{"id":4898,"date":"2026-05-01T11:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T11:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=4898"},"modified":"2026-05-01T11:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T11:21:08","slug":"another-assassination-attempt-more-fertilizer-for-conspiracy-theories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=4898","title":{"rendered":"Another Assassination Attempt, More Fertilizer for Conspiracy Theories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>    <!-- BLOCK(acast)[0](%7B%22componentName%22%3A%22ACAST%22%2C%22entityType%22%3A%22SHORTCODE%22%2C%22optional%22%3Afalse%7D)(%7B%22id%22%3A%22another-assassination-attempt-more-fertilizer-for-conspiracy%22%2C%22podcast%22%3A%22intercept-presents%22%2C%22subscribe%22%3Atrue%7D) --><\/p>\n<p>\n  <iframe src=\"https:\/\/embed.acast.com\/intercept-presents\/another-assassination-attempt-more-fertilizer-for-conspiracy?accentColor=111111&amp;bgColor=f5f6f7&amp;logo=false\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"acast-player__embed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p><!-- END-BLOCK(acast)[0] --><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"has-underline\">The White House<\/span> Correspondents\u2019 Dinner last weekend became the site of the third failed attempt to <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/04\/27\/white-house-correspondents-dinner-shooting-trump\/\">assassinate<\/a> President Donald Trump. \u201cI remember the feeling was very similar to when it was clear that the House had been invaded on January 6, 2021,\u201d Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who was in attendance, tells The Intercept Briefing. \u201cEverybody was afraid that somebody had come in with an AR-15 or something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This week on the podcast, host Akela Lacy speaks to Raskin about his experience at the dinner and later being asked by CNN\u2019s Dana Bash about whether he\u2019s thinking twice about his \u201cheated rhetoric\u201d toward Trump. \u201cIt was curious that, in the wake of this terrible episode, that she would try to equate the way that Democrats talk and the way that President Trump talks,\u201d says Raskin. \u201cHe calls people crazy, insane. He calls people evil, wicked. He will buttonhole reporters and tell them that they\u2019re stupid, they\u2019re <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2025\/nov\/26\/trump-insults-new-york-times-reporter-katie-rogers\">ugly<\/a>. \u2026 But we try to keep it at the level of policies and their actions.\u201d Some examples, which Raskin discusses, is his forthcoming investigation into Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner\u2019s role in the administration and conflicts of interest, and his fight in Congress to stop the reauthorization of warrantless surveillance on Americans.<\/p>\n<p>After this latest assassination attempt on Trump\u2019s life, claims that it was staged flooded the internet, from comments section to social media posts to videos of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/streaming\/919291\/white-house-correspondents-dinner-conspiracy-videos-false-flag?utm_content=buffer177fb&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=bsky.app&amp;utm_campaign=verge_social\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">influencers dissecting<\/a> alleged evidence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are so conditioned to distrust what we are being told by authorities that people immediately began concocting conspiracy theories about it even before we even knew what had happened. Whether it was a shooting or just dishes breaking,\u201d says journalist Mike Rothschild. He\u2019s the author of \u201cThe Storm is Upon Us,\u201d the first complete book on the QAnon conspiracy movement, and more recently, a 200-year history of conspiracy theories called \u201cJewish Space Lasers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rothschild joins Lacy to unpack the growing world of conspiracy theories that question whether the multiple assassination attempts against Trump were staged. They also dive into other conspiracy theories currently capturing the public imagination, such as the <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/cafe\/whats-really-underpinning-the-missing-scientists-conspiracy-theory\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">dead and missing scientists<\/a> and a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsbtv.com\/news\/local\/georgia-wildfires-online-conspiracy-theories-about-highway-82-fire-not-helpful\/INYMQSPBFRFTFD5QTA7ZSX756Q\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wildfire in Georgia<\/a>. \u201cThis is one of our more fun and disturbing interviews,\u201d says Lacy.<\/p>\n<p>For more, listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-intercept-briefing\/id1195206601\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/2js8lwDRiK1TB4rUgiYb24?si=e3ce772344ee4170\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Spotify<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLW0Gy9pTgVnvgbvfd63A9uVpks3-uwudj\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">YouTube<\/a>, or wherever you listen.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-transcript\">Transcript<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Akela Lacy:<\/strong> Welcome to The Intercept Briefing. I\u2019m Akela Lacy, senior politics reporter for The Intercept.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Katherine Krueger:<\/strong> And I\u2019m Katherine Krueger, the Voices editor at The Intercept.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> Katherine, do you want to tell our listeners a little bit about what Voices is before we jump into the show today?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KK:<\/strong> Voices is basically <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/voices\/\">The Intercept\u2019s op-ed section<\/a> we run. Things that are more narrative, things that are a little more first-person-driven, things that advocate for a specific point of view.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> An Intercept editorial board, if you will.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KK:<\/strong> Yes, I\u2019m a one-woman editorial board. [Laughs.]<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> Speaking of opinions on the news of the day, I am going to throw several topics at you. [Laughs.]<\/p>\n<p><strong>KK:<\/strong> OK. Hit me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> On Thursday morning, news broke that Janet Mills is <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/04\/30\/maine-janet-mills-graham-platner-senate\/\">dropping out of the Maine Senate race<\/a>. Katherine, what was your reaction to seeing that?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>KK:<\/strong> So Janet Mills is the current governor of Maine, former attorney general, running against Graham Platner in the Democratic primary to be the next senator of Maine.<\/p>\n<p>She was neck and neck with the upstart, insurgent, more-left candidate Graham Platner, who has certainly had his <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/10\/25\/graham-platner-tattoo-fetterman-democrats\/\">share of controversies<\/a> during this race. But my jaw dropped when I saw the news that she was dropping out. It feels like all polling that I had seen was that her and Platner were pretty close in the polls.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/janetmills.com\/governor-mills-statement-suspending-candidacy-for-u-s-senate\/\">statement<\/a> she put out, she\u2019s blaming a lack of money for not continuing the race, which is also strange to me because she had all of the backing of the Democratic Party. <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/16\/graham-platner-janet-mills-democrats-maine-senate\/\">No one at DNC national was pulling for Platner<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> Yeah, this was pretty shocking to me. I also got an <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/maine-senate-election-mills-platner-collins-b04e42a63658f017f109be56e389aeb1\">AP alert<\/a> on Wednesday evening. The title was \u201cUnderdog Governor,\u201d and the dek was \u201cDemocratic Maine Governor Janet Mills says she\u2019s used to being underestimated even as she runs for Senate at age 78.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Literally 12 hours later, Janet Mills is dropping out of the race for U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n<p>I was also pretty shocked at the statement that Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand put out after she dropped out of the race, which was \u201c[Maine Sen. Susan] Collins has never been more vulnerable\u201d \u2014 what? \u201cWe will work with the presumptive Democratic nominee, Graham Platner, to defeat her.\u201d [Laughs.]