Donald Trump photo without ear bandage raises eyebrows
www.newsweek.com
Famous photographer Pete Souza has seemingly deleted his X account after a post doubting whether Trump was shot in the ear.

A photo of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump taken on Saturday without his ear bandage has sparked a wave of speculation.

The image, taken by Alex Brandon of the Associated Press on July 27 and shared by photojournalist Pete Souza on X, formerly Twitter, shows Trump walking up an airplane staircase with an apparently fully healed ear wound just weeks after he was shot with a high-powered rifle.

Souza, known for his tenure as the chief official White House photographer for Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, posted Brandon’s photo on his now-deactivated X account on Saturday, writing, “AP photo this morning. Look closely at his ear that was ‘hit’ by a bullet from an AR-15 assault rifle.”

Souza’s profile, @PeteSouza, which had over 200,000 followers, now reads, “This account doesn’t exist, try searching for another,” implying that he has deleted or deactivated it. If he had been banned, it would read, “Account suspended. X suspends accounts which violate the X rules.”

  • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    If he wants to prove there’s a hole he should just get a gauge for it. They could make it gold with a diamond T in the middle

  • Lasherz12@lemmy.world
    0·
    6 months ago

    “Jesus was a healer and he healed Trump” narrative incoming. Kamala being the new nominee stole all his thunder anyways, so who cares?

    • Riskable@programming.devEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      You’d think with how much he panders to the evangelicals he’d be right on top of showing them all just how holey he is 🤷

      • Riskable@programming.devEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        Revelations 13:3 One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast.

  • Media Bias Fact Checker@lemmy.worldB
    0·
    6 months ago
    Newsweek Media Bias Fact Check Credibility: [High] (Click to view Full Report)

    Newsweek is rated with High Creditability by Media Bias Fact Check.

    Bias: Right-Center
    Factual Reporting: Mostly Factual
    Country: United States of America
    Full Report: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/newsweek/

    Check the bias and credibility of this article on Ground.News:
    - https://ground.news/find?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Fdonald-trump-photo-without-ear-bandage-raises-eyebrows-1931403
    - https://ground.news/find?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Ftopic%2Frepublican%29
    - https://ground.news/find?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Ftopic%2Fdonald-trump%29
    - https://ground.news/find?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Ftopic%2Ftwitter%29%2C
    - https://ground.news/find?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Ftopic%2Fbarack-obama%29%2C

    Thanks to Media Bias Fact Check for their access to the API.
    Please consider supporting them by donating.

    Footer

    Media Bias Fact Check is a fact-checking website that rates the bias and credibility of news sources. They are known for their comprehensive and detailed reports.

    Beep boop. This action was performed automatically. If you dont like me then please block me.💔
    If you have any questions or comments about me, you can make a post to LW Support lemmy community.

  • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    0·
    6 months ago

    Musk can and will have his database team wipe accounts and posts from behind the scenes without making it appear like the user was banned.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    There’s just no fucking way his ear was hit by .223 (let alone the hotter 5.56) and there’s still an ear left.

    There would be a hole and massive damage, at least. Most likely just a twisted stump.

    It’s much more likely that someone scratched it with their fingernail in the chaos and it just bleed a lot because: adrenaline of being shot at, adrenaline of a rally, how high blood pressure is in the ear, and how blood thinners making even a small scratch look like a murder scene.

    If he’d really have been shot there’d never have been a bandage and trump wouldn’t go anywhere without 15 doctors in tow to explain how brave and strong he is to survive a gunshot wound.

    • warm@kbin.earth
      0·
      6 months ago

      It was just grazed and he might have had it covered with makeup, prosthetic or whatever since.

      The conspiracy is crazy.

      • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
        0·
        6 months ago

        There is no “just a graze” from a 5.56 on soft tissue.

        If that high-speed projectile got within a centimeter of his ear without actually touching it, there would have been serious injury due to the rapid displacement of air creating a tearing force on the soft tissue.

        If his ear is not seriously damaged, it was not touched by that round at all.

    • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
      0·
      6 months ago

      At minimum he was struck by glass. His reaction was instantaneous with the shots and clearly he was reacting to being hit in the ear. It could have just been reacting to a close fly by at his ear, except the chances of him then being injured and bleeding from the same ear from an agent are slim to none. But however he was injured, it clearly wasn’t much of an injury regardless.

      It would be kind of a moot point as he WAS shot at and injured, and a bystander and the shooter were both killed. Those are the important facts here. But then Trump had to throw a fit over the FBI saying they weren’t sure he’d actually been struck by a bullet or by shrapnel. He made such a stink out of it that now that he was clearly barely injured, it just makes him look silly and egotistical (go figure!) for so vehemently insisting he was hit with a bullet.

    • jws_shadotak@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      I think you overestimate the size and power of a 5.56 round. Much of the destructive force comes from speed and the area it hits - such as the chest or hips. Bones can cause it to ricochet and spin, causing cavitation and greater destruction.

      They can leave a tiny entrance wound. With how thin the ear is, it’s unlikely to have left an exit wound any larger than the entrance. It may have even hit the tip of the ear.

      Either way, I think there would still be a visible wound unless it just nicked the tip of the ear. The bleeding may be due to blood thinners or something, considering his cardiovascular health.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        Much of the destructive force comes from speed

        You should’ve stopped there.

        If it had hit his ear, it would have ripped a chunk of the ear off, not just caused a scratch that was unnoticeable days later. This isn’t the first time he’s been seen without a bandage. He was photographed like a day later and it was fine.

        I think there would still be a visible wound unless it just nicked the tip of the ear

        You’re missing the point.

        The bullet “nicking” his ear isn’t possible because (due to speed) it would have ripped a chunk off.

        • CM400@lemmy.world
          0·
          6 months ago

          The bullet “nicking” his ear isn’t possible because (due to speed) it would have ripped a chunk off.

          Please demonstrate this. If a paper target can get hit by these rounds every day in target practice and not get blown to pieces, why would an ear (especially if the ear was only “nicked” by the bullet) be any different?

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            6 months ago

            Compare the size of the whole to the bullet

            The holes is always bigger, and an ear has much more tear resistance than an ear. But Trump doesn’t even have a bullet sized hole in his ear.

            He has literally zero visible wounds…

            There’s not even a “nick”

            • CM400@lemmy.world
              0·
              6 months ago

              Oh, I see. You were using hyperbole and not actually claiming a “nick” by the bullet would take a chunk out of his ear. Fair enough.

            • BeMoreCareful@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              6 months ago

              The holes on paper aren’t bigger than a bullet. Bullets go fast. .223/5.56 is better than mach 2. That’ll breeze right through a surprising amount of material.

              He definitely didn’t have a bullet go through his ear though. Even at a magical angle a bullet wouldn’t be able to go right through.

              I kind of think it either barely touched or he got cut when he reached up to touch his ear or something, or a chunk of shrapnel from something else popped him. Honestly, that last one might make the most sense.

          • enkers@sh.itjust.works
            0·
            6 months ago

            Yeah, after watching some of the ballistic recreations, it’d either punch through in the case of full hit or nick it pretty good on a grazing hit. Either way, it wouldn’t take a chunk off.

            There’d still definitely be a wound, though. I think the most likely case is that he was indirectly hit with some sort of shrapnel.

            • CM400@lemmy.world
              0·
              6 months ago

              Personally, it doesn’t matter to me which outcome it was. He was shot at, and very minimally damaged by the bullet or something else. The outcome is the same.

              • enkers@sh.itjust.works
                0·
                6 months ago

                Agreed, although he’s certainly been playing his injury up wearing that ear patch around, when it’s at most been a little scratch.

          • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
            0·
            6 months ago

            Paper is thinner and will immediately tear and perfectly so. Squishy thicker flesh will rip and tear slower as the force goes everywhere before the entire region just fails.

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
          0·
          6 months ago

          The bullet “nicking” his ear isn’t possible because (due to speed) it would have ripped a chunk off.

