Did Trump wear a bandage during a September 2024 interview after his ear healed?

Claim:

A screenshot authentically shows former US President Donald Trump wearing a bandage on his ear again in September 2024, long after his right ear had healed from an assassination attempt in July.

Judgement:

Context

The screenshot in question is from a July 2024 interview with Fox News. Photos of Trump show him removing the bandage weeks before September.

A viral screenshot of Donald Trump circulated in September 2024, claiming that the former US president was wearing a bandage on his right ear that month, even though his ear had reportedly already healed following an assassination attempt on him in July. The screenshot purported to show a recent Fox News interview in which the bandage is visible on Trump’s ear.

(X user @aintscarylarry)

However, the above post and others falsely claimed the interview was recent. The screenshot is from a July 2024 Fox News interview Trump had with his running mate, J.D. Vance, conducted by Jesse Watters. Therefore, we rate this claim as “Miscaptioned.”

We found the exact moment of the X-post in an interview with Fox News from late July 2024. The moment in question occurs at minute 1:23 in the YouTube video below:

Here’s a screenshot of that moment too:

(YouTube user Fox News)

Jesse Watters’ July 2024 interview with Trump was rebroadcast on Fox News on September 2, 2024, according to the Internet Archive. At the time of the screenshot, Trump was responding to a question from Watters, who asked, “Are strikes against the (drug) cartels still on the table?”

Trump responded: “Absolutely. … Mexico is going to have to get it right very quickly. … They’re killing 300,000 people a year with the arrival of fentanyl.”

However, the September 2, 2024, broadcast of the interview did not indicate that it was originally recorded several weeks earlier. Watters also never indicated in his introduction to the interview that he was sharing an older recording. Fox News’ YouTube video in July 2024 confirmed that this was an old interview with Trump, when he was still wearing the ear bandage.

Trump was injured in a shooting on July 13, 2024, in which a bullet pierced the upper part of his right ear. Footage from after the shooting shows a bloodied Trump surrounded by Secret Service agents, with blood streaming from Trump’s right ear onto his face.

On July 26, 2024, Trump confirmed at an event in Florida that he no longer needed to wear a bandage on his ear: “As you can see, I have recovered well and I just removed the last of the bandage from my ear.”

A series of more recent photos from Getty Images from August 2024 also showed Trump without the bandage on his ear.

Sources