<\/p>\n<p><strong>KK:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s a bit strange. Also, I just love the framing in that headline, which is \u201cunderdog governor\u201d \u2014 don\u2019t those things pull in opposite directions? Also, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer were fully behind Janet Mills. It all strikes me as a bit strange. It also seems Platner had been in general <a href=\"https:\/\/wgme.com\/news\/local\/schumer-stands-by-mills-endorsement-despite-poll\">polling ahead of Mills<\/a>, but it does seem like the race was quite close. My jaw dropped when I saw the news. It seems out of nowhere.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> Also in midterms and voting rights news, on Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued a decision that rolled back <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2026\/04\/30\/nx-s1-5805050\/supreme-court-voting-rights-congressional-black-caucus\">voting rights<\/a>. This was focused on a case in Louisiana. After that decision, <a href=\"https:\/\/thecurrentla.com\/2026\/with-votes-already-cast-landry-postponeslouisiana-congressional-primaries\/\">Louisiana postponed its May 16 primary<\/a>. Which is kind of insane, considering that that was supposed to happen in two weeks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KK:<\/strong> It does seem like an existential threat for the Democrats to respond. Gerrymandering has been an issue for a long time. The Republicans are fully aware that without gerrymandering, the force of the electorate is against them. Democrats need to respond as other states, I\u2019m sure, will look to redraw their maps in even more draconian ways.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThe Republicans are fully aware that without gerrymandering, the force of the electorate is against them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> In that vein, Democrats are also facing intense scrutiny over a series of key votes in the house this week, including on extending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which 42 Democrats voted to support and 22 Republicans opposed on Wednesday. This version would <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/04\/29\/mike-johnson-crypto-freedom-caucus-fisa-surveillance\/\">authorize warrantless surveillance of Americans<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also been some developments in the fight to end the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. After a monthslong shutdown, the House passed legislation to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/04\/30\/us\/politics\/house-homeland-security-funding-bill.html\">reopen DHS<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>After federal immigration agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota earlier this year, Democrats had attempted to block additional funding for DHS until the agency could make some very modest reforms to ICE and Border Patrol. Democrats\u2019 demands have so far gone nowhere. Though some places are framing the vote on Thursday, which did not fund ICE, as a win for Democrats. Katherine, what do you make of all of this?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KK:<\/strong> Well, it does seem that the Republicans are pretty desperate to restore this funding. You know, as an op-ed editor \u2014 Democrats need to hold the line on this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> It\u2019s my understanding that this bill will <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/04\/30\/us\/politics\/house-homeland-security-funding-bill.html\">pay for DHS operations<\/a> except ICE and parts of Border Patrol through September 30. Those agencies are already being generously funded by the Trump so-called <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/12\/19\/deportation-abrego-garcia-ice-immigration\/\">Big Beautiful Bill<\/a> that approved a record <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2026\/01\/21\/nx-s1-5674887\/ice-budget-funding-congress-trump\">$85 billion<\/a> for immigration crackdowns.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>KK:<\/strong> Right. So for now it appears to be all eyes on the Democrats to see what they can do, if anything, to gum up the works on billions in new funding for ICE and Customs and Border Protection.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> And of course, this is all coming on the heels of the third assassination attempt against President Donald Trump over the weekend, which we talk about with Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who was present at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner during the shooting attempt.<\/p>\n<p>Later in the show, we hear from journalist Mike Rothschild about the world of conspiracy theories swirling around the shooting and other recent events in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KK:<\/strong> Akela, you got really great details from Rep. Raskin from inside the Correspondents\u2019 Dinner. So let\u2019s listen to that conversation now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL: <\/strong>Welcome to the Intercept Briefing, Rep. Raskin.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rep. Jamie Raskin:<\/strong> Great to see you, Akela.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> So you were at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner on Saturday evening. Tell us what you witnessed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JR:<\/strong> I entered maybe 10 minutes before the incident happened and the violence and the confusion and the melee and the chaos. All of a sudden, we heard the loud noises, <em>boom boom boom<\/em>, glasses flying, plates flying \u2014 horrific noises taking place. And then people yelling, \u201cGet down, get down.\u201d Somebody, I think it maybe was a Secret Service agent or an officer, somebody threw me to the ground. <\/p>\n<p>Then we stayed on the floor for two or three minutes before people started saying they got the guy, or it\u2019s OK, you can get up. But there was a lot of confusion.<\/p>\n<p>I remember the feeling was <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2021\/01\/06\/trump-mob-storms-capitol-congress\/\">very similar<\/a> to when it was clear that the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2021\/01\/15\/deconstructed-jayapal-capitol-escape\/\">House had been invaded on January 6, 2021<\/a>, and everybody was afraid that somebody had come in with an AR-15 or something like that.<\/p>\n<p>It was a scene of crowd chaos and fear in America, which means people are going to be thinking about the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/06\/04\/violence-america-school-shootings-covid-graphic-photos\/\">possibility of an assault weapon<\/a> or some kind of deadly gun attack.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> The day after the shooting, you spoke to CNN\u2019s Dana Bash about the incident in an <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/bCfRrE9ULM4?si=xjLQld1N5409cqD6&amp;t=57\">interview<\/a> where she asked you about the responsibility of Democrats whose rhetoric toward Trump she described as \u201cheated.\u201d Let\u2019s hear that clip.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Clip from CNN]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dana Bash:<\/strong> And you have, and as many of your fellow Democrats have, used some heated rhetoric against the president. And do you think twice about that when something like this happens?<\/p>\n<p><strong><strong>Rep. Jamie Raskin<\/strong>:<\/strong> What rhetoric do you have in mind?<\/p>\n<p><strong>DB:<\/strong> Just talking about some of the fact that he is terrible for this country and so on and so forth. I understand that\u2019s your democratic right, but overall, do you have no responsibility?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JR:<\/strong> I have no personal problem with Donald Trump at all. I talk about the policies of this administration. The authoritarianism, like we saw on display in Minneapolis where two of our citizens were gunned down in the streets simply for exercising their First Amendment rights; Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and others have died in custody. I\u2019m talking about policies. I don\u2019t personalize it, and I certainly have never called the press the enemy of the people. I think the press are the people\u2019s best friend, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s written right there into the First Amendment.<\/p>\n<p>We need the press to be a vigilant watchdog against every level of government, federal, state, local, all of it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Clip ends]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> I also want to note that on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/administration\/5851255-democrats-rhetoric-trump-violence-whca-dinner\/\">blamed<\/a> Democrats who have criticized Trump for the shooting, naming several members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.