A new YouGov poll commissioned by NewsGuard just dropped, and the results are exactly as insane as you'd expect. Forty-two percent of Democrats now believe the July 2024 assassination attempt on President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania — the one where a bullet ripped through his ear on live television — was "staged." A man died at that rally. His name was Corey Comperatore, and he was shielding his family from gunfire. But sure, it was all a stunt.
Forty-two percent. That's not a fringe. That's not some corner of the internet where people argue about chemtrails. That's nearly half the Democratic Party looking at a bullet wound, a dead father, and two critically injured rally-goers and saying, "Nah, fake."
The poll surveyed 1,000 Americans between April 28 and May 4, 2026, and the numbers across all three assassination attempts are staggering. For the Butler shooting by Thomas Matthew Crooks, 24% of all Americans said it was staged, 47% said it was real, and 29% said they weren't sure. Among Democrats specifically? That 42% "staged" number towers over the 21% of independents and a mere 7% of Republicans who said the same thing.
It gets worse.
Democrats were also asked about the April 25, 2026 shooting at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner involving suspect Cole Allen. Thirty-four percent of Democrats called that one staged too. The Ryan Routh attempt at Trump's West Palm Beach golf club in the fall of 2024? Twenty-six percent of Democrats said fake. And here's the kicker — 21% of Democrats told pollsters that all three assassination attempts were hoaxes. Every single one. Three separate suspects, three separate locations, federal indictments filed in multiple jurisdictions, and one in five Democrats think it's all theater.
Among Republicans? Only 3% believed all three were staged.
Let that sink in. The party that spent four years screaming about "misinformation" and demanding social media censorship to protect "our democracy" now has nearly half its voters embracing a conspiracy theory that requires you to believe the Secret Service, the FBI, local law enforcement, dozens of eyewitnesses, and emergency room doctors all coordinated the most elaborate hoax in American political history. On live television. With real blood.
Sofia Rubinson, senior editor at NewsGuard, told NPR that the conspiracy theories racked up over 90 million views on X within one week of the correspondents' dinner shooting alone. She noted, "There's really not a lot of evidence that these social media users are citing or relying on." No kidding. Evidence was never really the point.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich summed it up on Fox & Friends with his usual bluntness: "Democrats are now crazy." Not exactly a hot take at this point, Newt, but it's nice to see someone in polite company willing to say it out loud.
President Trump himself addressed the phenomenon during a 60 Minutes appearance, saying, "I think they're more sick than they are con people. But there's a lot of con in there too." That might be the most generous interpretation available. Because the alternative — that 42% of one of our two major political parties genuinely cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy — is a lot scarier than any con.
The Daily Caller, which reported on the poll, highlighted the broader picture: for each of the three attempted assassinations, a majority of Americans said either that it was staged or that they weren't sure. Only 38% of Americans believe all three were authentic. That number should terrify everyone regardless of party.
But there's an important distinction buried in those numbers. Among Republicans, the "staged" responses are in the single digits. Among Democrats, they're in the thirties and forties. This isn't a both-sides problem. This is one side of the aisle that has lost the plot so completely that a man can take a bullet to the head on a stage in Pennsylvania, with the whole world watching, and they'll call it a magic trick.
Young Americans aged 18-29 were the most likely to believe all three events were staged. Shocking absolutely no one who has watched what TikTok does to a developing brain.
Corey Comperatore threw himself over his wife and daughters when the shooting started. He's dead. He's not a crisis actor. He's not part of a plot. He was a firefighter and a father, and he died protecting the people he loved at a political rally in America.
Forty-two percent of Democrats looked at that and shrugged.
Remember that the next time they lecture you about "dangerous rhetoric."
