Updates:
Might be best for mods to lock this post at this point (is that a thing on Lemmy?) because this story is basically wrapped. The FBI says a bullet caused some ear damage. Maybe it was bullet shrapnel from a ricochet or something like that, but later photos show the teleprompters in-tact so it wasn’t shards of glass from those. Trump’s usage of the bandage (and the assassination attempt) as symbols and political tools has been discussed at length and I don’t think conspiratorial thinking beyond that is very productive. Pete Souza took his own account down after getting a lot of harassment, so no further conspiracies are needed regarding X-formerly-known-as-Twitter at this time.
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.”
I still expect Trump’s ear wound appearance was fixed with cosmetics, I mean why wouldn’t they? He doesn’t want to look like Frankenstein. I got downvoted to hell in another thread for posting that though.
Are you insane? There is no way Trump would pass up that sort of imagery.
I was fully expecting the bandage to stay on for months.
But you can’t expect anything from the guy, so…
I do not agree. I think he see it a sign of weakness. He wants everything to look perfect, there are no way he want to look week.
Since when are scars a sign of weakness. They scream courage or bravery to me
Why wouldn’t they? Because they want to sell the strong tin leader narrative. I’m surprised he took the bandage off. I’m surprised he isn’t wearing a T-shirt with his little PR photo tiny-handed fist in the air. I’m sure he asks his sycophants if it looked more manly than the photo of shirtless Putin riding a stallion.
