Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) recently argued that President Joe Biden should be drug tested before the highly anticipated debate with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. As there is substantial concern about Biden’s mental and physical capacity amid signs of his advanced age, some have speculated that he may employ the use of chemical assistance to keep up with Trump during the debate.
Notably, Jackson also has a high degree of medical expertise as he once served as a White House physician under the former Trump and Obama administrations. Jackson sat down with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” where he outlined how he intends to make a formal request for Biden to be drug tested.
“Tomorrow, I’m sending a letter to President Biden, to his physician, Dr. [Kevin] O’Connor, and I’m CCing his entire Cabinet,” he said. “It’s embarrassing that I have to do this and it’s really embarrassing as a former White House physician to have to do something like this but we don’t have any choice, based on what’s going on.”
Amid the Republican speculation about whether Biden uses drugs to improve his cogency in public engagements, the White House has vehemently denied such claims. White House spokesman Andrew Bates suggested that conservatives are “intimidated” by Biden’s State of the Union performance from earlier this year, where the president held up surprisingly well compared to many recent public speaking events. “It’s telling that Republican officials are unable to stop announcing how intimidated they remain by [the] President’s State of the Union performance,” Bates said.
Jackson further explained that his latest request will be “demanding on behalf of many millions of concerned Americans right now that he submit to a drug test before and after this debate.” He continued, “There’s just really no way to explain that, other than he was on something, that they’d given him medications.
The former White House doctor specifically commented on what kinds of drugs he believes Biden could be taking, claiming he could be prescribed certain Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s medications, given the apparent cognitive struggles Biden endures.
“But there’s all kinds of new drugs that are out there that are specifically for Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, things that cause these cognitive issues that the president seems to be subject to. Those drugs are out there. They treat the cognition part of it,” Jackson said. “They try to make it where he can think straighter and he’s not lost and confused as much.” Watch the interview below:
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The Texas Republican also suggest Biden could take stimulants “that actually just increase alertness, like Adderall and other types of amphetamine-type drugs, maybe Provigil, things like that.” He said, “And then there’s a host of drugs that try to take the agitated edge off of most of these cognitive disorders.”
Jackson opined as to why he thinks Biden is spending a week at Camp David ahead of the debate, stating, “He’s going to be at Camp David for a full week before the debate.” He continued, “Part of that is probably experimenting with just getting the doses just right, because they have to treat his cognition.”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.