Another Assassination Attempt, More Fertilizer ...

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner last weekend became the site of the third failed attempt to assassinate President Donald Trump. “I remember the feeling was very similar to when it was clear that the House had been invaded on January 6, 2021,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who was in attendance, tells The Intercept Briefing. “Everybody was afraid that somebody had come in with an AR-15 or something like that.” This week on the podcast, host Akela Lacy speaks to Raskin about his experience at the dinner and later being asked by CNN’s Dana Bash about whether he’s thinking twice about his “heated rhetoric” toward Trump. “It 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,” says Raskin. “He calls people crazy, insane. He calls people evil, wicked. He will buttonhole reporters and tell them that they’re stupid, they’re ugly. … But we try to keep it at the level of policies and their actions.” Some examples, which Raskin discusses, is his forthcoming investigation into Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s role in the administration and conflicts of interest, and his fight in Congress to stop the reauthorization of warrantless surveillance on Americans. After this latest assassination attempt on Trump’s life, claims that it was staged flooded the internet, from comments section to social media posts to videos of influencers dissecting alleged evidence. “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,” says journalist Mike Rothschild. He’s the author of “The Storm is Upon Us,” the first complete book on the QAnon conspiracy movement, and more recently, a 200-year history of conspiracy theories called “Jewish Space Lasers.” 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 dead and missing scientists and a wildfire in Georgia. “This is one of our more fun and disturbing interviews,” says Lacy. For more, listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen. Correction: May 4, 2026 In a previous version of this episode, there was an errant reference to Janet Mills and Graham Platner being close in the polls before Mills dropped out. That reference has been removed; Platner was ahead of Mills in polling. Akela Lacy: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing. I’m Akela Lacy, senior politics reporter for The Intercept. Katherine Krueger: And I’m Katherine Krueger, the Voices editor at The Intercept. AL: Katherine, do you want to tell our listeners a little bit about what Voices is before we jump into the show today? KK: Voices is basically The Intercept’s op-ed section 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. AL: An Intercept editorial board, if you will. KK: Yes, I’m a one-woman editorial board. [Laughs.] AL: Speaking of opinions on the news of the day, I am going to throw several topics at you. [Laughs.] KK: OK. Hit me. AL: On Thursday morning, news broke that Janet Mills is dropping out of the Maine Senate race. Katherine, what was your reaction to seeing that? KK: 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. In a statement she put out, she’s 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. No one at DNC national was pulling for Platner. AL: Yeah, this was pretty shocking to me. I also got an AP alert on Wednesday evening. The title was “Underdog Governor,” and the dek was “Democratic Maine Governor Janet Mills says she’s used to being underestimated even as she runs for Senate at age 78.” Literally 12 hours later, Janet Mills is dropping out of the race for U.S. Senate. 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 “[Maine Sen. Susan] Collins has never been more vulnerable” — what? “We will work with the presumptive Democratic nominee, Graham Platner, to defeat her.” [Laughs.] KK: Yeah, it’s a bit strange. Also, I just love the framing in that headline, which is “underdog governor” — don’t 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. My jaw dropped when I saw the news. It seems out of nowhere. AL: Also in midterms and voting rights news, on Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued a decision that rolled back voting rights. This was focused on a case in Louisiana. After that decision, Louisiana postponed its May 16 primary. Which is kind of insane, considering that that was supposed to happen in two weeks. KK: 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’m sure, will look to redraw their maps in even more draconian ways. AL: 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 authorize warrantless surveillance of Americans. There’s 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 reopen DHS on Thursday. 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’ 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? KK: Well, it does seem that the Republicans are pretty desperate to restore this funding. You know, as an op-ed editor — Democrats need to hold the line on this. AL: It’s my understanding that this bill will pay for DHS operations except ICE and parts of Border Patrol through September 30. Those agencies are already being generously funded by the Trump so-called Big Beautiful Bill that approved a record $85 billion for immigration crackdowns. KK: 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. AL: 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’ Dinner during the shooting attempt. 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. KK: Akela, you got really great details from Rep. Raskin from inside the Correspondents’ Dinner. So let’s listen to that conversation now. AL: Welcome to the Intercept Briefing, Rep. Raskin. Rep. Jamie Raskin: Great to see you, Akela. AL: So you were at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday evening. Tell us what you witne…

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Another Assassination Attempt, More Fertilizer for Conspiracy Theories