It takes a special kind of cynicism—or desperation—to claim that a presidential assassination attempt was faked. But Joy Reid has managed to make herself the spokesperson for exactly that fringe theory. During her appearance with fellow progressive pundit Katie Phang, Reid unspooled a conspiracy-laden monologue so devoid of logic that it would make Alex Jones blush—and not because it was too bold, but because it was too incoherent.
Let’s be clear: Reid didn’t just question the details of the July 2024 shooting that nearly killed Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. She questioned whether it happened at all. “He’s got these magical doctors,” she sneered, mocking the team that treated Trump’s very real gunshot wound. “His ear, I guess, grew back.” One moment he had a bandage, she says, and the next he didn’t—proof, apparently, that the entire event was staged. At this point, even The Onion would struggle to out-satirize her.
Joy Reid claims that "magical doctors" were able to cover-up a conspiracy that President Trump was not actually shot. pic.twitter.com/OAQYJ94KiP
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 3, 2025
Katie Phang, eager to keep pace, joked about Trump “slapping a maxi pad on his ear.” That’s the level of discourse we're dealing with. And remember, these are the same people who insisted for years that “words matter,” especially when discussing political violence. But when it's Trump who nearly loses his life to a would-be assassin? Suddenly it’s open mic night for late-night comedy rejects.
Reid rambled on, claiming she knows more about McKinley’s assassination in 1901 than the Trump shooting in 2024. One wonders if she also knows more about Caesar’s stabbing or Archduke Ferdinand’s final drive through Sarajevo. What she doesn’t seem to know, however, is that an armed gunman was killed by Secret Service snipers on live camera after murdering one rallygoer and seriously wounding two others. Medical teams responded within seconds. The entire nation watched Trump bleed from the head before raising a clenched, bloodied fist—a moment of unmistakable symbolism that even critics admitted was a turning point.
To deny that moment requires a deliberate detachment from reality, or worse—a calculated manipulation of it.
🔥🚨BREAKING: Actress known for her role in “Insecure” Amanda Seales said that Donald Trump's assassination attempt was staged.
Seales: “That sh*# was more staged than a Tyler Perry production of Madea Runs for President
I lived in Harlem long enough to know gunshots do not… pic.twitter.com/8Omo4xWUAN
— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) July 14, 2024
And let’s not pretend Reid is alone. Actress Amanda Seales dismissed the assassination attempt as “more staged than a Tyler Perry production,” while Democratic donor advisor Dmitri Mehlhorn suggested the whole thing might be a “Putin play.” If these are serious voices in modern political discourse, then we are not in the realm of analysis. We are in the realm of performance.
What makes this worse is that it’s not accidental. Joy Reid doesn’t believe Trump staged his own assassination attempt any more than she believes in time travel or dragons. What she does believe in is feeding her audience exactly what they want: a world where Trump is always the villain, even when he’s bleeding from a gunshot wound. Even when a man tried to kill him.
