In an exclusive story, Campus Reform reported on a Rutgers University professor, Tracy Budd, who openly made such a wish.
“Let’s hope today’s event inspires others,” Budd, a writing program professor, wrote in a Facebook post that was shared with Campus Reform.
John James, an English instructor at Bellarmine University, made a similar comment on Instagram. “If you’re gonna shoot, man, don’t miss,” he wrote, Campus Reform previously reported.
Bellarmine is a Catholic university in Louisville, Kentucky.
Laurie Higgins, a writer at Breakthrough Ideas, tells AFN the Far Left would have “rejoiced” if Trump had died on the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“Decent people don't wish that,” she says, “not even on your political enemies.”
Campus Reform, which documents left-wing activism on campus, has reported on an even more bizarre reaction from another academic. Uju Anya, an associate professor at Carnegia Mello University, called the attack “staged” to help Trump’s presidential campaign.
Considering the MAGA crowd heard gunfire and saw a bullet clip Trump’s ear, calling that a faked assassination attempt takes conspiracy theories to a new level but that suggestion showed up a lot in social media in the minutes and hours after the July 14 assassination attempt. In online comments, the immediate reaction from some Democrats was to suggest Trump had ducked and smeared blood on his ear, like a wrestler using a razor blade.
With a dead 20-year-old on a rooftop, other Democrats suggested the young man had been duped by the Trump campaign and then paid with his life.
“People dying doesn’t make the attack any less staged,” Anya wrote on X. “Someone who thought the attack was real could’ve killed others trying to prevent harm. Also, someone could’ve shot the shooter to hide the plot.”
An assistant professor at the University of Virginia, Sethunya Mokoko, seemed to blend the “staged” conspiracy theories, according to a Campus Reform story published the day after the shooting. In a post on X, he suggests the Secret Service purposely ignored the shooter “because Trump and secret service staged theatrics to win idiots’ votes.”
In yet another story, Campus Reform reported on comments from a college professor, Inna Kanevsky. In a comment on Threads, the California psychology professor suggested the assassination attempt happened but only to benefit Trump for “his own personal aggrandizement.”
The definition of “aggrandize” is to increase one’s power or influence, meaning the psychology professor alleges Trump staged his near death for political gain.
