Donald Trump reveals injury in first public appearance after getting shot in the ear

Donald Trump has appeared in public for the first time since he was shot in the ear in an attempt on his life.

The former US president's right ear was clipped by a bullet at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on 13 July as he was addressing a crowd.

One attendee of the rally was killed and two more seriously injured, according to authorities.

The shooter was later identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, a registered Republican voter who had somehow been able to get on top of a roof which provided a vantage point to Trump's stage.

Crooks was shot dead by Secret Service snipers who returned fire, though a security expert has criticised the operation to protect Trump as an 'apocalyptic disaster' considering the 20-year-old got into a position to take a shot and was able to open fire in the first place.

A number of witnesses also claimed that they'd tried to warn security about Crooks for several minutes.

Trump has since appeared at the Republican convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, revealing his injury which saw him wearing a bandage over his right ear.

He had issued a statement following being shot, but this is the first time he's been out and about in public since coming very close to being killed.

At the convention he picked Ohio senator J.D. Vance, a man who, in 2016, had called Trump a 'terrible candidate' and mused in texts to a friend whether the former president was 'a cynical asshole like Nixon' or 'America's Hitler', as his nominee for the vice president.

He didn't address the convention as his speech is not scheduled until Thursday (18 July), but was greeted with applause by those in attendance.

Instead, speeches were made by other Republicans who said they 'must unite as a party, and we must unite as a nation', but denounced their opponents the Democrats as 'a clear and present danger to America, to our institutions, our values and our people', so that unity isn't being extended to everyone it seems.

Responding to criticism over a recent comment he made saying it was 'time to put Trump in the bullseye' and move on from his poor debate performance, US president Joe Biden said it was a 'mistake' to use the word 'bullseye' but wanted more focus on what Trump had been saying.

He told NBC: "Look, how do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says?

"Do you just not say anything because it may incite somebody?"

As for what Trump has been saying, at an event in March had said it was 'going to be a bloodbath for the whole country' if he didn't win the next election.

In other comments, Trump said that he would not act like a dictator if he won a second term 'other than on day one', and said illegal immigrants were 'poisoning the blood of our country' which the Biden campaign compared to the phrase 'blood poisoning' written by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf.

Last November, Trump said he would 'root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country' if he won the election.