Trump campaign releases letter about his injury and treatment after last week’s assassination attempt
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump The campaign released an update on the former president’s health on Saturday, a week after he survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The memo, written by Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, who served as Trump’s White House physician, offers new details about the nature of the Republican nominee’s injuries and the treatment he received immediately after the attack.
According to Jackson, Trump was shot in the right ear by a high-powered rifle that came “within a quarter of an inch of his head and struck the top of his right ear.”
The trajectory of the bullet, he explained, “caused a 2 cm wide wound that extended to the cartilaginous surface of the ear. There was initially significant bleeding, followed by marked swelling of the entire upper part of the ear.”
Although the swelling has since subsided and the wound is “starting to granulate and heal properly,” he said, Trump still suffers intermittent bleeding, requiring the bandage that was on display at last week’s Republican National Convention.
“Given the large and blunt nature of the wound itself, no sutures were necessary,” he wrote.
Trump was initially treated by medical staff at Butler Memorial Hospital. According to Jackson, doctors “conducted a thorough assessment of additional injuries, including a CT scan of his head.”
Trump, he said, “will undergo further evaluations, including a comprehensive hearing exam, if necessary. He will follow up with his primary care physician, as directed by the physicians who initially evaluated him,” he wrote.
“In summary, former President Trump is doing well and is recovering as expected from the gunshot wound he suffered last Saturday afternoon,” he added.
The letter is the first official update on the former president’s health since the night of the shooting.
Jackson, a staunch Trump supporter, said in the letter that as Trump’s former physician, he was deeply concerned about the former president’s well-being following the attack and met with him in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Saturday night after Trump returned from Pennsylvania “to personally check on his condition and offer my assistance in any way I could.”
He said he has been by Trump’s side ever since, assessing and treating his injury daily. That includes traveling with him Saturday to Michigan, where the former president will hold his first rally since the shooting, joined by his new running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.
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It is unclear whether Jackson is still a licensed physician. A spokesperson for the congressman did not immediately provide a response, and Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to questions.
American Board of Emergency Medicine records show that Jackson has a certification in emergency medicine, valid until the end of 2015.
Last year, the Trump campaign released a letter on President Joe Biden’s 81st birthday written by Dr. Bruce A. Aronwald, a New Jersey physician who said he had been the former president’s physician since 2021.
