A reporter who got a close-up look at Donald Trump’s ear less than a month after an attempted assassination attempt against him suggested that the former president might have exaggerated the extent of his injuries.
Since the July 13 incident there has been no official statement or medical report outlining exactly what kind of injuries Trump suffered. Up until now, the public had to rely on word from Trump, his sycophants and members of his family, who aren’t exactly reliable sources.
Trump claimed in a social media post after the incident that the bullet “pierced” the upper part of his ear.
Former White House physician turn Republican congressman Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) told The New York Times that “the bullet took a little bit off the top of his ear.”
Jackson also told a podcast that the former president will wear a bandage on the ear for the foreseeable future.
At the Republican National Convention—where Trump infamously sported a large bandage on his right ear—Eric Trump claims “somebody took off half of [his father’s] ear.”
But, New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi got a detailed look at Trump’s ear during a sit down interview with the former president at Mar-a-Lago in late August, so weeks after the assassination attempt, and declared that the ear appeared to be “normal.”
“The particular spot that he identified with his tap was pristine,” Nuzzi wrote. “I scanned carefully the rest of the terrain. It looked normal and incredible and fine.”
“An ear had never appeared to have gone through less,” she added. “Except there, on the tiniest patch of this tiny sculpture of skin, a minor distortion that resembled not a crucifixion wound but the distant aftermath of a sunburn.”
Now, Jackson told Nuzzi that the wound was “kind of a half-moon shape” and “there was nothing to stitch.”
He added that the bullet had “scooped” a small amount of “skin and fat” off the top of Trump’s ear.
“Everybody has fat and skin on top of their ears,” Jackson said. “He’s got good ears.”
