Four days after a 20-year-old Republican attempted to assassinate disgraced former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally, the public remains in the dark about the extent of his injuries, what treatment the Republican presidential nominee received in the hospital, and whether there may be any long-term effects on his health.
Trump’s campaign has been tight-lipped regarding his condition.
They have not disclosed medical reports or records, nor have they made his doctors available for comment.
This has left the public reliant on sporadic updates from Trump, his friends, and family, who are known for their propensity to spread misinformation and exaggerations.
Trump’s campaign has refused to discuss his condition, release a medical report or records to the public, or make the doctors who treated him available, leaving information to trickle out from Trump, his friends, and family—all notorious for spreading lies, making wild exaggerations and showing a flagrant disregard for the truth.
The first word on Trump’s condition came about half an hour after shots rang out and Trump dropped to the ground after reaching for his ear and then pumping his fist defiantly to the crowd with blood streaming down his face.
The campaign issued a statement saying he was “fine” and “being checked out at a local medical facility.” “More details will follow,” his spokesperson said.
It wasn’t until 8:42 p.m. that Trump told the public he had been struck by a bullet as opposed to shrapnel or debris. In a post on his social media network, Trump wrote that he was “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part” of his right ear.
“I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” the candidate wrote.
The gunman’s motive in the Saturday attack on the former president remains unknown four days after he opened fire at Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. One rally attendee was killed while Trump and two others were injured.
The U.S. Secret Service is facing mounting questions about the security flaws that allowed the shooter to fire from a rooftop near the rally.
Republicans are calling for Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation amid criticism about security at the rally on Saturday. Sens. Marsha Blackburn and John Barrasso were videotaped aggressively confronting Cheatle at the GOP convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Presidents and major-party candidates have long had to balance their right to doctor-patient confidentiality with the public’s expectations that they confirm they are healthy enough to serve, particularly when questions arise about their readiness.
Trump, for example, has long pressed Biden to take a cognitive test, with the Democratic president facing doubts after his stumbling debate performance.
After a would-be assassin shot and gravely wounded President Ronald Reagan in 1981, the Washington, D.C., hospital where he was treated gave regular, detailed public updates about his condition and treatment.
In contrast, there has been no further word since Saturday from Trump’s campaign or other officials on his condition or treatment.
Trump has appeared at the Republican National Convention the past three days with a bandage over his right ear. The former president does not normally travel with a protective press pool, something candidates typically agree to once they become their parties’ official nominee.
Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, who served as Trump’s White House doctor and traveled to be with him after the shooting, said in a podcast interview Monday that Trump was missing part of his ear — “a little bit at the top” — but that the wound would heal.
“He was lucky,” Jackson said on a conservative podcast hosted by Benny Johnson. “It was far enough away from his head that there were no concussive effects from the bullet. And it just took the top of his ear off, a little bit of the top of this ear off as it passed through.”
He said that the area would need to be treated with care to avoid further bleeding — “It’s not like a clean laceration like you would have with a knife or a blade, it’s a bullet track going by,” he said — but that Trump is “not going to need anything to be done with it. It’s going to be fine.”
Tennis legend Martina Navratilova said that she believes Trump’s ear bandage is excessive, suggesting the reality television celebrity was trying to exploit the assassination attempt for political gain. “Of course – this is obviously a PR stunt – the day after the shooting he had no dressing on his ear… not even a band-Aid,” Navratilova tweeted.
MSNBC host Ari Melber called the ear bandage Trump was wearing during his first public appearance after the shooting a “spectacle.”
The former president’s son Eric Trump said in an interview with CBS on Wednesday that his father had had “no stitches but certainly a nice flesh wound.”
The lack of information continues a pattern for Trump, who has released minimal medical information throughout his political career. When he first ran in 2016, Trump declined to release full medical records, and instead released a note from his doctor that declared Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
Dr. Harold Bornstein later revealed that the glowing, four-paragraph assessment was written in 5 minutes as a car sent by Trump to collect it waited outside.
Jackson, after administering a physical to Trump in 2018, drew headlines for extolling the then-president’s “incredibly good genes” and suggesting that “if he had a healthier diet over the last 20 years he might live to be 200 years old.”
When Trump was infected with the coronavirus during his 2020 re-election campaign, his doctors and aides tried to downplay the severity of his condition and withheld information about how sick he was and key details of his treatment.
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows wrote in his book that Trump’s blood oxygen dropped to a “dangerously low level” and that there were concerns that Trump would not be able to walk on his own if he had waited longer to be transported to Walter Reed for treatment.
The immense cost of campaigning and the lack of influence ordinary Americans have on the political process further complicate this situation.
Billionaire contributors and corporate-owned media outlets, which profit from entertaining audiences, often misinform the electorate, thereby diminishing the influence of ordinary Americans.
The high costs required to run for office effectively exclude all but the wealthiest candidates and their benefactors, skewing political priorities and policies to favor those with deep pockets.
The continued lack of transparency regarding Trump’s health following the assassination attempt raises important questions about the public’s right to know the physical fitness of their potential leaders and the influence of money and media on American politics.