<\/p>\n<p>What did you make of Bash\u2019s question to you and the idea behind it, that somehow the real problem here is criticizing the president and his policies, no matter what those policies are?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JR:<\/strong> The freedom of speech has to be wide open, vigorous, and uninhibited in America. But the point I was trying to make was that we should keep to policy matters and political matters, and not personalize it.<\/p>\n<p>So I literally didn\u2019t know what she was talking about. I do not use, or at least I try not to use, the kind of rhetoric that President Trump routinely and habitually uses where he calls people communists, he calls people terrorists. He calls people crazy, insane. He calls people evil, wicked. He will buttonhole reporters and tell them that they\u2019re stupid, they\u2019re <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2025\/nov\/26\/trump-insults-new-york-times-reporter-katie-rogers\">ugly<\/a>, all those kinds of things.<\/p>\n<p>I just thought it was curious that, in the wake of this terrible episode, that [Bash] would try to equate the way that Democrats talk and the way that President Trump talks, because we are indeed very vigorous and aggressive in standing up to violent insurrections and attempts to overthrow elections. And we\u2019re very vigorous and aggressive in opposing illegal wars because Congress has been cut out and so on. But we try to keep it at the level of policies and their actions.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIt was curious that, in the wake of this terrible episode, that she would try to equate the way that Democrats talk and the way that President Trump talks.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> A <a href=\"https:\/\/democrats-judiciary.house.gov\/sites\/evo-subsites\/democrats-judiciary.house.gov\/files\/evo-media-document\/2026-04-16-raskin-to-kushner-affinity-re-conflict-of-interest.pdf\">letter<\/a> that you sent a few weeks ago to the president\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner opened by saying, \u201cYou are now reportedly participating as \u2018Special Envoy for Peace\u2019 in negotiations on behalf of the United States government to address the roiling conflicts in the Middle East. At the same time, you are soliciting billions of dollars from Gulf monarchies for your private business ventures while already managing billions of dollars of their money in your international investment firm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The letter is meant to notify Kushner about a forthcoming investigation into his role in the administration and conflicts of interest. What do you hope to investigate here, and can you talk about what you find most concerning about Kushner\u2019s role in trying to negotiate an end to the war in Iran and being involved in other foreign policy ventures?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JR:<\/strong> Any reasonable person would see this as an absolute conflict of interest \u2014 that you can\u2019t serve two masters at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>So on the one hand, he\u2019s got billions of dollars from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/04\/10\/us\/jared-kushner-saudi-investment-fund.html\">Saudi Arabia<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/03\/30\/us\/politics\/jared-kushner-qatar-united-arab-emirates.html\">Qatar and the United Arab Emirates<\/a>, and they have specific interests of their own. Their leaders do, like Mohammed bin Salman, the homicidal crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/07\/17\/biden-saudi-arabia-israel-journalists-kill\/\">ordered<\/a> the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2019\/06\/20\/jamal-khashoggi-saudi-arabia-un-report\/\">assassination of Jamal Khashoggi<\/a>. They\u2019ve got particular interests.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been reported widely that his interest \u2014 and therefore Saudi Arabia\u2019s interest \u2014 is to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/24\/us\/politics\/saudi-prince-iran-trump.html\">keep the war going<\/a> for as long as possible. There\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2019\/05\/28\/arms-manufacturers-investors-iran-business\/\">money<\/a> to be made there, and they also want to do everything they can to degrade the power of Iran. That\u2019s one set of interests that Jared Kushner is representing. Those are his business partners, those are his clients.<\/p>\n<p>And at the same time, he\u2019s representing the United States. And I asked him the question straight up: Are you representing, 100%, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates and Qatar and your business with all of those people? Or are you representing, 100%, the people of the United States? Or do you think you\u2019re doing 50\/50? Everybody would see that as a dramatic, egregious conflict of interest to do it.<\/p>\n<p>But, of course, in the Trump era, the Trump officials see it not as a conflict of interest but as a convergence of interest. The way they think of it is, \u201cOh, this is great. We can go over, and we can talk about the war, and we can also talk about our business deals and recruit more clients and get more money from them.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cTrump officials see it not as a conflict of interest but as a convergence of interest.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>There was reportage about how he\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/13\/business\/jared-kushner-affinity-mideast-funds.html\">seeking to get even more billions of dollars <\/a>from them, which obviously means they have additional leverage beyond the money that they\u2019ve already put in. This has never happened in another presidency, anything remotely like it.<\/p>\n<p>So we want to investigate, to get to the bottom of exactly who he\u2019s representing. How is he representing himself? What is the mixture of private and public business he\u2019s conducting when he goes on these trips?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> The BBC also just published a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cge0grppe3po\">report<\/a> on insider trading around Trump\u2019s presidency amid questions about how markets have responded to the Iran war. The House Oversight Committee released a report earlier this year on Trump and his family <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/a-reporter-at-large\/trumps-profiteering-hits-four-billion-dollars\">profiteering<\/a> from his administration.<\/p>\n<p>Do you know if that\u2019s going anywhere, and are you looking into any of those issues in your capacity on the Judiciary Committee?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JR:<\/strong> Yes, because his sons clearly are <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/07\/28\/donald-trump-jr-son-drones-unusual-machines\/\">venturing<\/a> into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/politics\/company-backed-by-trump-sons-looks-to-sell-drone-interceptors-to-gulf-states-being-attacked-by-iran\">defense contracting <\/a>and are participating in various ventures where they are selling goods to the Department of Defense.<\/p>\n<p>So look, this is a president who started off in his first administration dipping his toes in the water to see what kind of reaction there would be to collecting millions of dollars from China and Saudi Arabia and Indonesia and Egypt and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/world\/article\/trump-hotels-received-millions-from-foreign-countries-during-presidency-nhv7wwtdg\">all of these countries<\/a> at the Trump hotels, at the Trump golf courses, the Trump resorts, some other independent business ventures \u2014 but it was basically \u201cma and pa\u201d brick-and-mortar-type ventures.<\/p>\n<p>Now they\u2019ve gone digital. They\u2019ve gone from millions of dollars to <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/08\/09\/trump-crypto-billionaire-accountable\/\">billions of dollars<\/a> with the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/05\/08\/democrats-trump-crypto-stablecoin-maxine-waters\/\">crypto schemes<\/a> and scams that they\u2019ve put together, with the military\u2013industrial complex. All bets are off at this point. They have thrown off any kind of guardrails or inhibitions.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I fault us for not having impeached him in the first term for violating the foreign emoluments clause and also the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2018\/06\/05\/zephyr-teachout-attorney-general-eric-schneiderman\/\">domestic emoluments clause<\/a>, which says that the president is limited to his salary in office and cannot receive any other money from the United States \u2014 and yet was <a href=\"https:\/\/oversightdemocrats.house.