Donald Trump was hit in the ear in an assassination attempt by a gunman at a campaign rally Saturday, in a chaotic and shocking incident set to supercharge political tensions ahead of the polarising US presidential election. "I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear... I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin," Trump said on his Truth Social site.