CNN Table Erupts Over Trump Fake Assassination Take: ‘Everybody’s Looking at Me Weird!’

CNN’s Newsnight table erupted at one panelist’s take during a segment on former allies of President Donald Trump getting conspiratorial about his assassination attempt and suggesting the shooting was staged.

Once the province of fringe Resistance types, Butler Trump Assassination Trutherism has crossed over in a big way recently with a raft of MAGA personalities suggesting there’s something fishy about the shooting.

Podcaster Tim Dillon, sometime Trump confidant Tucker Carlson, ex-ally Marjorie Taylor Greene, and others have raised varying degrees of suspicion over the shooting in the past week.

On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN NewsNight, anchor Abby Phillip convened a panel consisting of Keith Boykin, Emily Austin, Shermichael Singleton, Xochitl Hinojosa, and Geraldo Rivera.

Boykin escalated the already-heightened conversation when, while insisting he doesn’t believe the conspiracies, raised, “one thing I think is very odd” — “the whole thing about the ear”:

BOYKIN: Trump started his campaign, as you mentioned, Abby, with the five-and-a-half-year lie about Barack Obama’s birth certificate. He’s been fueling campaign conspiracy theories for years.

And the other issue is that he hasn’t been transparent. I’m not going to get into the–

SINGLETON: About Butler? Yes. Oh, okay.

BOYKIN: I’m not going to get into the conspiracy about Butler, but the fact that he never released his medical records about Butler, and he claimed that he’s–

SINGLETON: So we are getting into it. You see, we are getting into it.

AUSTIN: Yes.

HINOJOSA: That sounds pretty conspiratorial.

BOYKIN: No, I’m saying —

SINGLETON: That’s just like the redistricting thing.

BOYKIN: I’m not saying it’s true. I’m saying…

SINGLETON: You’re gerrymandering.

BOYKIN: I’m saying the failure to talk about it honestly and provide transparent information–

SINGLETON: I don’t believe that actually occurred though, right? Like this guy is saying it was staged.

BOYKIN: I have no reason to have no reason to disbelieve it, but I’m telling you the fact that he hasn’t been transparent about this hasn’t helped his case.

RIVERA: But aren’t you being– This is so crazy though, Keith. You are intentionally making things vague so people will say, oh, listen to that guy.

BOYKIN: No. I’m going to be…

SINGLETON: Can you clarify, Keith, please?

BOYKIN: I’m going to go down the rabbit hole.

SINGLETON: Please clarify, man.

BOYKIN: You can make an issue.

All right. Here’s the thing. The one thing I think–

Everybody’s looking at me weird.

RIVERA: This is Butler, Pennsylvania?

BOYKIN: This is Butler, Pennsylvania.

RIVERA: Oh, no. Careful, man.

BOYKIN: I’m not trying to get into trouble. Just the one thing that I think is very odd is the whole thing about the ear. The fact that he claimed that his ear was nicked off and everybody was wearing the band-aids at the Republican convention, and then it was healed a few weeks later.

There’s never been an explanation for that. I’m not saying there’s any truth to it. I’m just saying the lack of transparency–

RIVERA: What’s the possibility? But, Keith.

BOYKIN: I don’t know, but the Trump administration loves to exaggerate things.

PHILLIP: I’m sure there was something that got caught up in the question.

SINGLETON: Keith, it’s like you’re friends with this comedian guy.

BOYKIN: No, I’m not.

SINGLETON: Because this guy’s amplifying nonsense, man. This is crazy.

PHILLIP: Isn’t that weird? Okay, let me play.

SINGLETON: This is bizarre.

PHILLIP: But, Shermichael, it might be bizarre.

BOYKIN: I can’t believe we’re even taking this serious. I can’t believe Trump had people wearing band-aids on the ears of the Republican convention.

PHILLIP: Hold on.

What’s extraordinary, I think, about this moment is that Trump has primed his base to be very receptive to conspiracy theories. And so some of the people who amped up Trump for years, like Tucker Carlson, when they now start saying things like this, it’s not surprising that the base then picks it up, hook, line, and sinker.

Watch above via CNN NewsNight.

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