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Donald Trump's controversial former physician tried to put to rest lingering questions about the injuries the former president suffered in an apparent assassination attempt.

Rep. Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician, said last week that the bullet struck the tip of Trump's right ear, less than a quarter inch from his head, and opened a two-centimeter gash that could not be closed up with stitches. He issued another statement Friday after FBI director Christopher Wray suggested to a House committee that the injury could have been caused by shrapnel.

"There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet," Jackson said in a letter posted on Trump's Truth Social account. "Congress should correct the record as confirmed by both the hospital and myself. Director Wray is wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else."

Jackson said he has reviewed the former president's medical records from his initial treatment at Butler Memorial Hospital in Pennsylvania and examined the wound himself, and he said both he and the doctors and nurses who treated him at the hospital all agreed the wound was caused by a bullet.

However, those medical records have not been publicly released and the doctors who treated him have not spoken publicly about his injuries.

Trump himself angrily pushed back on Wray's comments about his injuries, saying the FBI had never examined him, and attacked the agency for prosecuting Jan. 6 rioters and allowing vandalism by demonstrators protesting the Israel-Gaza war.

"No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard," Trump posted. "There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a 'bullet wound to the ear,' and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!"

However, doubts about the cause of his injuries persist.

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"He was totally, definitely, 100% hit by bullet and that's why we won't allow access to the actual hospital records or to the actual doctor who treated the actual injury," said A.J. Delgado, a former Trump 2016 campaign staffer turned outspoken critic.

"We must see Donald Trump’s official medical records," said Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY).

"Trump has only himself to blame for the controversy over what happened to his ear," said Daily Beast columnist David Rothkopf. "Release the medical records, let an independent doctor provide an assessment and we can move on."

"Great news, journalists!!!" said legal expert Marcy Wheeler in response to his Truth Social post stating that the hospital had determined he was injured by a bullet. "Trump has given you cause to demand his medical records from the hospital in Butler (including the C2 scan results), and a waiver so the doctors can provide a press conference."

Former New York Democratic State Sen. David Carlucci on Friday slapped down claims made by former President Donald Trump and his allies that Vice President Kamala Harris is more left-wing than Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who is an avowed democratic socialist.

While appearing on Fox News, Carlucci was asked by host Harris Faulkner to respond to Democratic strategist James Carville warning Democrats to not get too excited about Harris being their new nominee because she would have to face a flurry of right-wing attacks that she would have to answer for.

Carlucci, however, was not buying into this framing.

"When you talk about the liabilities for Kamala Harris -- it's not a liability, it's just a lie from Donald Trump... that she is left of Bernie Sanders," he said.

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At this point, Faulkner interrupted him and pointed to voting-record data showing that, for one calendar year, Harris had the most liberal voting record of anyone in the United States Senate.

Of course, a one-year snapshot does not account for a senator's entire record and Sanders has embraced policies such as eliminating all private health insurance in the United States that Harris has not.

Carlucci pointed out that Harris actually had trouble in the 2020 Democratic primary because she was outflanked on the left by rivals such as Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

"She is a moderate Democrat," he said. "She was a prosecutor, she was the head prosecutor in California."

Faulkner interjected and tried to change the subject.

"How's she done on the border?" she asked.

"Look, I think Kamala Harris is exactly what Donald Trump has been afraid of," he shot back.

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Any hope that Donald Trump's campaign may have had that the elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris as the projected Democratic party's presidential candidate may be off-putting to elderly white voters suffered a bit of blow on Friday during a CNN report.

In a clip featuring elderly voters in the key state of Pennsylvania, CNN's John King found a smattering of senior white voters who are not fans of Donald Trump in the least with one simply describing him as a "monster."

While CNN's Sara Sidner introduced the segment with, "Some say they are energized by Harris' has run while others aren't sure," King asked for a show of hands if any of them were "more optimistic" with Harris as the candidate, three out of four agreed.

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According to voter Pamela Aita, who disagreed, "I don't think a lot of men will vote for Harris, I just don't. Whether you're a Democrat, Republican, whatever, I just don't think the majority of men are ready for a female president."

Asked "Who wants to see them debate," one unidentified woman blurted, "Oh yeah!" as all four raised their hands.

With King reporting all of them are "bursting with energy" over the Harris campaign, another told him, "I don't even like to hear the word Trump," she then added she calls him a "monster."

When voter Larry Malinconico was asked, "Are you looking forward to Harris debating Trump?" he shot back, "Absolutely. I'm hoping she'll just eat him alive."

Pat Levin, 95, advised Harris, "Get into those swing states and show her enthusiasm and her stamina strength, and be able to communicate strongly."

You can watch below or at the link here.

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Donald Trump gloated after a Florida judge rejected a motion to dismiss his defamation lawsuit against ABC News and host George Stephanopoulos Wednesday.

Attorneys for the network and Stephanopoulos had asked a federal judge to throw out the former president's defamation suit based on a March interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) where the host asked her "more than 10 times" whether Trump had been found “liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll civil case.

But District judge Cecilia Altonaga allowed the case to move forward.

"A big win today in high Florida court against ABC fake News, and Liddle' George Slopadopolus," the former president posted in all capital letters on his Truth Social account.

"A powerful case! Before you know it, the fake news media will be forced by the courts to start telling the truth. This is a great day for our country. MAGA2024"

Defense attorneys had argued that Trump intends to re-litigate "a meritless theory of defamation" that has already been rejected twice in New York, arguing that a jury in that state had found the former president committed a violent sexual assault, so it would not be considered defamatory under Florida law to say that he had committed rape.

