NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump's campaign released an update on the former president's health Saturday, one week after he survived an attempted assassination at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The memo, from Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, a staunch supporter who served as Trump's White House physician, offers new details on the nature of the GOP nominee's injuries and the treatment he received in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
It is the most thorough accounting to date of the former president’s condition since the night of the shooting, which also left one rally-goer dead and injured two others.
According to Jackson, Trump sustained a gunshot wound to the right ear that came “less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head, and struck the top of his right ear.”
The bullet track, he said, “produced a 2 cm wide wound that extended down to the cartilaginous surface of the ear. There was initially significant bleeding, followed by marked swelling of the entire upper ear.”
While the swelling has resolved and the wound “is beginning to granulate and heal properly,” he said Trump is still experiencing intermittent bleeding, requiring the dressing that was on display at last week's Republican National Convention.
“Given the broad and blunt nature of the wound itself, no sutures were required,” Jackson wrote.
Trump was initially treated by medical staff at Butler Memorial Hospital. According to Jackson, doctors “provided a thorough evaluation for additional injuries that included a CT of his head.”
Trump, he said, “will have further evaluations, including a comprehensive hearing exam, as needed. He will follow up with his primary care physician, as directed by the doctors that initially evaluated him," he wrote.
“In summary, former President Trump is doing well, and he is recovering as expected from the gunshot wound sustained last Saturday afternoon," he added.
Jackson said in the letter that, as Trump's former doctor, he was worried and traveled to Bedminster, New Jersey, where Trump had flown late Saturday after he returned from Pennsylvania, “to personally check on him, and offer my assistance in any way possible.”
He said he has been with Trump since that time, evaluating and treating his wound daily, and would remain with Trump through the weekend, including traveling to Michigan, where Trump held his first rally since the shooting, joined by his new running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance. At Saturday’s rally, the white gauze on Trump’s ear was replaced by a skin-colored bandage.
Jackson appears to be licensed to practice medicine in Florida, according to a state health department database. Records from the American Board of Emergency Medicine also show that Jackson has a certification in Emergency Medicine, valid through the end of 2025.
A spokesperson for the congressman did not immediately provide a response when asked about the status of his license, and Trump campaign’s did not immediately respond to questions.
Jackson has come under considerable scrutiny. After administering a physical to Trump in 2018, he drew 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 might live to be 200 years old.”
In 2001, the Department of Defense inspector general released a scathing report on his conduct as a top White House physician that found Jackson had made “sexual and denigrating” comments about a female subordinate, violated the policy on drinking alcohol on a presidential trip and took prescription-strength sleeping medication that prompted worries from his colleagues about his ability to provide proper medical care.
Jackson denied the allegations, claiming he was the victim of a “political hit job” because of his close ties to the former Republican president.
Last year, Trump’s campaign released a letter on President Joe Biden’s 81st birthday from Dr. Bruce A. Aronwald, a New Jersey physician, who said he had been the former president’s doctor since 2021.
Trump's campaign and federal law enforcement had released little information on his condition or treatment in the days after the the attack, declining to disclose medical records or hold briefings with the doctors who treated him at the hospital.
After a would-be assassin shot and gravely wounded President Ronald Reagan in 1981, the Washington, D.C., hospital where he was treated gave regular, detailed public updates about his condition and treatment.
Trauma surgeon Babak Sarani, who said he has been treating more patients with wounds from AR-15 style assault rifles, said the description in the letter was “exactly in line with what you would expect from a bullet wound.”
While the indirect damage is still usually minor, he said the risk of extensive damage is greater than if another gun were used.
“If a bullet whizzes by your ear from a low-caliber handgun, it’s not a big deal. ... You get a headache or feel dizzy like a bad concussion,” said Sarani, chief of trauma at George Washington Hospital in Washington, D.C. “But if the bullet is from an assault rifle, the energy is bigger, broader, and you’re more likely to develop bruises.”
He added, “in Trump’s case, he got very lucky. The majority of the energy was released in the air. If it had hit him in the head, we would be having a completely different conversation."
Former Secret Service agent Rich Staropoli said the AR-15-style rifle used by the gunman fires a 5.56 millimeter bullet at such high speeds — over 2,000 miles an hour — that just the air pressure as it passes can cause extensive damage.
“The shock wave alone could have ripped his ear off,” Staropoli said of Trump. “It’s amazing the bullet nipped him” and didn’t do any other damage.
“It’s a one in a billion type of thing,” he added. A fraction of a millimeter closer, "and this would be a different story. It really is incredible the thin line here between just a nick and devastating bodily damage.”