          This does not follow at all.

          If the bullet went directly into his earlobe, yes it obviously would have taken a or multiple chunks out.

          If it barely grazed the top of his earlobe, it certainly could have basically just barely knicked it, with only tens or hundreds of microns of the bullet actually contacting tens or hundreds of microns of skin on the ear.

          At that scale, a bullet has a microscopically rough surface, and in addition to travelling at a high speed through its trajectory, is also rotating at high speeds.

          The analogy I have been taught to make sense of how bullet wounds work is that of a long range, high speed drill press.

          In this case, the drill does not so much punch a hole through flesh, as it does basically scrape right on top of an area with a large amount of blood flow under very thin skin.

        • jws_shadotak@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          6 months ago

          Much of the destructive force comes from speed

          You should’ve stopped there.

          Let me rewrite that:

          The destructive force of a 5.56 round is exponentially increased by the tissue it hits. If it hits purely soft tissue - such as a pass through the deltoid or quadriceps - it may not cause much damage at all.

          The real destruction comes from hitting hard tissue (like bone), which causes it to tumble and cavitate or cause it to ricochet and hit more soft tissue, on top of probably breaking whatever bone it hit.

    • PunnyName@lemmy.world
      0·
      6 months ago

      Some have stated it was shrapnel from the teleprompter being shattered and a chip of it scratching him.

      • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        THANK YOU! Jesus folks, if you don’t have experience with shooting AR-15 loads, just stop, admit you’re not really sure.

        Also, I’m thinking a lot of people are imaging the big, bad AR as shooting monster bullets. (That’s a joke pic BTW.) ARs are illegal to hunt with in some states because they’re not deadly enough to produce a clean kill. It’s a military round meant to be incapacitating and lightweight.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
        0·
        6 months ago

        From the Herrera vid, the first shot on the lower portion of the ear is more indicative of what, imo, likely occurred, inasmuch as:

        There is no missing chunk, it is actually just a graze.

        All you have to do is get a shot like that to just barely graze across the top of the upper rear earlobe, as opposed to blowing completely through the ear as their second shot does.

        A shot like that, just barely grazing along the upper ear lobe, is consistent with the scene as it played out, as well as the relatively rapid healing of basically a superficial scratch to an area with tons of small blood vessels.

        • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
          0·
          6 months ago

          I was thinking he wouldn’t even necessarily need to have actually been hit. The pressure wave from a bullet alone would have been enough to open up a bleedy wound on an ear.

          • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
            0·
            6 months ago

            I find that highly unlikely.

            It would have made an extremely loud supersonic ‘crack’ or ‘snap’ as it passed very close to his ear and may have caused some degree of temporary, possibly permanent hearing loss, but uh, no the air pressure differential almost certainly would not cause external bleeding.

            You can cause blood vessels to burst if you put part of a human body in a significantly low (negative) pressure situation for a significant duration of time, but a .223 passing by would cause no where near the needed negative pressure, it would be for an astoundingly short period of time and finally such pressure differential situations usually cause internal bleeding which is sometimes visible due to the broken capillaries at the top layer of the skin, but this blood pools within the skin and does not break through its surface.

            You would need something to actually contact and break the skin for the blood from those broken capillaries to leak outside of the body.

            • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
              0·
              6 months ago

              You’d be surprised, here’s an experiment shooting a bullet down the center of a tube made out of aluminum foil:

              https://youtu.be/VXIUfMGEXX8

              They don’t specify the caliber, but they do mention it’s going about 1,600fps which is about 1/2 the speed of an AR round.

              If that were ear tissue instead of foil, it would get ripped up pretty good.

              • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
                0·
                6 months ago

                They say its a slug, meaning its out of a shotgun. They do not mention the gauge, but its safe to say basically any shot gun slug is significantly larger than a .223 round and thus has way, way more air displacement.

                Also, they’re using aluminum foil, not human flesh or any kind of analog to it. Utterly, completely different and non analogous material, especially to ‘demonstrate’ what you are claiming it does.

