The Associated Press is doing grand work giving voice to the fever-dream set. It has only been five days since the attack on the GOP nominee and former President of the United States, and already the overcooked prognosticating is taking place. While this is something completely expected on social media, what has been disturbing is how quickly we saw news outlets devolving after the shooting, scrambling as they were to align the leftist violence against their prior intolerant MAGA narratives.

Anonymous accounts screeching of a fix is one thing, but making this worse is the conventional press fueling their fan fiction. The AP is calling out Donald Trump because he has not made the medical records from his hospital stay a prominent feature on his social media platform or elsewhere. Again, it has been less than a week, and the GOP convention is in full swing, but allegedly, this represents a problem.

Trump has given no official info about his medical care for days since an assassination attempt https://t.co/P4qyPiEA91

— The Associated Press (@AP) July 18, 2024

As the media complex in this country continues to unravel before our eyes, the developments of Saturday’s assassination attempt on Donald Trump continue to bedevil the press. Of note has been the rise in the journalism ranks of those voices who — in defiance of years of them bleating about misinformation — are now entertaining the idea the attempt on Trump’s life is either conspiratorial or, at the very least, being falsely dramatized by his campaign.

One of the latest theories percolating with some in the press is that Trump was not actually hit directly by a shooter, but he endured the effects of the glass shattering from the teleprompters. Firstly, how is this in any way diminishing the point that there was an attempt on his life?! If he was not actually struck by a sniper’s bullet, then he was struck by glass from the teleprompter being shattered — by a sniper’s bullet! 

But the second item is more revealing. There are those in the journalism environment forwarding this conspiracy without actually — get this — committing journalism. If you even wanted to entertain this crackpot premise, would you not at least explore it as a possibility before blathering away?! All one needs to do is look at the footage from July 13, and what do you suppose it shows? The teleprompters were intact after the episode. You might expect this to be something a journalism professor such as Jeff Jarvis would have in his skill set, but by all appearances, this is not the case.

"Journalism" Professor https://t.co/vg52gBp33m pic.twitter.com/e9OEh99Zcf

— Brad Slager - Scrubbing Down In a Bloodbath (@MartiniShark) July 17, 2024

Also leading the charge down this rabbit hole was MSNBC’s Michael Steele. Here is what makes this mentally impacted approach all the sweeter to savor — Steele was among those on the air mere weeks ago decrying tales of Joe Biden’s mental slide as fake news. Now he looks at verifiable imagery of Trump’s ear severed by a bullet and questions reality.

Adding to this is the current call to have more hospital details revealed, as if those hold a mystery to be cracked. The AP is stoking the furnaces of the overthinking, under-stimulated minds on the internet.

Four days after a gunman’s attempt to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally, the public is still in the dark over the extent of his injuries, what treatment the Republican presidential nominee received in the hospital, and whether there may be any long-term effects on his health.

The “extent”? His upper ear was perforated by the bullet. It is clearly seen in the photos from that day, and it does not take much for someone to conclude it is a largely superficial, non-threatening injury. Beyond infection, what long-term issues would they anticipate? But there is a desire to weave this supposed silence into a troubling episode of hidden medical details. 

This despite the fact that, by all accounts, the wound was not severe, and Trump has been making public appearances all week. Meanwhile, the actual president of the United States has been a perpetual case of displayed physical and mental issues, and this same press corps has been notably incurious about his medical records. In the AP report concerning the importance of health transparency, Joe Biden and the current swirling speculation on his condition is mentioned exactly once.

For months, the press had instead fought against those daring to look at the condition of the president, leading to the exposure of the press industry when all the speculation was proven out during the horrendous display by Biden at the presidential debate. In the days following, there were some rare challenges from the White House correspondents when Karine Jean-Pierre was exposed as deceiving about doctors visits with Biden.

Even after those contentious exchanges, there has been little to be seen in the form of demands for medical updates on Biden. Let us recall as well this same journalism complex was actually upset when the Robert Hur report came out and indicated Biden displayed an incapacitated state. In fact, while there have been calls from conservative outlets for the actual tapes of the Hur interviews to be released, once again, we see scant energy from outlets lobbying to have those records released.

But Trump’s obvious ear trauma is requiring more extensive medical exploration to be made public. This is what happens when an imbalanced approach to candidates and parties exists in the press. A clear injury leading to minimal impacts MUST carry more hidden details, yet the patently blatant diminished health of President Biden is something to be elided. It would all be so laughable if the negative narratives and grave impact on the credibility of the press were not so dire. Okay…we’ll admit to much of that being actually rather amusing.