Poll Finds 30% Of Americans Think At Least One Trump Assassination Attempt Was Staged

A NewsGuard/YouGov poll released Monday found that 30% of Americans believe at least one of three assassination attempts on President Donald Trump over the past two years was staged, while only 38% said all three were genuine.

“About one in four Americans believe the April shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner involving President Donald Trump was staged”

International Business Times

The survey covered the July 2024 shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the September 2024 incident at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, and the April 25, 2026 shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington.

International Business Times

Across all three events, a majority of Americans averaging 54% said either that the attempt was staged or that they were unsure, with party affiliation emerging as the strongest predictor of skepticism.

For the Butler, Pennsylvania rally, where a bullet grazed Trump's ear and a local firefighter in attendance was killed, 44% of Democrats called that incident staged compared with 7% of Republicans.

For the most recent incident at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, 34% of Democrats and 13% of Republicans said it was staged, according to the poll.

The White House rejected the conspiracy theories, with spokesman Davis Ingle saying, "Anyone who thinks President Trump staged his own assassination attempts is a complete moron."

In Washington, the poll reported that about 1 in 4 Americans think the April shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner was staged, with 24% of respondents saying they believed the incident at the Washington Hilton was fake and 32% saying they were unsure.

MassLive

Sofia Rubinson, an editor at NewsGuard, said, "It’s very striking," and the Washington Post reported that the results underscored broader skepticism toward government and the press.

Joan Donovan, a Boston University professor who researches media manipulation, said the findings reflected distrust, adding, "Increasingly, people on all sides of the political spectrum are distrustful of both this administration and also the media," while also warning that people were willing to trust unverified information they see online.

The survey also found that respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 were more likely than older Americans to describe the incidents as staged, with the generational gap sharpest for the April 2026 Correspondents' Dinner shooting.

The poll’s release came as federal proceedings moved forward, with a federal grand jury in D.C. indicting the alleged gunman, charging Cole Tomas Allen with four felonies including the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump.

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According to the Washington Post, the indictment followed the incident that led to Allen’s arrest at the Washington Hilton, and conspiracy theories began to spread online claiming the Trump administration staged the incident to manufacture support.

USA Today reported that Allen pleaded not guilty to multiple federal charges, including attempting to assassinate the president and assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon, during his arraignment hearing in Washington on May 11.

The poll also pointed to a wider pattern of skepticism across the three incidents, with 21% of Democrats saying all three events were staged, compared with 11% of independents and 3% of Republicans.

NPR said the doubts were concentrated among younger Americans and Democrats, and it quoted Sofia Rubinson saying, "It's really just this belief and this distrust that the government is acting honestly and is giving us accurate information."