                Could a near miss from a .223 or a shotgun slug cause a pressure wave that temporarily makes a bit of your ear wiggle?

                Sure, maybe a tiny bit.

                Would this cause your ear to start externally bleeding?

                No. To verify this, flick your upper ear, such that it moves by a centimeter.

                Is your ear now bleeding externally?

                Unless you broke the skin with your nail, no, it is not.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        There’s pictures of right after that show his ear…

        https://www.usatoday.com/gcdn/authoring/authoring-images/2024/07/14/USAT/74396917007-20240713-t-235354-z-1577583182-rc-2-mu-8-aisn-4-v-rtrmadp-3-usaelectiontrump.JPG?width=1320&height=882&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp

        No bullet wound. Just what seems like an insane amount of blood… If you’ve never seen an excited elderly person on blood thinners get the smallest scratch imaginable.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    0·
    6 months ago

    It must have barely nicked him. A hit where the entire cross sectional area of the bullet passed through the cartilage would have removed substantial material as well as possibly torn the ear completely. It’s not a bullet with a lot of mass, but it has a crapload of kinetic energy from velocity. Thin pieces of flesh are going to come apart with a direct hit.

    • FaceDeer@fedia.io
      0·
      6 months ago

      Right after the assassination attempt there were joking references to Trump’s history with professional wrestling and the practice of “[blading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blading_(professional_wrestling\))”, ie, using a concealed razor to cut yourself during a fight in order to make it seem like you’d been injured. It was funny, but I didn’t think anyone was taking it seriously.

      Now I’m genuinely starting to wonder. What the heck happened here? The odds of a bullet grazing just so exactly perfectly close to make him bleed, but not to produce any actual long-lasting damage, are lower than all kinds of other ridiculous ideas. I don’t even see any bruising in this photo. Elderly people often have a tendency to bruise quite easily.

  • Riskable@programming.devEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    I’m skeptical of this photo. There’s no way Trump can handle stairs like that. Unless the photo was taken after one of his usual, “pause for 3 seconds after each step cuz this is just too much.”

  • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
    0·
    6 months ago

    I hate to defend Trump, but as someone who a had cartilage piercing accidentally torn out, I can attest to the insane amounts of blood that can come from a rather small ear wound.

  • ZhaoYadang@lemmy.world
    0·
    6 months ago

    Look. Newsweek. People.

    Here’s your headline: “Photo shows Trump lied about ear injury.” Just say what it is.

  • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world
    0·
    6 months ago

    You people are rather pathetic. I cannot imagine caring about this non story.

    I do not care one fucking bit what the damage was and if you care, you are a worthless lemming.

  • WhyDoYouPersist@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    Speaking for myself, my eyebrows are not raised. I remember reading that day that it was a shattered teleprompter or other shrapnel that nicked or sliced his ear, not that a bullet had passed through it. In any case, I personally don’t quite understand the importance of the distinction. He was shot at either way, no? If it were a nick by glass I imagine it would’ve healed by now.

    • Hegar@fedia.io
      0·
      6 months ago

      FBI officially stated that it was a bullet, not shrapnel, after expressing initial uncertainty plus unhealthy 78 year olds heal slowly, hence the raised eyebrows.

      Probably he was legit shot at - I think it’s irrational to believe it was staged with the evidence we currently have - but fascists love false-flag and staged attacks. Hitler’s Reichstag Fire, Putin’s Russian Appartment Bombings are two recent examples. Even Pisastratus, the 5thC BCE tyrant of Athens staged a fake attack on himself to generate sympathy and justify an armed guard which he then used to seize the acropolis.

      So I can definitely see why eyebrows raise quickly when a would be tyrant is suspiciously unscathed.

      • na_th_an@lemmy.world
        0·
        6 months ago

        “What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle,” the agency said in a statement.

        They’re saying it could have been a fragment of a bullet, which would qualify as shrapnel. They’re not using that word.

