The “bandage” has been removed from Trump’s ear. Some of the first images of his newly healed ear appeared in photos and videos taken during his meeting with Netanyahu at Merde-a-Lardo where they allegedly discussed how holding elected office keeps one out of prison and being held accountable for crimes committed at anytime during their lives. Supposedly, they traded tips on acquiring presidential “immunity” and the using a “war” to maintain one’s position in times of legal peril. Whatever.
Our point here is to do an examination of these three pictures of Trump’s ear and comment on your conclusions in, well, the comment section below. We got this idea from the post, Did I Miss Something? on Chuq’s excellent blog, In Saner Thought. For the sources of the pictures, please see the Image Attribution section after the post.
Post “Shooting”
On Saturday 13 July 2024, Trump was shooting adjacent at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally. Clearly, the ear has not been penetrated by a bullet. At best it was grazed, probably by shrapnel from the teleprompter screen that was hit during the shooting.
“Bandaged” Ear
Here is a picture of Trump’s ear “bandage” during the RNC a few days later. Note two things: (1) It don’t look like no medical bandage I’ve ever seen. And (2) there is no damage to the front part of the helix (the curled upper part of the pinna, the outside part of the ear).
“Healed” Ear
This is a screenshot of a video shot during his meeting with Netanyahu. Do you see any indication of his ear having been injured?
I remember reading somewhere that simple scratches take about two weeks to heal, but deeper more complex will take longer.
According to John Hopkins Medicine a serious wound can take up to a year to heal. Six to eight weeks and during this time there will be a reddened area as the wound recovers.
At the very top back part of the helix, there might could be a slightly reddened area that would indicate this stage.
He was “shot” on 13 July. He met with Netanyahu on 26 July. That’s thirteen days later. We know Trump has remarkable jeans which are likely to survive two hundred years, but I doubt his ears are made of denim, don’t you?
As Chuq notes in his blog post, he was grazed by an assault rifle round in Viet Nam and still carries the scar. As an ER doctor on one of the punditing pundit shows noted, a flesh wound from an AR-15 is a serious wound and in the ear, it can cause permanent brain damage.
What do you think? I mean, I know that (a) none of us are doctors — unless, you happen to be, and then I’d love to hear from you. And (b) none of us have examined Trump’s ear up close and personal — unless you have, in which case I’d love to hear from you, too. But, you know, we’ve all had injuries and watched them heal. Does this conform to a serious injury in any way shape or form to you? I mean, I were prone to conspiracy theories…
Image Attribution
Feature Image
The feature image was found in an article on Tasnim News Agency using a DuckDuckGo image search for Creative Commons licensed images.
Post “Shooting” Image
The image was taken from the Fox News story, PHOTO GALLERY: Assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. I cropped it and blew it up to focus on the injury to Trump’s ear… or lack thereof.
“Bandaged” Ear
The image is from the website, Nick Swift, reporting on Trump’s ear injury.
“Healed” Ear
This image is a screenshoot of a video appearing on Brian Krassenstein’s Xitter feed. It shows Trump’s ear during his meeting with Netanyahu in Merde-a-Lardo on 26 July 2024
The Psy of Life 
I confess, my first thought on this was unkind.
When you wrote that a wound of the ear from an AR-15 can cause permanent brain damage I thought (literally) “how could you tell?” I mean, this is trump, after all.
More serious notes, although none on the medical aspects – I’ve seen a lot of commentary about lack of communications between security groups. The local SWAT was said to be trying to get direction from the Secret Service detail on site and were ignored. Multiple people saw the shooter climbing to, or on, the roof and reported it but were ignored.
I’ve also been reading that trump has been insisting on these outdoors venues, even though those are more dangerous than indoors ones. His reasons are unclear, but it could be anything from those venues refusing him since he already didn’t pay the bill there or he won’t pay for them up front to he thinks it makes him look better or maybe it isn’t as long of a walk for him.
I don’t have links for any of those allegations, but don’t they sound trumpy?
And with a shooting happening, there is no way he would pass up a chance to not allow the actual doctors who took care of him after the event to report on the actual injuries when he has a fabulist available who will write up any report tfg wants. And his cult will buy it.
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Howdy Mike!
Part of the fun of covering Trump is what you think the reason is is usually right. He turns conventional wisdom on its head.
I understand though that he has accepted the “rule” that his rallies should all be indoor now. Famously, he’s afraid of death. Even though his wound was just this side of a mosquito bite, and not even a malarial or dengue fever mosquito bite, in severity, I’m sure he thinks of it as a brush with death. He may be afraid enough to follow the advice. He’s a coward after all.
Between the 2016 and 2020 campaigns, he’s probably stiffed enough venues that he may be having trouble finding places foolish enough to book him. The battleground states haven’t changed, right?
The real unfortunate part of his shooting adjacent incident is that (a) a real live human being died and two were severely wounded, and we should never lose sight of that. (b) It just feeds his Messiah complex. And (c) it feeds the Christian white nationalists Messiah complex.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I spent many a year in hospital ED’s…and can say with a tiny bit of knowledge that ear was never “shot”…much more likely that a teleprompter part sliced right above or high behind that ear…head wounds, no matter how tiny bleed a LOT….the “bandage” just is wrong…looks like a monkey treated it before his public appearance. unfortunately, if there was a “conspiracy” those people were completely ineffective if the point was to permanently take out the cheeto
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Howdy Suze!
I was a medical social worker for ten years. I never worked ER, but I know wound dressings, and that was not done by any American medical professional. I’ve got two scars on my forehead from tiny little wounds that bled like mad, and there wasn’t even that much blood on Trump’s face. He keeps saying there was so much blood. I never saw anything more than two thin little trickles across his face.
The whole thing smacks of Trump exaggeration and distortion. The incompetence of the entire bumbling bunch from the Secret Service to Congress that funds and oversees them, from the Trump campaign to the man himself leaves the entire episode an embarrassing sickening event in our history. Either we learn from Trump and this shooting or we are lost.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I know people who have been shot. My ex-BF shot himself in the foot when he was hunting as a teen; he still has a massive scar in the middle of his foot & that injury happened forty years ago. An ex-lover was shot in his butt by another hunter & there’s scars from that.
I have a huge scar on my left knee from a FALL on asphalt that tore my knee open when I was 7. I am now 64.
My younger sister has a giant scar on her chin from falling on a rat’s tail comb when she was only 2 (the sharp end of the comb stuck into her chin & my mother rushed her to the doctor’s; we lived way out in the country in those days & there were no urgent care facilities; you went to the doctor’s in the center of town when you had an emergency). My sister is now 63 but that scar is still there.
I had foot surgery this past September & that scar shows up really good. Especially now that I’ve got a summer tan.
The thing is, it doesn’t matter if you were shot, had surgery, or some other injury. These things leave SCARS. & before there’s a scar, there’s scabbing as the wound heals over. I don’t see any scabbing or scarring on trump’s ear. That redness is easily produced with a rose-colored blusher & a soft brush. Anyone acquainted with makeup would know how to apply that.
I’m sick of hearing about his stupid ear. The whole thing was scripted & too many people fell for it.
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Howdy Silver!
I’m pretty sick of it, too. It’s only significance is because it happened to a candidate, not because it happened to him as a person. And, there is no evidence of a minor injury much less anything remotely resembling something major.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I have to confess that my first thought when all of this first happened was that it was faked. A shooter somehow manages to get a rifle through all of the security, somehow manages to get onto the roof of a conveniently unguarded building, somehow isn’t noticed on a roof near the podium by all of the anit-sniper teams stationed around the area, plus recon drones, etc? I have a difficult time believing any of that.
Or I would if I didn’t know how utterly incompetent government agencies can be even in critical situations.
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It is enough to make you start believing in conspiracy theories. I mean, I would think it possible or likely except no one around Trump is competent enough to pull it off. The number of people who would have to be in on a conspiracy that would position a shooter around the president is astronomical. Maybe there is someone who could bottleneck the communication between the local PD and the Secret Service. Maybe that would be it, but, man that would be a difficult to thing to pull off.
It is easier to believe the police and Secret Service are just that damn poor at their jobs. Ironically, part of the failure is that because Trump is an ex-president, he doesn’t get the size of protection detail POTUS or VPOTUS gets in part due to budgetary constraints imposed because of the ballooning of the deficit that he caused by his ridiculous tax cut for the rich.
Huzzah!
Jack
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that is indeed the biggest problem with all of these “deep state” conspiracy theories. They all depend on a government that is competent and is good at keeping secrets, and the US government isn’t exactly very good at either of those two things.
All those conspiracy theories revolving around FEMA for example? I’ve taken all of the ICS courses and NIMS courses, or most of them, to qualify to work with FEMA and they’re more interested in making sure all the right forms are filled out and that the proper command structure is followed than they are in actually doing anything. I’ve worked with FEMA and if any private business was as utterly incompetent as it is, it wouldn’t last a year before falling apart from its own failings.
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Howdy Grouchy!
I laugh when people express concerns about the machine take over of society for that exact reason. We can put someone on the moon, but we can’t stream a video without buffering. To do great things, you need great organizations making great products. We don’t have that anymore. For goodness sake, we still rely on the B-52 and C-5A for certain military tasks.
And, if it were the Trump campaign or anyone else trying to black flag us, they would be equally or more incompetent. Putin wouldn’t’ve been. They’ve pulled off assassinations and near assassinations in foreign countries. But, I think Putin’s plate is a little full right now.
Huzzah!
Jack
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We are presented with a puzzle.
2. An ear is a rather awkward thing to bandage, but that flat pad on the outside does not look to be doing much unless there is some dressing around the top of the ear under it.
3. That ear does not look as though it had any significant damage just two weeks before.
I think DJT can be counted upon to play up and make the most drama of even a slight scratch. Still, whatever happened to the ear, a bullet did come close to him, but since we know that he does not learn, the experience is unlikely to bring any change of behavior other than, maybe, a bit better cooperation with his security detail.
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Howdy Bob!
The bandage is more cosmetic than anything else. It could be covering a more significant bandaging, but the front of the helix is visible and there is no damage there. Any damage must have been towards the back of the pinna.
The healed ear clearly did not suffer a significant injury.
The only behavior change that it induced in Trump is it confirmed his Messiah complex.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Yes, his narcissism effectively canceled out awareness of real danger by the defense mechanism of asserting divine protection.
I had another thought. We do not have a map and timeline of the immediate scene around Trump during the shooting. Where were the other victims in relation to him and the paths of the bullets? The exit wounds of these rounds are very messy, famously so. Blood and tissue go flying. Trump himself commented about “blood everywhere”, which can be takes as being dramatic, but also could be accurate if he was, so to speak, down stream, from another victim. Such a splatter could also include a bullet fragment or bone fragment enough to inflict a minor scratch. We are very unlikely to ever know, given the difficulty of so precisely mapping the paths of the bullets, the people, and any blood spatter given the confusion and number of bodies in motion in the immediate aftermath.
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Howdy Bob!
CNN has produced a good minute-by-minute accounting of what happened complete with public video and diagrams. Sorry, no eight by ten color glossies with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back explaining what each one was, though. Damn Internet. But, I put the url after the comment.
Corey Comperatore, the fellow who died, was between Trump and the shooter, but he was pretty far away. All of the pictures of Trump on stage as the Secret Service surrounded him didn’t show anything resembling any blood splatter or viscera from other people shot. There was only the two small trickles of blood that barely could traverse Trump’s cheek.
They departed the rally at about 6:15 PM for a hospital. Trump was out of the hospital by 8:50 PM. Um, that’s not enough time to do much of anything medically. They cleaned and bandaged the wound because that’s all it required.
Huzzah!
Jack
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/14/politics/timeline-trump-rally-shooting-dg/index.html
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I figured that somebody beside the FBI had to be working on something like that. Thanks for the link.
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On my walk this morning, I realized something about that third picture, the color. It is Trump’s trade mark fake orange “tan”. We are not seeing it’s true appearance, only the shape.
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LOL. That’s right! Trump hasn’t spray painted it orange like the rest of him.
I also realized that his hair had been cut shorter than it normally is.
Jack
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If the actual wound was above or behind the ear, trimming back some hair would be part of cleaning and dressing. And, he is so fussy about his hair. What a horrible experience.
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Thanx so much for the shout out…..my wound from Vietnam did not heal that well….just saying…..chuq
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Thanks for bringing the pictures to our attention. I would not have found them otherwise, so credit where credit is due.
Jack
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Thank you my friend we must do what we can. chuq
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Every platform counts, amirite?
Jack
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U B spot on chuq
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