Donald Trump photo without ear bandage raises eyebrows
www.newsweek.com
Famous photographer Pete Souza has seemingly deleted his X account after a post doubting whether Trump was shot in the ear.

Updates:

Might be best for mods to lock this post at this point (is that a thing on Lemmy?) because this story is basically wrapped. The FBI says a bullet caused some ear damage. Maybe it was bullet shrapnel from a ricochet or something like that, but later photos show the teleprompters in-tact so it wasn’t shards of glass from those. Trump’s usage of the bandage (and the assassination attempt) as symbols and political tools has been discussed at length and I don’t think conspiratorial thinking beyond that is very productive. Pete Souza took his own account down after getting a lot of harassment, so no further conspiracies are needed regarding X-formerly-known-as-Twitter at this time.

A photo of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump taken on Saturday without his ear bandage has sparked a wave of speculation.

The image, taken by Alex Brandon of the Associated Press on July 27 and shared by photojournalist Pete Souza on X, formerly Twitter, shows Trump walking up an airplane staircase with an apparently fully healed ear wound just weeks after he was shot with a high-powered rifle.

Souza, known for his tenure as the chief official White House photographer for Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, posted Brandon’s photo on his now-deactivated X account on Saturday, writing, “AP photo this morning. Look closely at his ear that was ‘hit’ by a bullet from an AR-15 assault rifle.”

Souza’s profile, @PeteSouza, which had over 200,000 followers, now reads, “This account doesn’t exist, try searching for another,” implying that he has deleted or deactivated it. If he had been banned, it would read, “Account suspended. X suspends accounts which violate the X rules.”

  • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
    9·
    4 months ago

    You’re a conspiracy theorists idiot then. As bad as any of the “left wing are cultural marxist elites running Capitalism” people.

    Because you’re also operating on political assumptions rather than what’s know.

    The FBI has said he was shot, they will have brought in crime scene detectives and ballistics experts and mapped the trajectory of the bullet already, and they’ve ALREADY SAID he was shot. But stand back everyone “some guy on the internet” has the real facts!

    You can’t trust the FBI and US officials - because u/tgs1999 has decided they know more about it!

    It’s idiotic conspiracy mongering where it’s not needed.

    • tgs1999@lemmy.world
      3·
      4 months ago

      Call me what you will but I still don’t believe he was shot from the second i saw the video. I won’t be quiet about that the way my mother was never quiet about Kennedys assissination in Dallas.

      • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
        4·
        4 months ago

        I’m a conspiracy theorists they way my mother was a conspiracy theorists about a different conspiracy theory.

        …do you at least get that backing a conspiracy theory up with reference to another conspiracy theory… And a family tradition, isn’t a rational or reasonable argument to present to others.

        Like, I don’t care if your family believes in Gremlins or Dragons, but that’s not a reason to bother other people about it. Believe what you like, but not expect others to consider “conspiracy theories backed by other conspiracy theories” as a valid approach to reality.

        • tgs1999@lemmy.world
          2·
          4 months ago

          Kennedys assassination is no conspiracy either. It’s been proven and admitted to not be what was stated by the FBI.

          To act like there is no real “conspiracy” in reality is not reality.