        • Hegar@fedia.io
          0·
          6 months ago

          Thank you! So the FBI is still saying it was shrapnel, they just stopped using the word shrapnel so trump can have his BS narrative. That’s healthy for our democracy.

          speculation from last week by FBI director Christopher Wray about whether Trump’s ear was hit by a bullet or by shrapnel. The FBI later confirmed he was hit by a bullet.

          But then you have to click ‘hit by a bullet’ to find out they’re using bullet as a euphemism for shrapnel.

        • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          6 months ago

          they’re not using the word cause they don’t want to deal with the diaper baby having a tantrum at them, so they are caving to him.

      • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        The fact that trump wont release his medical records to anyone, or even allow the FBI to question him or see his ear, is all the proof you need that he didnt get shot.

        We know trumps personality. If his ear really got shot by an actual bullet, He’d be ripping the bandage off at every fucking opportunity and pointing to it and screaming about what biden/the liberals/etc did to him.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
      0·
      6 months ago

      Yeah this is pretty much the entire point.

      Furthermore, denying it isn’t good politics. We’re not going to make his base disbelieve him and we’re going to look like conspiracy theorists to moderate Republicans and centrists unless we have extremely solid evidence.

      Until we get that, he was shot, he has recovered. The ear and head area is famous for producing a lot of blood from very little. He was extremely lucky to only be grazed and we all renounce this kind of violence.

    • jballs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      You might not understand the importance of the distinction, but Trump does in his messaging.

      In an interview with The New York Post in the days after the shooting, Trump said that a bullet had hit him, taking a chunk out of his ear.

      “The doctor at the hospital said he never saw anything like this, he called it a miracle,” he said. “I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead.”

      He’s touting this as an honest to God miracle that he survived. His followers have said God personally intervened to spare Trump, which strengthens their belief that he’s some sort of holy figure destined to rule. If it turns out that he was scratched by some shrapnel and not shot, that doesn’t sound nearly as divine-interventiony.

      • WhyDoYouPersist@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        Yeah that gives a lot of context. He’s a pathological liar. Unfortunately, people attributing this to an act of God won’t be persuaded by any images or video showing that his ear is fully intact for whatever reason. They’ll assign it as another one of God’s miracles.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
        0·
        6 months ago

        So he stood there in a hail of bullets so close he got hit by debris and you’re telling me it wasn’t an act of God?

        Sorry, just giving you a preview of their answer. Having been shot at in my life, it doesn’t really matter. They’re going to call those bullets missing him a miracle. Especially because at 100 meters, he should be dead. He’s alive for only one of two reasons, that shooter fucked up or divine intervention.

        • jballs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          6 months ago

          I love the idea that an all powerful God would be like “sure I could stop this whole thing from happening in a million different ways, but I’m just gonna wait until the last possible microsecond and deflect the bullets into this firefighter instead.”

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
            0·
            6 months ago

            Sorry God was on her lunch break when the Secret Service did their pre game prayer circle.

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
      0·
      6 months ago

      No one should be shot at, period. It’s the act of taking a bad thing (where someone did die) and embellish it for use for his advantage. If he had any shame…but…

    • YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca
      0·
      6 months ago

      Getting hit by a bullet makes it more dramatic and makes him more of a martyr for his rabid cult fans. If it didn’t hit him then there’s always the hint of the question - “was he the actual target?”. Which makes him less important to his fans.

      • WhyDoYouPersist@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        Good point, I guess that gives me some justification for my stance that it isn’t important. I wouldn’t want to stoop to the level of his fans.

      • PunnyName@lemmy.world
        0·
        6 months ago

        It was just a mass shooting: you know, the thing that keeps happening in America that no one cares about…

        • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
          0·
          6 months ago

          Let’s see how much the make of it when it’s one of their self-selected elites injured by the gunman.

          And let’s remind them it’s too early to speak about shootings. Let’s get some clarity and distance from this vigilante shooting over a crowd of people with an AR.

      • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
        0·
        6 months ago

        Plus, although being shot at is pretty close to dying of course, a bullet grazing your head is exponentially closer to dying than it missing by several feet and some shrapnel or whatever gives you a little nick