Did conservative political commentator and podcaster Tucker Carlson say, "Trump faked his assassination attempt in Butler," Pa., in July 2024? No, that's not true: Carlson has asked questions about the Butler assassination plot. But there are no reliable reports to support the claim that he ever said the attack on then-candidate Donald Trump was staged.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the Josh Helfgott account on Facebook on April 9, 2026. It read:
BREAKING🚨 Tucker Carlson, citing Joe Kent says 'Trump faked his assassination attempt in Butler.'
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by Josh Helfgott on Facebook.)
Lead Stories searched Google News (archived here) and Yahoo! News (archived here) and did not find any matching reports for "Tucker Carlson said 'Trump faked his assassination attempt in Butler.'" Had Carlson said that, it would have been widely reported by major news outlets.
Carlson did question the FBI's handling of the investigation into the assassination attempt in a post (archived here) on his X account on Nov. 13, 2025. He said:
The FBI told us Thomas Crooks tried to kill Donald Trump last summer but somehow had no online footprint. The FBI lied, and we can prove it because we have his posts. The question is why? Story tomorrow.
This FBI has never said Thomas Crooks had no online footprint. Ever.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @FBI_Response on X.com.)
