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 genuinely, since the day it happened, have not believed that Trump was shot.
I watched over and over again and I swear what I saw was WWE theatre.
I would have believed an attempt on his life, from someone anywhere on the Political spectrum (I even said this before info about the shooter came out).
However, I don’t believe Trump. He has had a white mark on his ear for years. The “scab” that he’s playing off as a wound has been there for years.
He is the liar/the first beast!
Two people died. It’s asinine to ignore that and let your desire to distrust trump metastasize into conspiracy theories.
It’s conspiracy theories like the Obama birther movement that got us into this situation. So just zip it.
He was shot at, the bullet grazed his ear leaving very little substantial damage. We don’t need leftwing misinformation any more than we need rightwing misinformation.
Let’s be better than that, AND let’s not bring that sort of vibe onto Lemmy. Because I guarantee you Russia and other foreign state actors are looking to promote misinformation this election season as they do any other. Lemmy don’t need that stuff.
Look, a bullet from an AR-15 passing that close to your head is going to create a shockwave sufficient enough to cause permanent hearing damage and probably a minor concussion.
If it connected with his flesh, even just a “graze”, it would have done a lot more damage, and wouldn’t be completely healed so quickly.
There’s plenty of evidence of dishonesty here. Trump, at least to some extent, is playing this event up. For example, if the damage to his ear was this minor, why has he been wearing a huge obvious bandage over his whole ear? That alone shows some degree of performance here, the question is exactly how much of this was a performance.
It’s conspiracy theories like the Obama birther movement that got us into this situation. So just zip it.
Accusing a well know liar of lying is nowhere near the same as that racist smear campaign, and you fucking know it. Zip it.
let’s not bring that sort of vibe onto Lemmy. Because I guarantee you Russia and other foreign state actors are looking to promote misinformation
“Let’s not bring conspiracy energy to Lemmy” Immediately goes full Russiagate
This is the exact cockhead bullshit I’m talking about, coming online and pretending to be a ballistics expert…
As for saying I’m spreading some Russiagate nonsense, AP NEWS, bitch:
“Young Fox” great name, it’s what the “T” in “tgs” stands for.
This is my point. I’ve grieved for those dead at the event. I believe they were killed.
I don’t believe Trump was shot and so I come to the conclusion he has planned this entire thing. This is what I’ve come to expect from Trump in his reach for Power.
If I am wrong, I’m sorry and willing to admit being wrong.
However, the reason I would be wrong is because Trump is a liar.
Look, a bullet from an AR-15 passing that close to your head is going to create a shockwave sufficient enough to cause permanent hearing damage and probably a minor concussion.
This is absolutely false. A .50 cal can go right by your head, and as long as it doesn’t contact, your head, you’ll be fine, possibly with some hearing damage. 5.56 is a lot smaller than that.
I see it as asinine to believe that Trump wouldn’t have his own supporters killed.
You bring up Russia but false flags are right out of the Pig Putins Book. A man with much praise from Trump.
I won’t zip it because I don’t believe he was shot. Until he admits otherwise, I am under the belief that he had his own supporter killed to use their names as a Martyr and say he took a bullet for America
The thing is he couldn’t even wear the Pressure Bandage for more than one night at the RNC. He won’t even pretend he has a boo boo for America.
He is the liar
Edit. Let me add that since bringing this up I realized Trump met with a Putin puppet 2 days before shooting.
You’re a conspiracy theorists idiot then. As bad as any of the “left wing are cultural marxist elites running Capitalism” people.
Because you’re also operating on political assumptions rather than what’s know.
The FBI has said he was shot, they will have brought in crime scene detectives and ballistics experts and mapped the trajectory of the bullet already, and they’ve ALREADY SAID he was shot. But stand back everyone “some guy on the internet” has the real facts!
You can’t trust the FBI and US officials - because u/tgs1999 has decided they know more about it!
It’s idiotic conspiracy mongering where it’s not needed.
Trump still believes his birther bullshit. His base still believes his birther bullshit.
Don’t act like it’s not possible for trump to have faked an assassination attempt as a means to seize power.
It fits his modus operandi. It fits the evidence I see.
The fact 2 people died, while sad, is a toll I believe trump would gladly pay for a chance at acting as Putin’s puppet as POTUS.
The most likely thing is it was a real attempt on his life, but he just got a scratch from some shrapnel or glass and was playing it up until he got bored of it.
