that stage instead of one.
According to a Washington Post survey published Monday, about 1 in 4 Americans think that at least one of the three attempts on The Fascist Felon/Possible Child Rapist’s life over the last two years was staged, according to a new NewsGuard/YouGov poll. Roughly 1 in 3 Democratic respondents said they believed the event was staged, compared with about 1 in 8 Republicans; more younger people between the ages of 18 and 29 were also more likely than older people to think the incident was staged.
For each attempted assassination, a majority of Americans said either that it was staged or that they were not sure — averaging 54 percent across all three.
Only 38 percent of Americans believe that all three assassination attempts were authentic.
A DEEP PARTISAN DIVIDE
The contention that the three events may have been staged correlates strongly with party identification. Across all three events, Democrats were far more likely than Republicans to endorse the “staged” framing.
- In total, 21 percent of Democrats responded that they thought all three events were staged, as did 11 percent of Independents and three percent of Republicans.
- Of the 12 percent of Americans who said that all three attempts were staged, 55 percent were Democrats, 38 percent were Independents, and seven percent were Republicans.
- Of the respondents who said that all three incidents were authentic, only 15 percent were Democrats. Thirty-eight percent were Independents and 47 percent were Republicans.
- For the most recent event — at the April 25, 2026, White House Correspondents’ Dinner — 34 percent of Democrats and 13 percent of Republicans said it was staged, a 21-point gap.
No evidence has surfaced to support the conspiracy theories claiming that any of the three gun-related incidents at Trump’s public events was staged. But many Americans still think each was.