CBS News Capitol Hill correspondent Scott MacFarlane made a rather remarkable claim during an interview with former "Meet the Press" moderator Chuck Todd on Wednesday.
MacFarlane and Todd were discussing the discipline doled out in recent days to multiple Secret Service agents over their response to the assassination attempt on President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The CBS reporter somehow found a way to make the trauma his own, not because of the actual shooting that nearly killed the President, but because MAGA supporters were going to kill him.
“For those of us there, it was such a horror because you saw an emerging America," the melodramatic guest recalled. "And it wasn’t the shooting, Chuck."
"I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got put on trauma leave, not because I think of the shooting, but because you could — you saw it in the eyes, the reaction of the people. They were coming for us," MacFarlane continued to quiver. "If he didn’t jump up with his fist, they were going to come kill us.”
🚨NEW: CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane tells Chuck Todd he got "PTSD" after Trump assassination attempt — *NOT* from the shooting, but because the crowd blamed the media🚨
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) July 16, 2025
"For those of us there, it was such a horror."
"I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got… pic.twitter.com/JYeA7FZ90G
TAKE A CLOSER LOOK: Trump Reveals Role God Had in Saving Him on Anniversary of Butler Assassination Attempt
We all just heard the imbecilic comment, but it's essential to break down some of its parts.
- A reporter was diagnosed with PTSD and is weeping about it in a podcast a year later. Meanwhile, the target of the assassination attempt rarely mentions it other than to say he was saved by God.
- The shooting wasn't traumatic in his eyes, but an agitated crowd was.
- Was that really the crowd reaction? Were they not more concerned with getting to safety than trying to criticize the media?
- A man died in this attack, two others were severely wounded, the future President was almost killed, and the nation would have almost surely been plunged into chaos - but the real victim is Scott MacFarlane and his colleagues.
- Didn't the media tell us they were like firefighters running towards a fire? But this rube was traumatized and ran away over a completely fabricated fear that the crowd was going to kill him? The crowd, not the shooter?
- Scott claims that if Trump hadn't jumped up and told his followers to fight, media members could have been killed - 1) 'Thank God he lived, otherwise we'd be dead' is a weird response and 2) If you truly believed an angry MAGA mob was going to kill you, wouldn't Trump shouting "Fight!" have pushed them over the edge?
In short, dude makes absolutely no sense. It's mind-boggling that a media hack would go ahead and cry the blues and make themselves this false victim of perceived violence from the right - 'Trump actually took a bullet to his head, but I'm the real casualty because I saw scary people.'
If MacFarlane's comments weren't insufferable enough, Todd joined in on the pity party, recalling that he had been flying into Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention (which kicked off two days after Butler) and planned to take in a baseball game.
He didn't because "none of us knew what the reaction of that Milwaukee crowd was going to be to this."
Always the victims.
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