Project 2025 contributor asks Trump if the assassination attempt on him could have been an “inside job”

Trump told Monica Crowley: “There's so many things going on here that you do have to wonder. ... I wasn't thinking this way three weeks ago. But the more you see it, the more you start to say there could be something else.”

Project 2025 is a massive right-wing plan led by the Heritage Foundation to provide policy and staffing to a future Republican president. Monica Crowley is a former Trump administration official and right-wing media figure touted for a position in a second Trump term; she is listed as a contributor in the Project 2025 policy book, Mandate for Leadership.

On August 29, Crowley interviewed former President Donald Trump on her podcast, with the two discussing the possibility that the assassination attempt was an “inside job.”

Video file

Citation From the August 29, 2024, edition of The Monica Crowley Podcast, streamed on Rumble

MONICA CROWLEY (HOST): Two final questions for you, Mr. President, with regard to the assassination attempt. The more we see what happened that day, the more suspicious it all looks. It looks like the three-letter agencies are slow walking a lot of this evidence, a lot of the videos, etc. Does it look increasingly to you like this was a suspicious — maybe even inside job?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, it's strange. The father hired the most expensive lawyer, and he lives in the area, supposedly not very much money. He hired the most expensive lawyer. Think of this. Who's paying for this lawyer in Pennsylvania? High end, very, very expensive lawyer, top of the line, right? You know, where does he get the money to hire a lawyer that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars? Is the lawyer doing it for free? I doubt it. Are the Democrats paying for his legal fees? Is Marc Elias involved and that group? Is Weissmann involved? I don't know. Maybe they are. Maybe they're not. But who's paying for this lawyer? 

Then you have the case of all of these apps that they can't get open. They can't get his phones open. And, you know, it's very suspicious, very suspicious. Why can't they get the apps open? Why can't the FBI get the apps open? Don't forget the head of the FBI said I may have been hit by shrapnel or some flying glass, OK? And that was even disputed by — all you have to do is take a look at it. They've shown it 50 different ways, 200 different ways, but that was their first — you know, he may have been hit by some shrapnel, you know, to maybe just grazed by a little shrapnel, and they knew that wasn't true. 

So you say, why did they say that? Why did the director say that? Because that was so far off. He met with a tremendous — I mean, even his own side said, “You can't say that. There was no glass.” He's — I guess he said maybe the teleprompter. It's not even glass. It's something else. But, it wasn't broken. But, you know, you say, why did he say that? 

There's so many things going on here that you do have to wonder. You do have to wonder. But they have apps or they have some things, and they're foreign-based from what I understand. And you say, like, why is it that they can't get them open? Apple should open them easily. You know, when they were going after you and all your friends, they were able to open up their phones very easily, right? But for an assassin, they can't get their phones open. I think those phones ought to be opened by this afternoon because they're foreign based.

And I think they ought to get — and I think they ought to find out who's paying for the lawyer, where's the money coming from, because I wasn't thinking this way three weeks ago. But the more you see it, the more you start to say there could be something else, and that's really dangerous for the country. So, you know, I think they should clear up all that. This shouldn't be like the Kennedy where they're waiting for so many years. I'll be opening that up, like, on my first week, but, you know, they have — everybody waits for it, the Kennedy assassination. This shouldn't be that. They should have all the facts. And, you know, it's harder to get the facts as time goes by, but they ought to get those phones open, and they ought to find out who he's been speaking to. That's what I think.

CROWLEY: Well, you know, 60 years later, we're still talking about the Kennedy assassination, right? 

TRUMP: Yeah.

CROWLEY: But you were shot five or six weeks ago, and the imperial media, the regime, they've all buried it. They don't want anybody talking about it, which also lends credence to this idea that this is very suspicious —

TRUMP: Yeah, true.

CROWLEY: — and could have been an inside job. Before —

TRUMP: They don't wanna talk about it.

CROWLEY: No, of course not. 

TRUMP: They don't wanna talk about it.

CROWLEY: Of course not. Which also —

TRUMP: Tells you bad things.

CROWLEY: It raises big suspicions. 

TRUMP: Well they didn't wanna talk about the election of 2020 either. 

CROWLEY: Right.

TRUMP: They just don't wanna talk about it because they know they're guilty as hell. And the only way you can stop it — it's amazing. People that want to have a fair election are indicted. The people that cheated on the election are allowed to keep cheating.