GOP leaders claim ‘they’ tried to kill Trump. You’ll never guess who.

Being the running mate on Donald Trump’s presidential ticket has always required a certain flexibility with truth and accuracy.
But U.S. Sen. JD Vance, the Republican from Ohio now running to be Trump’s next vice president, stretched the truth well beyond the breaking point twice this month while introducing the former one-term president at rallies.
Vance, in both speeches, echoed the conspiracy theories that cropped up right after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania last month.
“They” are the new villain in Trump world, as in “they tried to kill him.” But who are “they”? The speeches provide plenty of clues, even as the Trump campaign dodged my attempt to get clarification on who Vance was talking about.
Vance, while introducing Trump at a rally in North Carolina last week, cast his would-be boss in Trump’s favorite role: as a victim. See if you can count up the lies and distortions with me.
“He traded everything for an unjust persecution, for slander, for scorn, so that we could save the United States of America. Now they couldn’t beat him at the ballot box, so they tried to bankrupt him. They failed at that, so they tried to impeach him. They failed at that. So they tried to put him in prison, and they even tried to kill him.”
Spoiler alert: If you hadn’t guessed by now, “they” are the Democratic Party. I tallied five lies in all that, with “they” being the newest and most insidious deception:
Vance’s introduction last week was nearly identical to an introduction he gave Trump at an Aug. 3 rally in Atlanta. It’s compelling stuff ‒ “They even tried to kill him.” It’s also complete bunk.
One person tried to kill Trump. His name was Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old registered Republican who worked at a nursing home and lived with his parents. He took his father’s rifle to the July 13 Trump rally and was killed by a Secret Service sniper after firing rounds that wounded Trump and others in the audience and killed one man.
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A federal investigation and congressional inquiry into the fundamental security failures from that day has already shown that Crooks had conducted internet searches about Biden. It seems that Trump presented the easiest target, closest to home for Crooks.
The FBI on Wednesday said that Crooks saw Trump’s rally as “a target of opportunity” after “extensive attack planning” that included searches for Biden campaign events.
Not all crimes make sense. But they can be exploited for political gains, if politicians don’t mind misleading the people they’re courting for support.
Vance’s introduction rhetoric was road-tested almost immediately after the assassination attempt by a coterie of Trump allies.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott posted this just minutes later on the social media site formerly known as Twitter: “They try to jail him. They try to kill him. It will not work. He is indomitable.”
Sound familiar?
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U.S. Rep. Cory Mills, a Florida Republican and combat veteran, said this in a Fox Business interview five days after the shooting while calling for an investigation: “I just want to look at this from a completely open perspective. I don’t take anything off the table. But, you know, they tried to silence him. They tried to imprison him. And now they tried to kill him.”
Did you catch that? Mills wants an “open perspective” but also immediately assigns guilt to “they.”
U.S. Rep. Eli Crane, an Arizona Republican and former Navy SEAL, recounted for a right-wing radio host the litany of attempts to bankrupt and imprison Trump before adding: “The next step in this escalation is for them to try and kill him because they know they can’t beat him fair and square.”
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t name Mills and Crane to the bipartisan committee investigating the events of July 13, whose members toured the rally site in Butler County, Pennsylvania, on Monday. On the same day, Mills and Crane, irritated at being passed over, held their own “forum” on the topic at the hard-right Heritage Foundation’s headquarters back in Washington.
Mills predicted a finding that “criminal gross negligence and purposeful intent will be indistinguishable” while promising more events for his shadow investigation. Again, Mills starts with a conclusion and then gets going with his investigation.
Expect more of this.
Ben Carson, who served in Trump’s administration, made the same complaints about Democrats trying to ruin Trump during his speech at the Republican National Convention last month before proclaiming, “And then last weekend they tried to kill him!”
This is the Trump campaign mainstreaming a conspiracy theory, ignoring requests for proof or clarification, just spouting the prevarication over and over, hoping it catches on with voters. No investigation will be sufficient if it doesn’t begin with the conclusion desired by the candidate.
The bogus narrative has been refined to a speech loaded onto a teleprompter. Vance, who reviled Trump before flip-flopping into his biggest fan, is the perfect politician to deliver that lie.
Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan