As you know, I’ve been pressing the simple point that we don’t have any information about the injury to the former president’s ear or what caused it other than a social media post from him on Truth Social a few hours after the Saturday afternoon shooting. That’s not just inadequate. It’s frankly bizarre. Someone did just flag to me that two days ago the Times made a very oblique reference to this in an article devoted to Congressman Ronny Jackson’s description of changing the gauze on Trump’s ear on his flight to Milwaukee (“Former White House Doctor Describes Tending To Trump’s Wounded Ear“). That article says in passing: “So far, only Mr. Trump has described his injuries; his team has not provided any formal medical briefing to the public since the shooting.” And that’s it.
As I’ve noted, Trump was wounded as a result of someone shooting at him. It’s entirely possible he was grazed by one of the bullets. I would say it’s my assumption. But we should have some report either from federal law enforcement or the doctors who treated him on what happened. And I can’t say what my assumption is based on anything other than the fact that Trump said it and virtually no one is questioning it. The Times and the rest of the press with the institutional heft to get answers to these kinds of questions have so far either not asked or at least not described any efforts to get more information on this. The fact that they’re devoting entire articles to supporters like Ronny Jackson replacing the gauze on Trump’s ear somewhat drives home that lack of focus.
The only other information on this is that Trump and his campaign have refused to allow the doctors at the local medical center where he was treated to speak to the press about what happened. They can do that. It’s important to remember that Trump is a private citizen. So his medical care is, in a formal sense, as private as anyone else’s. And in fairness to him, his non-transparency about his medical records long predates this incident.
As I’ve said, bringing this up means sticking your neck out a bit. I think the established national press is being so passive about this because it feels awkward to ask. And they’re probably afraid they’ll be accused of mistreating Trump or discounting his bravery. But that’s not a good reason or excuse. It’s very literally a major historical event. It’s a massive news event. The grounds are crawling with something like half the people in federal law enforcement. It’s crazy not to ask for some official accounting of what happened.
Elaboration: I never want to be coy with our readers. So I wanted to add here why I am pursuing this and what I think may have happened. Just after the shooting the Pennsylvania State Police started telling reporters that Trump was hit by shards of glass rather than a bullet. If you look closely at the brief tweets in which journalists reported this it seems like the police may simply have said it was glass shards and that the teleprompter part was the reporters’ surmise. In at least one case the reporter explicitly said that the teleprompter part was his assumption based on hearing about glass fragments. Precisely what the state police said is ambiguous.
But there must have been some reason they said Trump had been struck by glass shards. Someone fired gunshots and the probable target started bleeding from his ear. The most obvious default assumption is that a bullet injured him. You certainly wouldn’t come up with glass shards out of the blue. As in many first reports from chaotic situations, that reason may simply have been wrong. First reports are often wrong. We don’t know why they said that. Everything changed when Trump posted on Truth Social that he’d been struck by a bullet.
It’s certainly possible that the doctors treating Trump identified it as a bullet wound. Or possibly investigators told him that. But if that’s the case it’s hard to explain why they haven’t said that publicly. I think it’s entirely possible that when Trump was first treated no one really knew what happened and Trump just said it was a bullet and no one has questioned it since. If you’re the investigator or the doctor who knows it’s glass, do you really want to put up your hand and say, “Well, I know everyone’s repeating this. But it’s not true. Sorry. I’m sure you won’t accuse me of being a Deep Stater or dox my house or anything.” It also seems entirely possible that no one has any idea what hit Trump’s ear. I don’t know enough about the forensic possibilities to know how knowable that is. And in the absence of knowing one way or another no one wants to contradict Trump by just saying we don’t know.
Various people have pointed me to various websites which use press photos to argue that it was a bullet. Snopes has one up and they do at least seem to provide pretty clear evidence that neither of the teleprompters were damaged. But that’s not the point. It may totally be a bullet! But random people shouldn’t have to go full DIY-CSI on this and try to figure it out themselves. A former president and current candidate was shot at. Someone tried to murder him and did kill another man with a bullet intended for him. Federal law enforcement was there. Some doctor examined and treated the injury. This isn’t complicated. We should simply get some official explanation of what’s known. Again, totally uncomplicated and a completely reasonable thing to ask for.
I think the mainstream press is simply too cowed to press the point.
