Former White House doctor Ronny Jackson urges Biden to take a cognitive test
Ronny Jackson #RonnyJackson
Texas Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson, who served as Donald Trump’s White House physician, has sent President Joe Biden a letter urging him to take a cognitive test to prove he is ‘mentally fit to be commander in chief’.
Jackson has been circulating the letter with House colleagues and has been able to get the signatures of 13 GOP lawmakers.
The letter cites the president’s ‘mental decline and forgetfulness’, notes several of his ‘gaffes’, and urges the White House to publish the test results immediately.
It was addressed to the president, his physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor and Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, called on the Biden to share the results with the country.
‘The American people deserve to have absolute confidence in their president,’ it read.
‘They deserve to know that he or she can perform the duties demanded of the office, and they deserve to have full transparency on the mental state of their highest elected leader.
‘I would argue that the American people don’t have that confidence in President Biden.’
It goes on to list examples of moments of the president’s apparent confusion – forgetting the name of the Defense Secretary, muddling Air Force One with Air Force Two, and apparently forgetting the words to the first line of the Declaration of Independence.
‘Just everything that has been going on for the last year and a half … [Biden] doesn’t know what’s going on, where he’s at. He’s very confused all the time,’ he said in an interview with The Hill.
Jackson was the physician in the Obama and Trump administrations, but has never evaluated Biden.
Video: Bernie Sanders says he ‘trusts’ Joe Biden, and that president trusts him (The Independent)
Bernie Sanders says he ‘trusts’ Joe Biden, and that president trusts him
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He was famous for his partisan diagnoses, on one occasion saying that Trump had ‘incredibly good genes’ and that ‘if he had a healthier diet over the last 20 years, he might live to be 200 years old.’
On a Trump campaign call in October, he said he was convinced Biden does ‘not have the mental capacity, the cognitive ability to serve as our commander in chief and head of state’.
The letter went on to say how Trump’s opponents and the media ‘clamored for the then president to take a cognitive test.
Trump ‘excelled’ at the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, it continued, before suggesting Biden was a prime candidate for further examination because of his forgetfulness.
Trump later described the test, which he said he took to silence critics.
‘It was 30 or 35 questions. The first questions are very easy,’ he told Fox News.
‘The last questions are much more difficult. Like a memory question
‘It’s like, you’ll go, “Person, woman, man, camera, TV.”
‘So they say, “Could you repeat that?’
‘So I said, “Yeah. So it’s, person, woman, man, camera, TV.”
‘ OK, that’s very good. If you get it in order, you get extra points.’
Biden’s health and mental dexterity have been a frequent target for critics.
At the age of 78 he has faced repeated questions about whether he has the energy and strength to get through a full four-year term or run again.
They intensify with every misstep – such as when he tripped up the steps to Air Force One in March – or verbal gaffe, such as when he almost referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as President Trump during his recent European trip.
Biden frequently jogs to the steps of the presidential aircraft and the White House has issued multiple slow-motion videos of the president striding purposefully about his business.
The White House has committed to releasing the results of a medical check-up before the end of they year, but officials are generally reluctant to discuss the president’s health.
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