What about Trump's alleged ear injury?
Executive summary
The evidence in contemporary reporting shows Donald Trump was struck in or very near the upper part of his right ear during the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt; the campaign’s medical account describes a 2 cm wound and ongoing healing with intermittent bleeding [1] [2]. Independent journalists, medical experts and fact-checkers have repeatedly noted photographs circulated to deny the injury are misdated or taken before the shooting, while trauma physicians say ear wounds can appear minor yet still warrant imaging to exclude deeper injury [3] [4] [5].
1. What official accounts say: the campaign memo and physician notes
The most detailed public account came from Rep. Ronny Jackson, who described a gunshot wound to the top of Trump’s right ear — a 2 cm-wide wound from a high‑powered rifle that “struck the top of his right ear” and came “less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head,” with initial heavy bleeding and swelling that later began to granulate and heal [2] [6]. Time’s reporting repeats Jackson’s description and notes the campaign did not release full medical records, leaving some clinical questions unanswered [1].
2. Independent medical perspective: appearances can understate risk
Physicians who treat gunshot wounds told STAT that while the visible damage to an ear can be relatively small, clinicians must rule out injury to deeper structures — including the skull base, brain or neck — which is why CT imaging and more clinical detail would be standard in such cases; those experts said the injury “appeared to be minor” from published photos but cautioned that photos are not a substitute for records or examination [5].
3. Visual evidence, bandages and the social‑media swirl
Photos of Trump at the Republican National Convention wearing a bandage fueled debate: some social posts used older images to claim no injury occurred. Reuters and DW fact‑checks found that at least one widely circulated photo purporting to show an uninjured ear was taken in 2022 and not after the July 2024 shooting, undermining viral claims that the photos prove there was no wound [3] [4].
4. Misinformation and contested narratives
Multiple outlets have flagged misinformation: posts claiming “zero damage” and using old images were debunked by Reuters and DW, which concluded the viral posts were demonstrably false because the images were from before the shooting [3] [4]. Other reporting and commentary — from The New Yorker to later opinion pieces — note how photographic ambiguity and short-lived bandage use have fed conspiracy theories that he was never hit [7] [8].
5. Long‑term assessments and third‑party commentary
A year after the attack, private plastic surgeons and commentators assessed healed appearances; one plastic‑surgery analysis said the ear “healed well without surgery” with subtle contour changes that could reflect scarring or grafting, while noting no obvious active inflammation [9]. Such retrospective visual reads cannot substitute for contemporaneous medical records but do show that visible long‑term deformity, if any, can be minimal after this kind of injury [9].
6. What remains unpublicized and why that matters
News organizations emphasize that Trump’s team did not release full hospital records or host a public medical briefing at the treating Pennsylvania hospital, which left key clinical questions open — for example, imaging results and whether there were any microscopic or deeper tract injuries — and allowed space for speculation and competing narratives [1] [5]. Available sources do not mention full emergency-room notes or the hospital’s detailed imaging findings.
7. Competing perspectives and implicit agendas
The campaign and allied doctors framed the wound as serious but not life‑threatening; supporters used the bandage to underscore the reality of the attack. Detractors and conspiracy chains seized on selective imagery and the rapid removal of the bandage to cast doubt on the shooting or its severity. Fact‑checkers have explicitly called out those misinformation tactics, showing an agenda on all sides: political actors shaping public perception, and social accounts seeking virality [2] [3] [4].
8. Bottom line for readers
Documented contemporaneous accounts and multiple fact‑checks establish that Trump sustained an ear wound in the July 13, 2024, attack; images used to claim otherwise were often misdated or miscaptioned [2] [3] [4]. Expert clinicians say the visible extent of an ear injury can understate potential internal damage and that absence of released clinical records means reasonable questions about exact imaging and treatment details remain unanswered [5] [1].