Ronny Jackson, a representative for Texas’s 13th Congressional District who previously served as a physician to former presidents, is questioning President Biden’s health after he slipped boarding Air Force One.
Jackson shared his concerns about Biden’s condition in a tweet on Sunday afternoon.
“I served as White House physician under THREE Presidents. I’ve seen what it takes physically AND mentally to do the job. I can tell you right now that the way Biden is hiding from the public is a MAJOR red flag. Something’s not right!” he wrote.
Jackson’s remarks followed a series of physical and verbal gaffes from Biden in recent days. The president recently attracted scrutiny after he was captured on tape stumbling up the steps leading to Air Force One on Friday. White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield wrote on Twitter after the incident saying Biden “is fine,” adding that the fall was “nothing more than a misstep on the stairs.”
The president has also suffered verbal missteps, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as “president” last week.
“This is really important,” Biden said of the country’s immunization effort on Thursday. “Because we believe in speed and efficiency must be matched with fairness and equity. Now, when President Harris took a virtual tour of a vaccination center in Arizona not long ago, one of the nurses on that tour — injecting people, giving vaccinations, said that each shot was like administering a dose of hope.”
The former White House physician recently made headlines when a Department of Defense inspector general report released this month said the Texas Republican drank on the job and made inappropriate comments to staffers.
Jackson denied “any allegation that [he] consumed alcohol on duty” and accused the inspector general, whose office interviewed 78 witnesses and reviewed official documents as part of the investigation, of having “resurrected” old allegations because he would not “turn [his] back on [former] President Trump.”
“My entire professional life has been defined by duty and service,” he said. “I’ve honorably served my country in the U.S. Navy, served patients who trusted me with their care, served three presidents in the White House, and now I serve the people of Texas’s 13th District in Congress. I have not and will not ever conduct myself in a way that undermines the sincerity with which I take my oath to my country or my constituents.”
Jackson, who said Biden “might need” to endure cognitive testing in February 2020, was the White House physician from 2013-2018 under both President Barack Obama and Trump. He was nominated to be the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs during the Trump administration but withdrew from consideration after facing accusations of professional impropriety. Last November, he was elected to his current position of representative of Texas’s 13th Congressional District.