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“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,'” wrote New York-based District Judge Lewis Kaplan in that case.

“Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

Trump was ordered to pay $83.3 million in damages to author E. Jean Carroll after the jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

On Tuesday, the Trump campaign accused Vice President Kamala Harris of encouraging people in 2020 to bail out of jail a St. Paul man who tried to kill Minneapolis cops five days after George Floyd’s police murder.

Trump’s “war room” posted on X that Harris raised money to bail Jaleel Stallings out of jail after he was “charged with the attempted murder of two police officers” alongside a photo of Harris laughing and Stallings’ mug shot.

“Kamala Harris is radically liberal and dangerously incompetent,” the post said.

It’s true that Stallings was charged with attempted murder, but the Trump campaign fails to mention that Stallings was acquitted by a jury of all charges and one officer involved in the incident later pleaded guilty to felony assault on Stallings, and apologized to him.

On the night of May 30, 2020, Stallings was standing in a parking lot on Lake Street with a few others when suddenly shots rang out from a white cargo van that had been slowly creeping down the street before coming into view from behind a building. Two rounds were fired at the group.

Stallings was hit in the chest with what he thought was a bullet. He immediately drew his pistol and fired back at who he thought might be white supremacists that the governor had warned were fanning the flames of protest. He later testified that he purposely missed, aiming low, toward the front of the van, hoping to scare off whoever had shot at him.

Suddenly members of a SWAT team piled out of the unmarked van yelling, “Shots fired!” Stallings realized they were police, dropped his gun and lay face down on the pavement, arms spread-eagle, videos show.

He’d been shot with one of the plastic projectiles the SWAT team had been firing at people out past a curfew as police struggled to get control of the city amid protests, arson and riots. Even though they were firing “less lethal” projectiles, under MPD policy, officers weren’t supposed to target a person’s head, neck, throat or chest “unless deadly force is justified,” because they could cause permanent damage or death.

Thinking someone had just tried to shoot them, the officers beat Stallings bloody for 30 seconds, and beat and Tasered his acquaintance for two minutes. Stallings was hospitalized with a fractured eye socket. Stallings is clearly beaten and bloody in his jail mug shot, but he had a weird smile on his face. He later said he was just happy to be alive.

Then-Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman released a statement painting Stallings as a would-be cop killer.

Two years later, Freeman would say the cops lied about what happened, and called the case “justice run amok.” But immediately after the incident, the case made national headlines based on charging documents that said Stallings fired at a uniformed SWAT team.

The case made headlines again when the Minnesota Freedom Fund paid $75,000 cash to get Stallings out of jail. He had no prior criminal record.

After Biden campaign officials donated to the Freedom Fund, then-President Donald Trump’s War Room used the case to raise money, tweeting that “Jaleel Stallings is a would-be cop killer who was in jail for firing at police during ‘peaceful protests.’ Now he’s free thanks in part to Biden campaign officials who donated to pay bail fees.”

And then everybody moved on, until Stallings went to trial a year later.

Stallings’ attorney Eric Rice obtained the officers’ body camera videos, which told a different story than what police and prosecutors had told the public.

Months after the trial, the Reformer was the first to report that Stallings had been exonerated. He’d claimed self-defense, and after a five-day trial, was acquitted by a jury of eight charges, including two counts of attempting to murder police officers.

The city later settled a civil lawsuit with Stallings for $1.5 million, and another lawsuit filed by his acquaintance, who’d been beaten and tasered, for $645,000.

And yet Stallings continues to be tarred and used for political gain.

U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota posted on X Monday that Harris once supported “a bail fund for Minnesota criminals who should have stayed behind bars.”

The Trump campaign followed suit Tuesday with its post highlighting Harris’ June 1, 2020 post encouraging people to donate to the Minnesota Freedom Fund. Spurred on by celebrities like Seth Rogen, Steve Carrell and Harris, the tiny bail fund was overwhelmed with over $30 million in donations, which it used to bail out over 2,000 people as part of its goal of ending the cash bail system in which only people without money have to sit in jail awaiting trial, often at the expense of jobs, housing and family support.

The bail fund was established in 2016 by a University of Minnesota grad student, Simon Cecil, and due to its meager resources initially focused on bails of up to $1,000.

The bail fund has been excoriated for bailing out a twice-convicted rapist and a man who was charged with second-degree murder three weeks after his release, but stands by its decision to bail out Stallings over four years ago.

“We’re really proud of having paid for (Stallings),” spokesperson Noble Frank said last year.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and X.

Following Donald Trump's suggestion, Fox News proposed hosting a debate between the former president and Vice President Kamala Harris in September.

After Harris became the de facto Democratic presidential nominee, Trump hinted he would back out of a pre-planned debate on ABC News. In a Truth Social post, Trump said the debate should be moved to Fox News.

"Now that Vice President Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee, FOX News Media is amending our proposal for a debate this cycle," the network wrote in a letter to both campaigns on Wednesday. "We propose to host the debate in the state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday, September 17, just as early voting is getting underway there and in other key battlegrounds."

Fox News put forward Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum as the "best choices" to moderate the debate.

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"In recognition of FOX News Media's capabilities and reputation, we cordially extend an invitation to all concerned parties to discuss our proposal," the letter said.