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/2024-10-18COA-DEM-Staff-Report-Domestic-Emoluments.pdf\">regularly billing<\/a> the Department of Defense, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2024\/oct\/18\/trump-overcharge-secret-service-hotel\">Secret Service<\/a>, the Department of Commerce, every other federal department for staying at his hotels, making them stay there, then billing them for it, and the golf courses, and so on and so forth.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Constitution tried to create a wall of separation between the president\u2019s private businesses and the public Treasury and the public good. Congress has to act. Obviously, our friends on the MAGA side are not going to act on this. But the Democrats will. We need to reestablish that wall of separation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> While I have you, I know you were on the floor on Wednesday for debate on extending FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and whether the government can conduct warrantless surveillance on the public. The <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/04\/29\/mike-johnson-crypto-freedom-caucus-fisa-surveillance\/\">House voted to pass<\/a> the surveillance program extension in the face of fierce opposition from critics and civil liberties advocates. What is the latest here?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JR:<\/strong> It\u2019s an interesting situation because Chairman Jim Jordan, my counterpart on the Judiciary Committee \u2014 I\u2019m the ranking member, he\u2019s the chairman for the Republicans \u2014 he represented. Nobody else was willing to speak for the FISA bill on the House side. He had no speakers participating in his roster. <\/p>\n<p>I had tons of people who wanted to speak against it and was able to have several of them do it. He was even uncharacteristically subdued in his presentation because he had taken the position historically that there needs to be a warrant requirement and probable cause before you start searching the foreign intelligence database drawn from all the communications companies, emails, texts, phone calls. But he\u2019s changed his position in working with the White House.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The press at least, is <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/house\/5789874-jim-jordan-fisa-702-spy-powers\">reporting<\/a> this has to do with his desire to become the next minority leader. So I do not think he advanced the most coherent arguments for this.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Our position was simple, which is that before you go searching about in querying information that exists in a foreign intelligence database that was gathered without any Fourth Amendment standards \u2014 no probable cause, no search warrant, none of it \u2014 before you go searching for the information about hundreds of millions of Americans, you\u2019ve got to go and talk to a judge first. The <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/11\/05\/collateral-damage-episode-five-fourth-amendment\/\">Fourth Amendment<\/a> says search warrants have to be based on probable cause, and you need to interpose a neutral, independent magistrate between the government and its detective work and its searches.<\/p>\n<p>They say, no, let\u2019s just leave it up to the FBI director to be reasonable. Well, that\u2019s Kash Patel. When there were complaints about that, even on the Republican side, they added something to say, Kash Patel has got to report what he\u2019s doing to Tulsi Gabbard. So if you think having Kash Patel report to Tulsi Gabbard is a great substitute for the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, go ahead and vote for this.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIf you think having Kash Patel report to Tulsi Gabbard is a great substitute for the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, go ahead and vote for this.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>But if you want to stand by the Constitution, this is not legislation for you. So the wheel is still in spin as we work our way back and forth between the House and the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>Kash Patel had been spending a lot of taxpayer money by getting FBI agents to shepherd and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/11\/14\/fbi-kash-patel-private-jet-tracking\/\">chauffeur his girlfriend<\/a> around the country for security and for transportation. When the New York Times somehow got ahold of that, somebody leaked it and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/28\/us\/politics\/kash-patel-girlfriend.html\">wrote a story about it<\/a>, Kash Patel\u2019s response was not, \u201cOh my God, I\u2019ve made such a mistake, I\u2019ve gotta apologize and stop using taxpayer money and SWAT teams to chauffeur my girlfriend around America.\u201d No. His response was, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/04\/22\/us\/politics\/fbi-times-reporter.html\">let\u2019s investigate her<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/04\/22\/us\/politics\/fbi-times-reporter.html\">Let\u2019s search all the databases that we\u2019ve got<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So if you think that\u2019s the guy you want to trust to be respecting the privacy rights of the American people and the Fourth Amendment rights \u2014 fine, this is for you. But we had more than a dozen Republicans join us after our debate in opposing it, the vast majority of Democrats voted against it, but they were able to win that one on the floor. <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/04\/29\/mike-johnson-crypto-freedom-caucus-fisa-surveillance\/\">We\u2019ll see where it goes<\/a>, and whether our friends on the Senate side can hang tough.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> Thank you so much, Congressman Raskin. <\/p>\n<p><strong>JR:<\/strong> Thanks for having me, Akela.<\/p>\n<p><!-- BLOCK(newsletter)[0](%7B%22componentName%22%3A%22NEWSLETTER%22%2C%22entityType%22%3A%22SHORTCODE%22%2C%22optional%22%3Atrue%7D)(%7B%7D) --><\/p>\n<div class=\"newsletter-embed flex-col items-center print:hidden\" id=\"third-party--article-mid\" data-module=\"InlineNewsletter\" data-module-source=\"web_intercept_20241230_Inline_Signup_Replacement\">\n<div class=\"-mx-5 sm:-mx-10 p-5 sm:px-10 xl:-ml-5 lg:mr-0 xl:px-5 bg-accentLight hidden\" data-name=\"subscribed\">\n<h2 class=\"font-sans font-light uppercase text-[30px] leading-8 text-white tracking-[0.01em] mb-0\">\n      We\u2019re independent of corporate interests \u2014 and powered by members. 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We\u2019ll also dive into other conspiracy theories currently capturing the public imagination, from dead and missing scientists to a wildfire in Georgia.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mike writes <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/author\/mikerothschild\">Rough Edges for TPM<\/a>, covering fringe groups, conspiracy theories, moral panics, and how the Internet broke our brains. He is the author of the first complete book on the QAnon conspiracy movement called \u201cThe Storm is Upon Us\u201d and most recently a 200 year history of conspiracy theories called \u201cJewish Space Lasers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mike, welcome to The Intercept Briefing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mike Rothschild:<\/strong> Thank you for having me.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL: <\/strong>Last week\u2019s attempt to assassinate Trump already feels far away. But this was the third such attempt after two other <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/04\/26\/trump-assassination-attempts-plots-timeline-whcd\">failed attacks <\/a>in recent years. One in Butler, Pennsylvania and another in West Palm Beach, Florida. Mike, one of the reasons that we wanted to bring you on the show is to discuss a growing chorus of online chatter claiming these assassination attempts were staged<\/p>\n<p>Even before the latest attempt at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner on Saturday, prominent MAGA voices like Marjorie Taylor Green were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/04\/20\/politics\/video\/ebof-mtg-maga-trump-assassination-attempt-butler\">raising questions<\/a>. Greene <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/mtgreenee\/status\/2045831708214272074\">wrote on X<\/a>, \u201cI\u2019m not calling the Butler assassination a hoax. But there are a lot of questions that deserve public answers. I\u2019m asking why won\u2019t Trump release the information about Matthew Crooks?