When it comes to Trump’s US election campaign I’m all ears - Vladimir McTavish

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

The past week has seen calls from various high-profile Democrat backers like George Clooney, for Joe Biden to stand down. This followed a series of slips and gaffes, the most recent being mixing up Zelensky and Putin. Then we saw the news reports of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

I am not normally someone who buys into conspiracy theories. I tend to largely believe what I read in the papers or see on TV.

Call me naive, but I believe 9/11 was a terrorist attack, I am convinced man landed on the Moon and I’m certain the Covid vaccine was safe.

However, events of the past seven days have left me deeply sceptical. While there was an almost immediate outbreak of speculation on social media, the mainstream press and broadcasters have been conspicuously quiet about any alternative narrative surrounding last weekend’s shooting. There is hardly even a mention of the possibility that the entire event was staged.

Then in Tuesday’s Guardian, I read a short piece on the subject. It drew my attention to posts that had begun trending on X and other platforms.

Reading through them, some do make compelling points. What makes me think that this could be some kind of stage-managed stunt is the man at the centre of the entire story. Namely Donald Trump. The man who invented Fake News.

This is a man whose hateful rhetoric stirred up an angry armed mob to storm the Capitol with the aim of murdering elected senators. This is the man who attempted to fraudulently overturn the 2020 election.

This is a man who contracted Covid during the 2020 campaign, but instead of self-isolating carried on shaking hands on the campaign trail while not wearing a mask. In a country where the death toll from the virus topped two million.

Let’s not forget this is a man who once boasted "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"

And so to events of last Saturday. It all seems too convenient. He avoided death by inches through moving his head at precisely the right time.

He then appeared the next day, fit as a fiddle, with an enormous bandage on his ear which covered no obvious wound.

We don’t know what motivated the marksman because he was immediately shot dead rather than arrested. So now we’ll never know. All we will be left with is speculation and where speculation hovers, conspiracy walks hand-in-hand.

Since last Saturday’s shooting, a family has been tragically robbed of a heroic father and husband, Joe Biden has been accused by Trump supporters of inciting the marksman. Like he’s capable of doing that when he can’t even tell the difference between Zelensky and Putin. At the end of the day, only one person has benefited. Donald Trump.

I am not claiming that the assassination attempt was staged. I am suggesting that the media should have a much more open mind about whether such a likelihood is possible.

Is Donald Trump capable of staging a faked assassination attempt? Read the previous 500 words, and make up your own mind.