Day: July 18, 2024

Donald Trump‘s former White House physician said that there was “no concussive effect” from the bullet that grazed the former president’s right ear during the assassination attempt at a campaign rally on Saturday.

Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas, who served as Trump’s doctor during the former president’s term in the Oval Office, spoke with conservative podcast host Benny Johnson on Monday before the start of the Republican National Convention (RNC), where Trump was formally nominated as the GOP’s pick for the 2024 presidential election.

The convention has arrived in the wake of the assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, over the weekend. The gunman, identified by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, shot several rounds from a .22 caliber-fitted AR-15-style weapon at the former president. Crooks grazed Trump’s ear in the shooting. One rally- goer was killed and two others were injured. The assailant was shot dead by Secret Service counter-snipers soon after firing at Trump.

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump on Monday attends the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Trump’s former White House physician, Representative Ronny Jackson, provided…
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump on Monday attends the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Trump’s former White House physician, Representative Ronny Jackson, provided an update on the former president’s right ear that was grazed by a bullet during Saturday’s assassination attempt. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Jackson said Monday that he checked out Trump’s ear the morning before the first day of the RNC, adding that the bullet “just took the top of his ear off” as it whizzed past the former president. Trump was seen with a large bandage over his ear during the convention on Monday.

“He was lucky,” Jackson said on The Benny Show. “I mean, it was far enough away from his head that there was no concussive effect from the bullet, and it just took the top of his ear off.”

Jackson added that the wound was “bleeding like crazy” when he checked in on the former president Monday morning but that Trump “will be OK” and that the injury would “granulate” and “heal in.” Granulation is the process of new connective tissue forming on the surface of a wound while it heals.

Johnson also asked the physician if Trump would have “a bite out of his ear for the rest of his life.” Jackson responded that the wound “is not going to be that noticeable” when healed.

Newsweek reached out to Trump’s campaign via email for further comment Tuesday afternoon.

Jackson added during his discussion with Johnson that he believes “divine intervention” played a role in keeping Trump from being further hurt in the shooting. The former president has previously said that his life was spared because he moved his head at “the exact right time” to pivot toward a chart that he was speaking about during the rally.

“He [Trump] realizes how close he came to that,” Jackson said. “And he realizes that if he hadn’t started making that movement where he turned his head, pulled back a little bit and looked up, if he hadn’t done it at the exact millisecond that he started, that bullet would have entered his head.”

“I think there was divine intervention there,” the congressman added.