The biggest question surrounding the attempt on Donald Trump's life isn't who did it, but why. Authorities have said they've found little evidence of a political motive behind the assassination attempt, noting that the 20-year-old shot had searched for information about Attorney General Merrick Garland, Joe Biden, the Democrats' upcoming convention in Chicago, and even a British royal in addition to Donald Trump. 

Still, that hasn't stopped, well, almost everyone from speculating on the motive behind the attack... including New York Mayor Eric Adams, who's now backtracking on some of his earlier comments about the would-be assassin.

Adams last week said the shooter was obsessed with social media and the shooting was motivated by politics. But federal investigators have since said the shooter didn’t have much of a social media presence, and they couldn’t find evidence of the act being politically motivated.

In light of that information, the mayor walked back his previous assessment during Tuesday’s press briefing.

“I stand corrected, it was a post that was sent,” he said, noting he wasn’t sure of the false information’s origin. “It could’ve been AI, it could’ve been altered. Just goes to show how we all can fall victim to some of the distorted information out there.”

But Adams still insists the 20-year-old must have been "radicalized" somehow, telling reporters “I do know I’ve been extremely vociferous around the radicalization of our young people. Something plays into a person climbing on a rooftop with an automatic weapon and shooting someone.”

No one is suggesting that's normal behavior. Clearly it's not. But again, so far there's not much evidence that the 20-year-old had been radicalized by a particular ideology. Meanwhile there's been a lot of false information making the rounds.

But details about the 20-year-old shooter have remained unclear, including whether he was motivated by a particular political animus or something else. Several former classmates recalled him being quiet, and some claimed he was bullied, although the bullying assertions were disputed by the school he had attended. The school also refuted claims that he was on the high school’s rifle team. 

More details about the investigation are expected to be made public in the coming week when FBI Director Chris Wray appears before the House Judiciary Committee. 

The best thing Adams could have done would have been to simply stay silent and not offer any theories about the motive until more information had come to light, but politicians generally don't make headlines by keeping their opinions to themselves. And to be sure, Adams isn't the only politician who's offered up their own theories for the attack. There's been no shortage of elected officials on both the left and right who've engaged in similar speculation without much evidence for their assumptions. 

Adams admitted he was wrong, even if he passed the buck to AI or an altered social media post. And I'll give him credit for not immediately blaming the gun for the assassination attempt, unlike many of his fellow Democrats, who'd much prefer another round of debate over "assault weapons" than a serious investigation into the performance of the Secret Service during the Biden administration. Still, in the absence of any hard evidence about the motivation behind the attack, the New York mayor and former police officer should quit yapping about the "radicalization" of young people and focus more on the radicalization of residents that's led to an almost 100% increase in the number of antisemitic incidents in the Big Apple over the past year.