Dr. Kenji Inaba, chief of trauma and surgical critical care at the University of Southern California, said a follow-up by Trump’s physician was appropriate, including a mental health evaluation.
“Clearly any injury, no matter how minor, when there is intent, will be associated with some degree of post-traumatic stress, so this would also be a consideration for his medical team,” said Inaba in an email.
A previous version of this story mistakenly said Jackson's emergency certification was valid through the end of 2015. It is valid through the end of 2025.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally, Saturday, July 20, 2024, in Grand Rapids, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
FILE - Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, left, is introduced alongside Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, during the Republican National Convention, July 16, 2024, in Milwaukee. Trump is returning to the campaign trail in Michigan as he looks to win a second term in office. Trump has spent much of the week at the RNC and the trip to Michigan will be his first campaign event since an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on July 13. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)
A supporter, donning an ear bandage in solidarity with former President Donald Trump after an assassination attempt, makes his way to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, July 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump and Melania Trump during the final day of the Republican National Convention Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Donald Trump is returning to the battleground state of North Carolina Friday to address a meeting of the Fraternal Order of Police as he tries to portray himself as tougher on crime than his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, in the campaign’s closing months.
Meanwhile, Harris’ campaign announced Friday that it raised $361 million from nearly 3 million donors in her first full month as a candidate. Trump’s team announced Wednesday he brought in $130 million over the same period.
Early voting for the November election will be underway in at least four states by the end of this month.
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A North Carolina appeals court on Friday directed that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name be taken off state ballots for president, blocking the planned distribution of absentee ballots later in the day in what would have been the first sent out nationally for the Nov. 5 elections.
The intermediate-level Court of Appeals issued an order granting the request of Kennedy’s attorneys to halt the mailing of ballots with his name. The court also told a trial judge to issue an order telling the State Board of Elections to distribute ballots without Kennedy’s name on the ballot.
State law otherwise required the first absentee ballots be mailed or transmitted no later than 60 days before the general election, which was Friday. The process of reprinting and assembling ballot packages likely would take over two weeks, state attorneys have said. Friday’s ruling could be appealed.
Kennedy, named earlier this summer the nominee of the We The People party, had sued last week to get off North Carolina ballots after he suspended his campaign and endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump. But the Democratic majority on the State Board of Elections rejected the request, saying it was too late in the process of printing ballots and coding tabulation machines.
NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump appeared in court on Friday as his team tries to overturn a verdict finding him liable for sexual abuse and slander. Trump walked in quietly and passed right in front of writer E. Jean Carroll, who brought the lawsuit against him, and did not acknowledge or look at her.
Trump reacted at times such as shaking his head when Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, said that Trump sexually assaulted her client. He would tilt his head from side to side periodically but otherwise sat still and mostly alone.
When the hearing concluded, Trump stood up and his lawyers approached him briefly. He did not appear to say anything, then looked up and stood for a few moments before walking out of the courtroom.
It could be a well-rehearsed zinger, a too-loud sigh — or a full performance befuddled enough to shockingly end a sitting president’s reelection bid.
Notable moments from past presidential debates demonstrate how the candidates’ words and body language can make them look especially relatable or hopelessly out-of-touch — showcasing if a candidate is at the top of their policy game or out to sea. Will past be prologue when Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday?
“Being live television events, without a script, without any way of knowing how they are going to evolve — anything can happen,” said Alan Schroeder, author of “Presidential Debates: 50 years of High-Risk TV.”
▶ Read more about some highs, lows and curveballs from presidential debates past.
The Democratic National Committee is up with new digital billboards in the battleground state of North Carolina as former president and GOP nominee Donald Trump plans to visit the state for a meeting of law officers.
The DNC says its digital billboards are running in half a dozen locations around Charlotte, where Trump is slated to speak later Friday at a gathering of the Fraternal Order of Police.
One bears only the text “TRUMP 2024” and “CONVICTED FELON.” Another notes the “140 Police Officers Assaulted” at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, along with what Trump has said about wanting to “Pardon the Capitol rioters.”
A third billboard says that the Project 2025 plan “Gives Trump Virtually Unchecked Legal Power.”
The Justice Department announced Friday it will send federal observers to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to ensure compliance with federal voting rights laws in Tuesday’s primary election.
This comes after federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit earlier this year alleging the city failed to make voting information, forms, instructions and ballots available in Spanish, violating sections of the federal Voting Rights Act.
A federal court in May approved a consent decree to resolve the claims. The decree also addressed a claim that Pawtucket election officials didn’t allow voters to cast a provisional ballot or properly train poll workers on provisional ballots, violating a section of the Help America Vote Act.
The agency regularly sends observers to monitor compliance with federal civil rights laws in elections in communities across the country.
Vice President Kamala Harris raised well more than double what former President Donald Trump took in from donors in August, her campaign announced Friday, saying it raised $361 million from nearly 3 million donors in her first full month as a candidate.
Trump’s team announced Wednesday he brought in $130 million over the same period. Harris’ team says it ended the month with $404 million on hand for the final sprint to Election Day, $109 million more than Trump’s campaign says it had at the end of August.
The massive Harris war chest is being used to fund a $370 million paid media effort for the final two months of the campaign, and to pay for its more than 2,000 field staff spread through more than 310 offices in battleground states.
Harris’ fundraising builds on the $310 million she raised in July, the overwhelming majority of which came in after she took over President Joe Biden’s campaign after he dropped out that month. The ticket swap has helped the Democratic party reverse the fundraising edge Trump had developed in the prior months when voter doubts about Biden’s fitness for another term dampened donor — and voter — enthusiasm.
▶ Read more here.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Donald Trump is returning to the battleground state of North Carolina Friday to address a meeting of the Fraternal Order of Police as he tries to portray himself as tougher on crime than his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, in the campaign’s closing months.
Trump is scheduled to address FOP’s National Board of Trustees fall meeting in Charlotte. The FOP, the world’s largest organization of law enforcement officers, endorsed Trump’s reelection bid in 2020, with its president saying on behalf of its 373,000 members that Trump had “made it crystal clear that he has our backs.”
The imagery of the former president and GOP nominee in a room of law enforcement officers offers Trump the platform to contrast their support with his characterization of Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general whom Trump has called the “ringleader” of a “Marxist attack on law enforcement” across the country.
▶ Read more here.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz was asked on WCMU in Michigan Thursday how a Harris administration would handle the Israel-Hamas war and whether his running mate would break with President Joe Biden, who has steadfastly supported Israel while working to broker a ceasefire.
Walz said the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that touched off the war, was “a horrific act of violence against the people of Israel. They certainly have the right to defend themselves.”
But, he said, “we can’t allow what’s happened in Gaza to happen. The Palestinian people have every right to life and liberty themselves.”
He said those protesting the war in Michigan were speaking out for “all the right reasons.”
He said the only way forward was a ceasefire and return of hostages. He didn’t mention the revelation earlier this week that six additional hostages had been killed by Hamas.
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance is promoting Donald Trump’s plans to deport people living in the country illegally at record levels.
The Ohio senator spoke to a friendly crowd of about 300 people at a Phoenix hotel, saying a second Trump administration would “finish that beautiful border wall,” stop releasing asylum seekers while they await a court hearing and end Medicare benefits for people living in the country illegally, though unauthorized immigrants are not currently eligible for Medicare.
“I have a message from Donald J. Trump,” Vance said. “If you are in this country illegally in six months, pack your bags.”
The federal election interference case against Donald Trump is inching forward.
A judge on Thursday permitted prosecutors to file court documents later this month that could detail unflattering allegations about the former president as the Republican nominee enters the final weeks of his White House run.
The order came hours after a court hearing in which U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan sparred with a Trump lawyer who accused the government of trying to rush ahead with an “illegitimate” indictment in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.
Chutkan made clear she would not let the upcoming election affect how she proceeds. She turned aside defense efforts to delay the process while also acknowledging that the case is nowhere close to a trial date.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers are bitterly at odds over the next steps in the case after the Supreme Court narrowed the scope of the prosecution by ruling that former presidents are entitled to broad immunity from criminal charges. The case against Trump charges him with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team filed a revised indictment last week to strip out certain allegations against Trump for which the Supreme Court said the former president enjoyed immunity. Defense lawyers, however, believe that that indictment did not fully comply with the justices’ ruling.
▶ Read more here.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris waving to media members as she arrives at Pittsburgh International Airport, in Coraopolis, Pa., Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, where she is expected to prepare for the first presidential debate. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks at a campaign event, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, gestures to supporters at a campaign event, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks at a rally along the waterfront, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Erie, Pa. (Glen Stubbe/Star Tribune via AP)
Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz greets volunteers at an Erie Pennsylvania field office Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Erie, Pa. (Glen Stubbe/Star Tribune via AP)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives in Pittsburgh International Airport, in Coraopolis, Pa., Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, and takes a selfie with Sen. John Letterman, D-Pa. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump attends a campaign event at the Economic Club of New York, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives to speak during a campaign event at the Economic Club of New York, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
