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The Media's Latest Spin Covering Trump's Assassination Attempt Shows They Don't Know What to Do

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  July 14, 2024 6:00 PM

Former President Donald Trump barely survived an assassination attempt yesterday in Butler, Pennsylvania. Two others were injured in the crossfire, and another attendee was tragically killed. The bullet grazed Trump’s ear, missing a kill shot to his head by millimeters. He’s lucky to be alive. The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was able to scale a nearby rooftop less than 150 yards from the stage. It was a clear vantage point that the Secret Service left open. Yet, the media’s reaction to this shooting has been hot garbage. 

Like with their reluctant disposition in aggressively covering Biden’s declining mental health, the media was doing a full-court press, noting Joe’s mental slippage, reporting on the ongoing plot to replace him on the ticket, and pressuring Democrats to give their remarks about the turmoil embroiling the Democratic Party. That all got wiped away, as the media writ large is trying to sanitize what happened in Butler to avoid helping Trump. 

It’s the same old nonsense again, but it’s even more explicit this time because this event is national news and a political crisis. The media seems incapable of telling the truth, instead playing this word game to avoid saying two words: assassination attempt. And if it’s not that, we have a few hosts from major networks that blamed Trump for his own assassination attempt for not toning down the rhetoric. The hypocrisy has reached radioactive levels in the past 36 hours. Some outlets have eschewed reporting on the assassination attempt altogether, like The New Republic: 

CNN played the ‘both sides’ game: 

The Guardian straight-up lied about Trump demanding revenge: 

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Newsweek got a little conspiratorial—I’ll just leave this here:

Forbes went off the rails here:

And finally, CNN was not happy with Trump yelling “fight” to his supporters as he was led away to safety by the Secret Service:

ABC News' Martha Raddatz seemed to blame Trump for his own assassination attempt as well. It's bonkers:

Trump’s shooter was insane, but the legacy press and their attempt to be viewed as truth-tellers and agents of calm is also certifiable behavior. Who peddled conspiracy theories about Trump, the hyperbolic warnings that he’d be a dictator, and many other things that Joe Biden often repeats? It’s the media—this gaslighting attempt won’t resonate, and it again makes the entire industry look grossly out of touch.

UPDATE: Forbes deleted the article: