Is Donald Trump Lying About Getting Shot? 》

Earlier this year, we got to watch the worst kind of historic event: an attempted assassination of a former United States president. Donald Trump was shot at on July 13, and the fact that he survived seems to be a real miracle. And the questions and investigations into how his Secret Service bodyguards let this happen are still ongoing.

As for Trump himself, he quickly capitalized on the attack, using the damage to his ear as proof of how close he was to death…namely, that the attacker was aiming for his head and the bullet instead pierced his ear. The former president tried using his ear damage as a way of gaining sympathy with voters, but the more we examine photos of his ear, the more it seems like he wasn’t shot in the first place.

Don’t believe it? Keep reading to discover the truth for yourself!

The case of Donald Trump’s ear injury

After the assassination attempt of Donald Trump, it was clear that his ear suffered some kind of injury. Various photos and videos of the day in question clearly show the former president bleeding from his ear. And the natural assumption of everyone watching (both around the world and those in Trump’s own crowd) is that he must have gotten shot in the ear.

That possibility is part of what made Trump’s survival seem so miraculous. Online, people began to speculate that the would-be assassin was aiming for Donald Trump’s head and the charismatic politician only survived by turning his head at just the right time. While some critics speculated that Trump could have been injured by something like glass or debris, the general assumption remained that Trump’s ear had taken a bullet.

Trump’s doctor weighs in on the matter

It’s not uncommon for people to overestimate or underestimate their own health. Therefore, some people thought that Donald Trump might have been wrong or exaggerated when talking about the bullet damaging his ear. It didn’t take long, though, for his doctor to run to his defense.

Trump’s physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, seemed to confirm just how gruesome the injury really was. After examining the former president’s injury, Jackson went on The Benny Cox show and said, “[The bullet] just took the top of his ear off.” Adding even more gory details, the doctor said, “It was bleeding like crazy because the ear is pretty vascular and bleeds pretty badly,”

So far, so good…no reason to doubt that all of this was just one big lie. Right?

Donald Trump bandaged up at the Republic National Convention

Not letting the assassination attempt keep him down, Donald Trump appeared only a few days later at the 2024 Republican National Convention. There, he sported a new “accessory” on top of his usual suit and tie. Very prominently, Trump had a white bandage over his damaged ear.

For some on the fence, this solidified how bad Trump’s ear injury was. A big bandage seemed to translate to a big wound, and it wasn’t long before his fans started sporting their own bandages in order to show their support. But Trump couldn’t wear the bandage indefinitely, and when it finally came off, we all had more questions than answers.

The reveal of Trump’s ear has us questioning everything

Two weeks after the assassination attempt, Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Naturally, photos of their meeting circulated online, and Trump notably didn’t have the ear bandage on. Those images were very high-resolution, and they seemed to reveal that Trump’s ear hadn’t been damaged.

Trump would later claim his ear had simply been mended, but keep in mind that his own doctor claimed the top half of the ear was completely taken off. Now, Trump’s ear didn’t seem to have any scarring and more or less looked like it had before the attack. Many now began to question the original narratives about Trump’s ear and whether the former president was just outright lying to us.

The addition of some Twitter controversy

It’s one thing for a nasty truth to come out…it’s another for that truth to go viral. That’s what former White House biographer Pete Souza discovered when he took to Twitter and posted an image of Trump and his perfectly undamaged ear getting into a plane. “Look closely at his ear that was ‘hit’ by a bullet from a AR-15 assault rifle,” he captioned.

Very soon after that, Souza’s account was disabled, but only after his image and caption went viral. Considering that Twitter (or X, as he prefers) is owned by the outwardly rightwing Elon Musk, the account getting disabled seemed like one conservative protecting another. In typical internet fashion, though, the attempt to hide what Souza was saying made many users think Souza was telling the truth and that conservatives are trying to cover up that Trump’s ear was never shot in the first place.