MILWAUKEE (AP) — Four days later attempted murder of a sniper old President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania, the public still doesn’t know the extent of his injuries, the treatment the Republican presidential candidate received in the hospital and whether there could be any long-term effects on his health.
Trump’s campaign refused to discuss his condition, release a medical report or records to the public, or make available the doctors who treated him, letting the information escape Trump and his friends and family.
The first word on Trump’s condition came about half an hour after shots were fired and Trump fell to the ground after reaching for his ear and then throwing a punch defiantly into the crowd, with blood running down his face. The campaign released a statement saying he was “doing well” and “being examined at a local medical center.”
“More details will come,” his spokesperson said.
However, it was only at 8:42 pm that Trump told the public that he had been hit by a bullet and not shrapnel or debris. In a post on his social network, Trump wrote that he was “shot by a bullet that pierced the upper part” of his right ear.
“I immediately knew something was wrong as I heard a buzzing sound, gunshots and immediately felt the bullet tearing through the skin,” he wrote.
Presidents and major party candidates have long had to balance their right to doctor-patient confidentiality with public expectations that they confirm they are healthy enough to serve, especially when questions arise about their preparedness. Trump, for example, has long pressed Biden to take a cognitive test, with the Democratic president facing doubts following his shaky debate performance.
After a suspected assassin shot and seriously injured President Ronald Reagan in 1981, the Washington, D.C. hospital where he was treated provided regular, detailed public updates on his condition and treatment.
There has been no further word since Saturday from the Trump campaign or other officials about his condition or treatment.
Trump has appeared at the Republican National Convention over the past three days with a bandage on his right ear.
The former president does not normally travel with a press protective group, something candidates typically agree to when they become their party’s official nominees.
Representative. Ronnie JacksonR-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 got lucky,” Jackson said on “The Benny Show,” a conservative podcast hosted by Benny Johnson. “It was far enough away from his head that there were no blunt effects from the bullet. ear out, a little from the top of this ear as she passed.”
He said the area would need to be treated carefully to prevent further bleeding – “It’s not like a clean laceration like you did with a knife or a blade, it’s a bullet trail going through,” he said – but that Trump is ” You won’t need anything to be done with it. It’ll be fine.
The former president’s son, Eric Trump, said in an interview with CBS on Wednesday that his father “didn’t have any stitches, but he certainly had a nice flesh wound.”
Lack of information continues to be a pattern for Trump, who has released minimal medical information throughout his political career.
When he first ran in 2016, Trump refused to release full medical records and instead released a note from his doctor who declared that Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
Harold Bornstein later revealed that the glowing four-paragraph assessment was written in 5 minutes while a car sent by Trump to pick it up waited outside.
Jackson, after administering a physical exam to Trump in 2018, made 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 could live to be 200.” .
When Trump became infected with the coronavirus in the middle of his 2020 re-election campaign, his doctors and aides tried to downplay the severity of his condition and omitted information about how ill he was and important 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.
