In April 2026, an image circulated online supposedly showing U.S. President Donald Trump's right ear after the assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024. The image showed Trump's ear as intact, even though reports said one of the shots fired at him had clipped it.
For instance, an X user shared the image on April 19, 2026 (archived). The caption read, "Please point to the bullet hole," implying that the assassination attempt had been staged.
The image also appeared on Facebook and Reddit. Snopes readers contacted us to ask whether it was an authentic image of Trump following the assassination attempt or a digital creation.
We first uploaded the image into Google Lens to perform a reverse image search. Next, we used search engines such as DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo with phrases like, "Trump helped out of car in Butler, PA."
If the image were legitimate, journalists with reputable news outlets would have documented it and evidence would exist in credible media repositories, such as Getty Images. However, looking through Getty Images' collection of photographs from the assassination attempt revealed several discrepancies. Legitimate images showed that blood had collected around Trump's ear, with two streaks on the front of his face. An image of Trump entering his car credited to The Washington Post clearly showed a small chunk of his ear was missing.
In contrast, the image spreading on social media had a relative lack of blood with spots on his forehead that were nowhere to be found in any image in Getty's collection. Furthermore, there were no credible media outlets who had used the image — it was shared only in social media posts.
The image did not authentically show Trump's ear after the assassination attempt. It was generated using artificial intelligence tools. Therefore, we've labeled the image fake.
We were ultimately able to determine that the image was a cropped version of a post made to a Facebook account called Emery gaming on April 17, 2026.
The account contained other examples of AI-generated media, such as a post asking users whether the so-called Epstein files should be made publicly available "regardless of the consequences" featuring an AI-generated image of Trump and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. We contacted a manager of the page to learn more about the image's creation, such as what software was used and their motivations for sharing it. We will update this story if we receive a response.
The more complete image of Trump posted by the Facebook page contained two giveaways that it was AI-generated. Only one of those details was visible in the cropped image.
First, all images taken from the actual assassination attempt showed Trump still wearing his blue suit jacket as he was escorted into the car. In the social media posts, Trump was not wearing the suit jacket, leaving him in a white collared shirt. This discrepancy was visible in both the cropped and uncropped versions of the image.
Visible only in the uncropped version of the image, however, was the fact that the car door was facing the wrong way.
We also uploaded both the cropped and uncropped image into software that screens visual media for signs of AI, such as Sightengine and Hive Moderation. Let us note here: These types of AI detection tools are fallible. Snopes cautions people against using them for definitive answers on media's authenticity without supporting evidence.
This is a perfect example as to why: Sightengine incorrectly suggested both images were real. Hive Moderation found a 99.9% chance the full image was AI-generated, but only a 45.7% chance the cropped image was AI-generated.
Snopes has debunked similar pieces of media before. For example, we previously debunked an image of first lady Melania Trump kissing Epstein.