\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/07\/14\/trump-rally-shooter-thomas-matthew-crooks\">Crooks<\/a> being the 20 year old gunman, killed by secret service while trying to attack Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania two years ago.<\/p>\n<p>To start, can you lay out what we know so far about what happened on Saturday and the suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, the 31 year old from Torrance, California? And then we\u2019ll get into the various conspiracy theories surrounding the shooting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR: <\/strong>For an incident that happened fairly recently, we know quite a bit. We know what his motive was because he sent a <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/04\/27\/white-house-correspondents-dinner-shooting-trump\/\">manifesto<\/a> to his friends and family. We know what he did because it was caught on camera. He was armed with a shotgun and knives. He ran toward a medal detector on the floor above where the actual White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner was taking place. He never got in the room. He never actually fired a shot at Trump or was even close. And he was subdued by the Secret Service and security and taken away. This is not the kind of thing where you would think that there would be conspiracy theories about it being fake because we have a timeline of what happened almost immediately.<\/p>\n<p>But we are so conditioned to distrust what we are being told by authorities that people immediately began concocting conspiracy theories about it even before we even knew what had happened. Whether it was a shooting or just dishes breaking.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> Let\u2019s unpack some of the \u201cfake shooting\u201d claims. You wrote on <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/rothschildmd.bsky.social\/post\/3mkemhkpsxc2l\">BlueSky<\/a> \u201cTrump keeps staging assassination attempts\u2019 is the same Infowars brainworm strain as \u2018Obama keeps staging mass shootings.\u2019 Different party, same paranoia.\u201d What are the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/streaming\/919291\/white-house-correspondents-dinner-conspiracy-videos-false-flag?utm_content=buffer177fb&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=bsky.app&amp;utm_campaign=verge_social\">conspiratorial claims <\/a>surrounding the assassination attempt on Saturday?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR:<\/strong> The biggest one is that it was staged, that Trump hired this person and set all of this up and that everyone in the room who needed to know where they were going to go, knew about it, and you could tell from the looks on their faces and the way security acted, and he was staging all of this so that he could bump his approval ratings or that he could create more interest for his super mega ballroom bunker.<\/p>\n<p>All of these are things that have been said about other incidents involving Trump. It\u2019s just that it happened incredibly quickly. I don\u2019t think we even had the name of the suspect before people started saying that it was staged.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> You also had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/politics\/fact-checking-misinformation-about-the-correspondents-dinner-shooting\">Karoline Leavitt <\/a>having said there will be shots fired tonight and people taking that and running with it as the verbal version of numerology. I don\u2019t know what the word for that is.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR:<\/strong> Right. There is actually a term for it. It\u2019s this term called \u201cpredictive programming.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL: <\/strong>Thank you. Thank you.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR: <\/strong>Yes, I wish I didn\u2019t know that. In the conspiracy world, it means that the cabal that perpetrates these plots has to tell us what they\u2019re going to do for karmic reasons, but they do it in a way that we won\u2019t understand it. You get this a lot with the Simpsons ironically, or other pieces of entertainment where there\u2019s a clue to some upcoming event that\u2019s hidden in a cutaway on the Simpsons or in the plot of something, and it\u2019s the cabal telling us what they have to do.<\/p>\n<p>I once had somebody say, \u201cOh, it\u2019s like vampires, they have to be invited into your house.\u201d And I said, \u201cwell, vampires aren\u2019t real either.\u201d It\u2019s like come on, what are we doing?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> [Laughs.] What are we doing? That is the question though. What makes these conspiracy theories take hold as opposed to coming out of something like this with more of a collective sense of an effort to address gun violence, or talk about how these incidents are used to police dissent and criticism of the president.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Last year we had the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/06\/20\/minnesota-lawmaker-shootings-disinformation-taylor-lorenz\/\">Minnesota lawmaker <\/a>and her husband who were killed in their home by a Trump supporter who had radical anti-abortion views. This is in the vein of our longstanding inability to address mass shootings, but what makes it easier to respond to something like that with a conspiracy theory rather than some other kind of response?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR:<\/strong> Conspiracy theories are easy. They don\u2019t require any evidence. They don\u2019t require any research or self-reflection looking at an incident where the highest ranked people in the United States are all in one room and the security isn\u2019t as tight as it should be, and guns are too easy to get, and there\u2019s too many people who have mental illness because they\u2019ve been radicalized and brain poisoned on the internet.<\/p>\n<p>Those are really difficult issues to solve. They go to the core of American politics and communication right now, but just deciding that it was staged so that the president could get his ballroom bunker or get five points on his approval rating that\u2019s easy. That doesn\u2019t take any effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And then you can do it immediately. If you do it well, you can get viral clout out of it. You get clicks, you make money. It\u2019s a very easy solution to a very, very complicated problem.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> Right now, in the political environment that we\u2019re in there\u2019s always a rush after these shootings to ascribe either far-left or far-right extremism to the suspect or the assailant.<\/p>\n<p>We saw that in this case, where it turns out he seems like a pretty <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/04\/27\/white-house-correspondents-dinner-shooting-trump\/\">normal centrist,<\/a> liberal Democrat. After the Minnesota killing of Melissa Hortman and her husband, we spoke to journalist <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/06\/20\/minnesota-lawmaker-shootings-disinformation-taylor-lorenz\/\">Taylor Lorenz<\/a> about how quick prominent figures on the right took to social media to blame the left for their deaths.<\/p>\n<p>Utah Senator Mike Lee said it was due to \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/minnesotareformer.com\/2025\/06\/16\/sen-mike-lee-outrages-minnesotans-with-social-media-jabs-about-hortman-murder\/\">Marxism<\/a>.\u201d Elon Musk claimed it was the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/opinion\/msnbc-opinion\/minnesota-shootings-suspect-elon-musk-response-conspiracies-rcna213152\">far left<\/a>.\u201d Donald Trump Jr., the president\u2019s son, said it \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/7295227\/minnesota-shooting-marxism-utah-senator\/\">seems to be a leftist<\/a>.\u201d Lorenz said, \u201cThere\u2019s an entire right-wing media machine aimed at pushing disinformation around breaking news events and specifically attributing violence to the left.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s your assessment of how this dynamic works and how it worked in this last shooting as well?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR:<\/strong> There is. We don\u2019t know how organized or coordinated this apparatus is, but it clearly exists. Minutes after this incident broke on social media, you already had people, \u201cOh, that\u2019s why we need the ballroom. We gotta have more security around the president. He needs to have his bunker where he can never leave.\u201d You had dozens of extremely popular influencers and politicians all saying this at the same time. These people they coordinate their messaging because that\u2019s what you do in politics.<\/p>\n<p>So I think there is a very real apparatus designed to push the blame onto a convenient scapegoat. Usually someone who is not aligned with the president\u2019s values and to turn it into something that the president can use for his own ends. Some of that I think revolves around this particular president having a very vocal cult of personality around him.