I’ll tell you what I found most surprising about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump at the weekend: the number of people who do not believe it really happened or that it was a genuine attempt at all.

There are a remarkable number of people who believe the incident was staged and who are openly discussing that belief, including claims that Trump was not actually shot through the ear a couple of months ago.

Well, it was more than a couple of months ago - but you get the idea.

Within hours of the attempt on his life, the term “staged” appeared in more than 300,000 posts on X. A former CIA agent has gone public saying he thinks it was staged because security moved JD Vance before they moved Donald Trump, which he says is against protocol.

Trump, of course, hasn’t helped matters. In his first news conference afterwards, he argued the assassination attempt proves he needs to build a new ballroom because it would be much safer.

That is obviously not the logic of a normal person who has just been in the same building as someone with a gun who wants to kill them.

And if we’re being honest, it probably doesn’t help that Trump has now had so many assassination attempts on his life that it’s starting to feel like each time it happens, you care a little less. It also doesn’t help - frankly - that it’s Trump. He is so unconventional that it is more believable he would stage a false-flag event like this than, say, Barack Obama, who is far more conventional.

I’m resisting the temptation to take the mickey out of people who don’t believe the assassination attempts were real.

As silly as it seems to me - and I do think it stretches credibility to believe Trump would stage not one but at least two attempts on his own life, given how much could go wrong when weapons are involved - part of me actually takes comfort in the number of people thinking this way.

I might not agree with where they’ve landed, but I like the fact that they are assessing the facts for themselves and reaching conclusions different from mine, different from the majority view, different from the consensus.

• Accused shooter charged with attempt to assassinate Trump; King meets Trump at the White House
• King Charles’ state visit to US ‘will proceed as planned’
• 'Lone wolf': Trump speaks after shots fired at dinner event; suspect in custody

It’s strange that this is where some people’s minds go. Clearly, someone tried to kill Trump at the weekend and thinking otherwise is a conspiracy theory.

But maybe conspiracy theories aren’t all bad if they at least show that people are exercising their brains independently.

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