Former President Trump said Friday he has “removed the last of the bandages from my ear” after one of his ears was injured in a recent assassination attempt.
“As you can see, I’m doing well and, in fact, I just took off the last of the bandages that I had on my ear,” Trump said at an event in Florida for the conservative Christian group Turning Point Action.
Trump faced an assassination attempt earlier this month in which he said he was hit by a bullet in one of his ears, and was seen with one of his ears bandaged at the recent Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and at events afterward.
“I took my mask off for this group,” Trump said at the event on Friday. “I don’t know why I did it for this group, but that’s it. I think that’s it, and I hope that’s it.”
The former president maintained on Thursday that it was a bullet that hit one of his ears, after FBI Director Christopher Wray said in congressional testimony on Wednesday that “there’s a question as to whether it was a bullet or shrapnel that struck his ear.”
“No, unfortunately it was a bullet that hit my ear. And it hit me hard. There was no glass, no shrapnel,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “The hospital called it a ‘gunshot wound in the ear’ and that’s what it was. No wonder the once renowned FBI has lost America’s trust!”
Rep. Ronny Jackson (D-Texas), a former White House physician who said he treated the president’s ear, disputed Wray’s question about what hit Trump’s ear.
“Two days ago at a congressional hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested it could have been a bullet, shrapnel or even glass,” Jackson said in the letter posted to Truth Social on Friday.
“There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a gunshot wound. Congress should correct the record, as the hospital and I have confirmed. It is wrong and inappropriate for Director Wray to suggest otherwise,” he added.