<\/p>\n<p>But I think it\u2019s also that we are so used to things happening very quickly and immediately being seized upon for political ends. We all do this now. It\u2019s just that the right is a lot better at it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> The other piece of this is that Donald Trump himself \u2014 his political career \u2014 has been fueled by conspiracy theories that propelled him to the White House. How has Trump in particular used that race that we\u2019re talking about to ascribe blame and the current media environment that has elevated conspiracy theories to where they\u2019re now shaping national discourse and even policy? We could talk about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/saradorn\/2024\/11\/15\/rfk-jrs-conspiracy-theories-heres-what-trumps-pick-for-health-secretary-has-promoted\/\">RFK, Jr.<\/a> all day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR:<\/strong> Donald Trump was really the first conspiracy theorist presidential candidate. He rose to political power certainly based on his celebrity and his apparent wealth, but also because he was able to say things that had been very popular on the fringes for a long time that the mainstream right really didn\u2019t want anything to do with.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Things like Barack Obama wasn\u2019t born in the United States. Antonin Scalia was murdered. Obama is secretly a Muslim. Vaccines cause autism. These are things that mainstream Republicans wanted absolutely nothing to do with. But they were incredibly popular on the sort of fringes and sometimes not the fringes of the far-right.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If you look in the history of these things, you look at some of the more popular conspiracy theory books \u2014 and I\u2019ve written about this before \u2014 you have the 1970s book, \u201cNone Dare Call It Conspiracy,\u201d which was written by two members of the John Birch Society, the far right anti-communist group. It sold 5 million copies in the United States in the early \u201970s. Clearly there is a market for this, and clearly there are a lot of people who believe this.<\/p>\n<p>Trump was just the first person to say it in a way that made it mainstream grist for discourse. And of course, everybody\u2019s now catching up to him. So when Trump spouts these insane conspiracy theories or pushes these ridiculous memes, he\u2019s doing something that he\u2019s been doing for the last decade and he\u2019s very good at, and that people expect from him and want from him. He\u2019s filling this niche that I think a lot of people didn\u2019t want to believe was there.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> If you look at the current podcast charts in the news or politics category or the top YouTube shows, you\u2019ll find shows swimming in conspiracy theories topping those charts like Candace Owens\u2019s podcast. We know the media environment is fragmented. We have a problem with media literacy, yada, yada. But is there a way to come back from that level of saturation of conspiracy is now the most popular form of media consumption? What do we do with that?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR:<\/strong> Unfortunately I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s a way to do it at scale. I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s a way to glue everyone\u2019s brains back together after 10 years of this insanity, because I think it is extremely lucrative.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> What an image.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR:<\/strong> Yeah. It\u2019s extremely lucrative and it really fills a need that a lot of people have. These are very chaotic times. I think people flock to conspiracy theories and conspiracy theory content creators because these are the people who are saying, \u201cYeah, this is all crazy, but here\u2019s what\u2019s really going on.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There is a kind of a smugness to the conspiracy theory world. This idea of I know something you don\u2019t know. I\u2019ve got the secret knowledge. I know what\u2019s really happening and I\u2019m going to share it with you because you think I\u2019m the crazy one, but I think you\u2019re the crazy one. And that\u2019s just a very basic human nature kind of thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> When you talk about feeling this need, I think that\u2019s really a key piece of it because it brings to mind what Cole wrote in his manifesto about feeling like he was filling this role that no one else was taking up \u2014 this responsibility to fight back against these sort of like raging evils in the administration, some of which is fueled by conspiracy. He writes a lot about the Epstein stuff, which we\u2019ll get into, which is ironically the least conspiratorial part of this. It\u2019s just real and horrible.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But he talks about feeling like nobody else was going to pick up the torch and do this. That is interesting to me that that sense of finding meaning in something or taking responsibility where no one else will take it, is also caught up in how we come to believe these conspiracy theories in the first place.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR:<\/strong> There\u2019s a grandiosity to this. There\u2019s a messianic fervor to a lot of these things. You hear it if you listen to Alex Jones. I\u2019m standing in the gap against evil and they\u2019re all coming after me because they know I\u2019m a threat. It\u2019s the same thing, it\u2019s the same delusions of grandeur.<\/p>\n<p>Now with somebody like Alex Jones or Candace Owens or Tucker [Carlson], you wonder how much of that is a character. Not all of it, but some of it is.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With a guy like Cole, it\u2019s not. He really believes this, and there is of course an inherent irrationality to strapping up a shotgun and going to try to kill the president. It\u2019s not something a rational person does.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> In Trump\u2019s second term, there are also some signs that some of these conspiracy theorists are <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/cafe\/donald-trump-became-president-by-appealing-to-conspiracy-theorists-now-hes-driving-them-away\">breaking with him<\/a>, including prominent figures that we\u2019re talking about, like Candace Owens and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Where and when did you begin to see cracks in that part of Trump\u2019s allies and what is driving those fractures?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR:<\/strong> The Trump relationship with the conspiracy community it\u2019s very hot and cold. They will turn on him, but then they\u2019ll always come back. But when they really did start to lose faith, I think for good and much more vocally was Epstein.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This idea that we\u2019re going to break open the Epstein files, we\u2019re going to put everything out there. They had that infamous meeting at the White House with the Epstein files, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/politics\/a-look-at-how-the-epstein-files-dogged-pam-bondis-time-as-attorney-general\">phase one binders<\/a>, and they\u2019re all standing there looking very smug.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Then Trump goes, oh, there\u2019s nothing there. There\u2019s no Epstein files. It\u2019s a hoax. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/07\/16\/nx-s1-5469874\/trump-blames-democrats-for-epstein-controversy-as-some-republicans-urge-transparency\">The Democrats did that.<\/a> Biden and Obama did the Epstein files. You know anyone who thinks that is an idiot.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>These are influencers who helped get him back into office. Trump is now telling them <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.com\/Politics\/trump-blasts-epstein-files-release-supporters\/story?id=123799343\">they\u2019re idiots<\/a> for believing what he said he was going to do about Epstein. You can only humiliate somebody so many times before they actually start to have feelings.<\/p>\n<p>So I think we started to see it happen with Epstein and then it really happened with Iran. The <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/06\/podcast-trump-iran-israel-war\/\">Iran war<\/a> really was an abrogation of what Trump said he stood for. He said up and down, I\u2019m the peace president. There\u2019s not going to be any more stupid Middle East forever wars. We\u2019re going to be America first. We\u2019re going to go back to isolationism. We\u2019re not getting involved. Maybe we\u2019ll bomb them if we have to, but we\u2019re not going to war.