Trump launches into bizarre rant over ‘strange cookie’ would-be assassin: ‘Great student!’ ⁠53%

By Alexander Willis⁠88%

7/13/2026, 1:06:20 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 21 faulty reasoning types, including Halo Effect, Availability Heuristic, and Appeal to Emotion, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 34.5% saturation with 112 hits. Analysis detected 834 faulty-reasoning hits from 325 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 51.9% and a BS Rank of ⁠53% (9,911 of 20,882 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 52.50% of the article peer group.

President Donald Trump launched into a bizarre and at times flattering rant Monday about Thomas Crooks, the man who attempted to assassinate him in 2024 during a rally in Pennsylvania. 
Calling into Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” Trump was asked about a recent report documenting the failings of the Secret Service on the day of the attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania. 
While telling “Fox & Friends” that the Secret Service “blew Butler,” he also praised the Secret Service agents who shielded him with their own bodies after Crooks had fired his first of eight shots at the president. 
“They were on top of me pretty quickly, I had a lot of people on top of me, and they were very brave,” Trump said. 
“Secret Service was very brave, they were on top of me very, very fast. 
I knew exactly what was happening, I mean it was amazing how I understood exactly.” 
Trump then pivoted to Crooks, his would-be assassin, praising him for his academic achievements. 
“He was a very strange cookie, this one,” Trump said of Crooks. 
“Very academically smart but very disturbed, he was a very disturbed person. 
His boards, he had almost perfect boards, he was a great student. 
But he was a person who was very tormented, he was a tormented person.” 
The Trump administration has faced scrutiny regarding its investigation into Crooks and the assassination attempt, including from notable conservative figures, such as prominent conservative commentator Tucker Carlson. 
Last month, Carlson claimed that former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino had admitted that Trump had “shut down the investigation" into Crooks after a panicked and “hysterical” exchange of text messages. 
Crooks has received renewed attention after recently obtained FBI records revealed that the would-be assassin exchanged two emails with a Butler County Sheriff deputy ahead of the assassination attempt, a revelation that sent MAGA world into a frenzy . 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 9.5%Alexander Willis: 6.7%Rawstory: 7.7%Confirmation Bias9.5%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.5%Rawstory: 0.8%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 21.5%Alexander Willis: 7.1%Rawstory: 4.4%Availability Heuristic21.5%This article: 3.7%Alexander Willis: 0.9%Rawstory: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic3.7%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.6%Rawstory: 1.0%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 4.6%Alexander Willis: 2.6%Rawstory: 2.2%Overconfidence Bias4.6%This article: 17.2%Alexander Willis: 18.7%Rawstory: 13.7%Framing Effect17.2%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 1.0%Rawstory: 0.4%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.6%Rawstory: 0.4%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.6%Rawstory: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.5%Rawstory: 0.7%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 3.1%Rawstory: 2.8%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 20.9%Alexander Willis: 27.6%Rawstory: 21.8%Negativity Bias20.9%This article: 7.7%Alexander Willis: 0.6%Rawstory: 1.1%Self-Serving Bias7.7%This article: 8.0%Alexander Willis: 2.2%Rawstory: 2.9%Fundamental Attribution Error8.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.9%Rawstory: 0.3%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 20.3%Alexander Willis: 2.2%Rawstory: 2.5%In-Group Bias20.3%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.5%Rawstory: 1.6%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 23.1%Alexander Willis: 0.6%Rawstory: 0.6%Halo Effect23.1%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 1.5%Rawstory: 0.9%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 12.0%Alexander Willis: 2.8%Rawstory: 1.7%Recency Bias12.0%This article: 3.7%Alexander Willis: 0.4%Rawstory: 0.7%Primacy Effect3.7%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 3.8%Rawstory: 6.4%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 1.0%Rawstory: 0.7%Straw Man0.0%This article: 9.5%Alexander Willis: 4.1%Rawstory: 3.8%Appeal to Authority9.5%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 2.5%Rawstory: 2.9%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 1.1%Rawstory: 1.2%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.1%Rawstory: 0.3%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 3.7%Alexander Willis: 8.0%Rawstory: 11.9%Hasty Generalization3.7%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 1.8%Rawstory: 0.7%Red Herring0.0%This article: 12.0%Alexander Willis: 1.2%Rawstory: 0.8%Bandwagon12.0%This article: 21.5%Alexander Willis: 11.2%Rawstory: 9.2%Appeal to Emotion21.5%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 1.3%Rawstory: 1.6%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 2.5%Rawstory: 3.6%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.5%Rawstory: 0.6%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 2.3%Rawstory: 1.5%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.4%Rawstory: 0.4%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 3.7%Alexander Willis: 6.3%Rawstory: 3.9%Anecdotal3.7%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.1%Rawstory: 0.3%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 8.0%Alexander Willis: 3.0%Rawstory: 2.4%Ambiguity (Equivocation)8.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.4%Rawstory: 0.2%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.5%Rawstory: 0.4%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 7.7%Alexander Willis: 7.5%Rawstory: 5.4%Unattributed Quote7.7%This article: 3.7%Alexander Willis: 5.8%Rawstory: 4.2%Quote-first Misdirection3.7%This article: 34.5%Alexander Willis: 13.4%Rawstory: 15.6%Biased Writer Voice34.5%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 2.0%Rawstory: 3.2%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 7.3%Rawstory: 8.0%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.8%Rawstory: 0.9%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.5%Rawstory: 0.5%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

325 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers42%attributed speech190writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 12 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 30 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 31 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 37 words • 0.0% coverageDonald Trump • 25 words • 100.0% coverageDonald Trump • 14 words • 0.0% coverageDonald Trump • 15 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 0.0% coverageDonald Trump • 12 words • 0.0% coverageDonald Trump • 12 words • 0.0% coverageDonald Trump • 12 words • 0.0% coverageDonald Trump • 14 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 27 words • 0.0% coverageTucker Carlson • 31 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 39 words • 100.0% coverage
Selected voice

Tucker Carlson

100%flagged-word coverage
31 attributed words23% of attributed speech84% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Biased Writer Voice+57.4 ptsWriter: 42.6%Tucker Carlson: 100.0%100.0%Quote-first Misdirection-6.3 ptsWriter: 6.3%Tucker Carlson: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.