A little bit before the attempt, people were discussing the testimony surrounding a dropped case against him, the woman recounted being 13 and was orally raped by Trump in '94. She refused to continue to testify after receiving death threats or something.
So this guy might have just been playing some pedo hunter fantasy out. He doesn’t have an online presence, if he did there would be some indication of being recruited if that was the case.
Stuff on your face and head bleeds a lot. It probably just barely grazed it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Bullets can lacerate tissue without causing crazy destruction. A wound less severe than this on the tip of the ear could be healed within 2 weeks or however long it’s been.
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.
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?
It was just grazed and he might have had it covered with makeup, prosthetic or whatever since.
The conspiracy is crazy.
This is just misinformation that has been disproved on youtube by many a people and their ar15s already. Not to mention, it could have been shrapnel.
In case it gets taken down completely:
There have been re-creations on YouTube with ballistics gel and pig ears showing what happens to an ear shot by an AR-15 round, I’m not going to lay judgement, just watch the video:
Ballistics gel (language):
https://youtu.be/FsvJzfXZI18#t=6m59s
Pig ears:
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.
What kills me are the states that ban bottleneck cartridges for hunting. Shotguns only. They’re only now coming around and allowing straight walled cartridges.
https://www.remington.com/big-green-blog/what-states-can-you-hunt-with-a-straight-all-cartridge.html
There’s pictures of right after that show his ear…
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.
Just gonna leave this here, and additionally note that Trump was heavily involved with professional wrestling for YEARS
As an excited elderly person on blood thinners, I absolutely get that. “Hey! Where’d all this blood come from! Oh, wait!”
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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
Is it very stupid that Souza’s account was deleted for this picture?
Yes.
Is Trump a nonstop POS liar?
Also yes.
Is it possible Trump got astoundingly lucky, and the bullet just barely grazed the top of his earlobe, and this would cause the amount of blood seen, and basically just a superficial scratch?
Again, yes.
This kind of wound is typically called a ‘graze’. It is consistent with the trajectory the shooter was firing from and the direction Trump was facing.
There is another bandage pic of Trump with more localized bandaging which to me indicates the bullet likely just barely grazed the top rear ish of his upper earlobe:
Could it possibly have been caused by shrapnel or fragments of a teleprompter or some other object?
Yes, but, in the case of shattering teleprompter glass, shattered glass fragments are generally more rough and jagged surfaces than a spinning bullet, which on average would lead to an even more fucked up wound and more blood.
I keep hearing this claim that the teleprompter shattering was what actually caused the wound, despite the picture of what seems to literally be the bullet and it warping the air passing in an exact trajectory that would align with an astoundingly lucky and light graze.
Are there pictures, video, audio showing the teleprompter shattered, or being shattered?
The photo could have been mirrored for stylistic purposes, but you’d think the photographer would have come out and said something by now.
The picture doesn’t give a 3D placement for the bullet, it doesn’t prove anything. We are seeing an x,y picture without any frame of reference for the z-axis. The trail tells us little due to the limitations of digital photography and the camera used.
The glass fragments are not more rough, that’s not really a good way to describe the two surfaces. The glass also would not have shattered, it would have ruptured. The two are different mechanical differences for what happened. The amount of kinetic energy in the glass fragments would have been very high.
The glass fragments would have been much sharper than the rounded bullet. It’s essentially 1,000 flying small knives bumping into each other.
That’s all fine. But also, Trump could and should just release the record of the medical visit. That would quiet a lot of this down. The outrage comes from the “oh my god I was shot with a bullet” and the “look how strong I am” vibe trump is giving off while also not releasing any real evidence aside from the footage of the day.
But I would suspect all of that to be intentional. A void of information creates a vacuum that fills with misinformation and speculation and that causes discourse which is all trump wants.
Oh yes, I completely agree with you that Trump should release the records of the hospital visit and cooperate with instead of needlessly antagonize investigators.
Unfortunately, he’s Trump, and as you say, he is probably at least somewhat cognizant that a vacuum of information has already lead to baseless speculation, and he certainly knows that in a chaotic miasma of people operating with entirely different ‘facts’, he can later stir the pot to his advantage.
Pete Souza posted on Instagram that he suspended his Twitter account himself. Apparently he was receiving a lot of hate (big surprise) and also drew fire inadvertently to the photographer of the photo
Souza deleted his own account.
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4798519-former-white-house-photographer-deletes-x-account/