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Then we go to war. And we go to war for reasons nobody can articulate. The reason changes constantly. We don\u2019t know what the objective is. We don\u2019t know how we know if we\u2019ve achieved the objective. It just looks like yet another Middle Eastern misadventure.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A lot of these people realized their audiences are turning on Trump. If you\u2019re somebody like Tucker or Alex or Candace Owens, you know that you can\u2019t trust Trump, but you still feel stupid. You have feelings, you\u2019re still a person. So I think there is a sense of betrayal and of feeling dumb.<\/p>\n<p>But more than that, they know their audiences are feeling betrayed and dumb. They know their audiences thought we were going to get $2 gas prices. That hasn\u2019t happened. Our electric bills are going to get cut in half. That hasn\u2019t happened. We were going to have so much tariff money we wouldn\u2019t need to pay income tax. That hasn\u2019t happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So these people are feeling the effect of Trump\u2019s lying and storytelling in their pocketbooks and in their fuel tanks. And now they\u2019re getting told, yeah, Iran, we gotta go to a war with Iran. You said you weren\u2019t going to go to a war with Iran.<\/p>\n<p>His audiences are feeling betrayed and the influencers are going where their audiences are going because they know they\u2019ve got to start getting ready for a post-Trump world. They just have to do it a little bit faster than they thought they were going to have to.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> You\u2019ve also written extensively about the right-wing conspiracy movement QAnon.<\/p>\n<p>In a story you <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/cafe\/how-the-epstein-files-reveal-the-final-failure-of-qanon\">wrote for TPM<\/a> recently, you wrote about how the movement differs from the Epstein case. You wrote, \u201cWhere QAnon was different, and where it failed spectacularly, was in promising that justice would finally be delivered to these untouchable insiders. It offered believers not nihilistic scapegoating, but a utopia that was just a few executions away. The basis of Q, and why it was so compelling to so many people, was that the monsters were finally going to be brought down by Donald Trump, a figure of outsider wealth beholden to nobody except those who elected him.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Can you talk about how these worlds intersect \u2014 the Epstein and QAnon conspiracies \u2014 and what it says about both our political discourse, but also accountability and lack thereof?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR:<\/strong> Lack thereof. Yeah. I don\u2019t want to get too deep into the weeds on the Q drops because no one will survive that. But Epstein is a central figure in this world. This idea that he\u2019s got this satanic temple and these tunnels and he\u2019s trafficking all these girls on the planes with Bill Clinton and all these super elite power brokers and Trump is going to take them down. That was always the biggest part of it. That these people have been an untouchable cabal for thousands of years, and it\u2019s Donald Trump who\u2019s finally going to take them down.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But of course he\u2019s not. So you need an explanation for why he\u2019s not doing it. So something like QAnon invents an explanation of he\u2019s doing it, it\u2019s just in secret, and it\u2019s happening in all of these ways that the public doesn\u2019t know about, but I\u2019m going to tell you about them so that you don\u2019t lose faith.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At some point you have to start delivering. I think there was a sense when Trump came back into office of, \u201cOK we\u2019re going to get rid of all this. We\u2019re going to undo the stolen election, we\u2019re going to undo all the COVID stuff. We\u2019re going to finally bring down the elite trafficking rings. Like no one\u2019s standing in Trump\u2019s way.\u201d Then he just says, the whole thing is stupid and nothing\u2019s going to happen, and you\u2019re an idiot if you believed him.<\/p>\n<p>So the idea of Q was right because there\u2019s elite traffickers. Well, there\u2019s always been elites who\u2019ve gotten away with terrible things that the rest of us would all be in prison for. The point of QAnon was that they were going to go down, they were going to be punished, they were going to be executed, they were going to be mass arrests, and Trump was going to get rid of all of these people.<\/p>\n<p>Trump hasn\u2019t gotten rid of them. He\u2019s protected all of them. You\u2019re finally seeing some of the rank and file Trump believers who are still maybe hardcore conspiracy believers going, \u201cYeah, this guy lied to us. The whole time he\u2019s lied to us.\u201d It is a moment where everything that you have created for yourself over the last decade is starting to fall apart because there was never anything there.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s actually how a lot of deradicalization starts. One thing doesn\u2019t make sense in the world of conspiracies. When you start looking into that one thing, the whole thing falls apart. Now, I don\u2019t know that these people are going to be deradicalized.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t think a lot of these conspiracy influencers are giving up on the precepts of Trumpism, but they\u2019re giving up on Trump. That\u2019s at least something for us to grab onto. Not with Tucker Carlson, but with the people who listen to Tucker Carlson.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> I want to move on to the other conspiracy theories that have been capturing the public\u2019s attention right now.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve been talking a lot about Trump-world conspiracy theories, many of which are now coming back to bite him. But there is a sort of unrelated conspiracy theory that\u2019s been gaining momentum recently that the president is paying attention to and that Republicans are now trying to capitalize on, I would say. This is about the <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/cafe\/whats-really-underpinning-the-missing-scientists-conspiracy-theory\">dead and missing scientists<\/a>. Walk us through that. I know you\u2019ve written about this recently.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR:<\/strong> So this conspiracy theory is a very old one. There have been many other conspiracy theories that involve lists of people that are being bumped off by certain powerful figures because they knew too much or it\u2019s part of a plot.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You had this with the Clinton body count, the Kennedy witnesses. You go all the way back to King Tut\u2019s curse \u2014 people who were involved in the opening of King Tut\u2019s tomb were all being killed. So in the case of the missing scientists, it\u2019s this list of around a dozen people who are said to be scientists \u2014 not all of them are \u2014 who supposedly work in high technology, defense, aerospace, but also UFOs, free energy, anti-gravity, exoplanets.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been turned into this, all of these scientists involved in alien technology are being kidnapped and what are they really doing? And oh my God, it\u2019s so horrible. I\u2019ve seen these things before and actually one of the clusters of these missing scientists is where I live in Pasadena, California at JPL.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I know a lot of people who work at JPL. I\u2019ve toured JPL. Thousands of people work there. The idea that three or four of them over the course of a couple of years would have something unfortunate happen to them is not at all a conspiracy, just the same as a few people working at Los Alamos in New Mexico, bad things happening to a few people there. Not a conspiracy, it\u2019s just statistics.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Linking all of these people together creates a conspiracy theory out of nothing and there\u2019s no indication of what this plot actually is. So one of these people was an expert in plasma physics. One was an expert in exoplanets. One was a pharmaceutical executive. One of them was an administrative assistant who worked at Los Alamos. One was a construction foreman at JPL, I think. None of these people have anything to do with each other, except they all are science adjacent, like millions of other people in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>So you have a conspiracy theory that is working purely on people\u2019s lack of understanding about statistics, lack of understanding about science, and of course, this UAP craze that we\u2019re going through right now. So it\u2019s taking a fragment of pop culture and turning it into a dastardly plot.