Barack Obama scolded Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), his own White House physician and former President Donald Trump’s, after Jackson criticized then-candidate Joe Biden’s mental health on Twitter during the 2020 presidential campaign.
“I have to express my disappointment at the cheap shot you took at Joe Biden via Twitter. It was unprofessional and beneath the office that you once held,” Obama wrote in an email to Jackson in 2020.
“It was also disrespectful to me and the many friends you had in our administration,” Obama continued, making the tweet about himself. “You were the personal physician to the President of the United States as well as an admiral in the U.S. Navy. I expect better, and I hope upon reflection that you will expect more of yourself in the future.”
Obama condemned Jackson’s professional analysis minutes after the physician suggested on Twitter that Biden needed to take a cognitive test. “Remember the cognitive test that I gave @realDonaldTrump? The one he aced! Sounds like somebody else might need some testing done!! Scary!!” Jackson commented as he retweeted a video of Biden’s “latest cognitive misadventure.”
U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, M.D., sits before a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington in this April 16, 2018, file photo. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File/AP)
Obama’s disparaging email to Jackson is in contrast to 2022 polling data. Sixty-two percent believe Biden is not fit to be president because he is too old. A majority of voters believe Biden is unfit to be president and doubt his mental ability. Fifty-nine percent are worried about his mental and physical fitness.
Jackson told Fox News that the exchange, which he chronicles in an upcoming memoir, was the last communication he had with his former boss. “It’s awfully ironic now, considering [Biden’s mental fitness] is all anyone, including the liberal media, can talk about,” Jackson said about recent polling.
Jackson also told Fox News that Biden’s cognitive failures are on full display for the whole world to see.”
“Let it be known, as the White House physician for the last three presidents, I was the first to say that we have a serious problem with this man’s cognitive demise, and he will not make it four years in office,” Jackson continued. “I’ve always said there would come a point where it wouldn’t be just me talking about it, but his own party, and sadly, that has proven to be the case.”
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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