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.

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.”

  • Hegar@fedia.io
    281·
    5 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.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      5 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.

    • na_th_an@lemmy.world
      182·
      5 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
        91·
        5 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
        21·
        5 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.