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And because of course, the White House is full of conspiracy theorists, they\u2019re able to talk about this, and then they go, oh yeah we\u2019re investigating that. We\u2019re going to get to the bottom of it. There\u2019s nothing to investigate, there\u2019s nothing to get to the bottom of, except they need more content. They know that people are hungry for more conspiracies. Here\u2019s a really juicy one that you can just serve up to people.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> So you mentioned JPL, that\u2019s NASA\u2019s jet Propulsion Laboratory and UAP is what we\u2019re calling UFOs now?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR:<\/strong> What we\u2019re calling UFOs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> The new term for UFOs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I will mention that the FBI is now saying that it. Looking into connections between these missing and dead scientists. On Monday, the Republican led House Oversight Committee announced that it is also investigating reports of the deaths and disappearances.<\/p>\n<p>They released a <a href=\"https:\/\/oversight.house.gov\/release\/comer-burlison-seek-information-on-missing-nuclear-and-rocket-scientists\/\">statement<\/a> saying that \u201creports raise questions about a possible sinister connection between \u2026 [these] disappearances.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR: <\/strong>[Laughs.] Oh God.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL: <\/strong>So, that is how the government is addressing this right now.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Then actually, I saw this as we were preparing for the show. I had not heard about this, but I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve seen, there\u2019s another story about conspiracy theories that this wildfire in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsbtv.com\/news\/local\/georgia-wildfires-online-conspiracy-theories-about-highway-82-fire-not-helpful\/INYMQSPBFRFTFD5QTA7ZSX756Q\/\">Georgia<\/a> was staged to clear the path for a data center.<\/p>\n<p>Have you heard about that?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR:<\/strong> I\u2019ve heard a little bit about it. I am not surprised. I can tell you firsthand about wildfire conspiracy theories. We lost our home in the Eaton fire in January of 2025. I\u2019m actually writing a book about it right now.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL: <\/strong>Oh gosh. That\u2019s awful. I\u2019m sorry.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR: <\/strong>Yeah. Not been my favorite couple of years, but hey, that\u2019s OK. The exact same theories were spread about the fire that I went through that it was set to clear land for a smart city in Malibu that it was set to destroy evidence of trafficking or to build Olympic venues. It is the same strain of paranoia as the missing scientists.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s something that wasn\u2019t supposed to happen, and we don\u2019t understand why it\u2019s happening, and therefore there must be a plot behind it. There is something behind it. It\u2019s climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> It\u2019s climate change.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR: <\/strong>But that\u2019s the thing that people people don\u2019t ever want to talk about.\u00a0So they make up something so they don\u2019t have to talk about the actual reasons why these things are happening more frequently. Climate change isn\u2019t the only reason, but it\u2019s a big reason. The more you create these fantastical conspiracy theories, the less you have to talk about the actual thing that\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a psychology that we\u2019re seeing over and over again.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> You wrote a <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/cafe\/what-the-difference-between-conspiracies-and-conspiracy-theories-tells-us-about-american-history-and-about-now\">200 year history<\/a> about conspiracy theories. They obviously aren\u2019t new, but what does that history tell us about American political culture? Is this unique at all to the United States? How has it evolved over the centuries and how would you characterize the moment that we\u2019re living in now?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR:<\/strong> It\u2019s a useful question in the context of the speed that everything is happening at. Conspiracy theories are not new to the United States. They\u2019re not inherent to the U.S.. They have been part of human interaction always. If you go back to the great fire of Rome, there were whispers that Nero had set it on purpose for his own political ends.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s just how we look at things. We look at things we don\u2019t understand that are dangerous, and we create a plot and we create reasons why these things are happening.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>We live in these extremely chaotic times where a lot of things are happening very quickly. We don\u2019t understand them. We don\u2019t have the trust in the authorities who are supposed to tell us why these things are happening and break them out for us.<\/p>\n<p>So we listen to people who are telling us what we want to hear, who are making us feel better, and making us feel like someone is in control of all of this. It hits on a very particular human need for patterns and for order and for understanding.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So yes, we are certainly in a time when conspiracy theories are much more mainstream than they\u2019ve ever been, much more lucrative than they\u2019ve ever been. But we\u2019ve always had a strain of distrust and paranoia.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s very American, but it\u2019s not exclusively American. It\u2019s just that right now we are in a time when we can all connect with each other. These people used to be siloed and isolated. No one wanted to talk to them or be around them. Now they find each other and they create communities and they create Facebook groups and message boards.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes if they\u2019re really good at what they do, they can get elected to office or write bestselling books. This stuff is just everywhere now. Everybody seems to know somebody who\u2019s going through some version of this, and it\u2019s very unfortunate.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> We\u2019re going to leave it there.<\/p>\n<p>Mike Rothschild, thank you so much for joining me on The Intercept Briefing. This is one of our more fun and disturbing interviews.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MR:<\/strong> Fun for me maybe. Thank you. This was great.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL: <\/strong>And that does it for this episode.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This episode was produced by Laura Flynn. Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief. Maia Hibbett is our Managing Editor. Chelsey B. Coombs is our social and video producer. Fei Liu is our product and design manager. Nara Shin is our copy-editor. Will Stanton mixed our show. Legal review by David Bralow.<\/p>\n<p>Slip Stream provided our theme music.<\/p>\n<p>This show and our reporting at The Intercept do not exist without you. Your donation, no matter the amount, makes a real difference. Keep our investigations free and fearless at theintercept.com\/join.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And if you haven\u2019t already, please subscribe to The Intercept Briefing wherever you listen to podcasts. And leave us a rating or a review, it helps other listeners to find us.<\/p>\n<p>Let us know what you think of this episode, or if you want to send us a general message, email us at <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/05\/01\/white-house-correspondents-dinner-conspiracy-theories\/mailto:podcasts@theintercept.com\">podcasts@theintercept.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Until next time, I\u2019m Akela Lacy.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/05\/01\/white-house-correspondents-dinner-conspiracy-theories\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner last weekend became the site of the third failed attempt to assassinate President Donald Trump. \u201cI remember the feeling was very similar to when it was clear that the House had been invaded on January 6, 2021,\u201d Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who was in attendance, tells The Intercept Briefing. \u201cEverybody [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}