Former White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci has denounced questions about former President Trump’s health following the assassination attempt a week ago, saying the president has “superficial wounds.”
“I don’t think it goes beyond that,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Friday after watching a clip of Trump talking about a bullet grazing his ear during the Pennsylvania shooting. “So, from what we’ve seen and heard, it was a bullet that grazed his ear, it caused ear injury.”
Fauci said doctors who examined the former president found no further damage.
His comments came after 20-year-old suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed onto a roof and began firing while on a direct line to the former president during a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, just outside Pittsburgh. Crooks and one other event attendee were killed and two others seriously injured, according to the Secret Service, which has been under intense scrutiny since the incident.
Fauci, who served under both the Trump and Biden administrations, added that the former president thought “the bullet itself” was “not an issue.”
“From what I can see, it’s dangerous to make a diagnosis from a distance, and from what I can see, judging by his current behavior and the doctors’ reports, it appears he just has a minor injury to his ear and that’s it,” Fauci said in a statement. Highlighted by Mediaite.
Just days after the assassination attempt, Trump formally accepted the Republican presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
While Trump was a visible presence at the party convention this week, little information has been released about his progress in his recovery from the shooting — the former president wore a large white bandage over his ear throughout the Republican National Convention — but has not released an official update.
In his convention speech and in an online post after the shooting, Trump said he heard a “whispering sound” during the shooting and then noticed pain in his ears.
Fauci said he imagined the doctors who treated the former president after the incident performed some sort of brain test, such as a CT or MRI scan, but he couldn’t say for sure.
“In a situation where you’ve been hit by a bullet, it’s reasonable to respond in that way,” the doctor, known primarily for his work responding to COVID-19, said Friday.
