Reagan’s team disputes Trump doctor’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis of Gipper

But when one reporter suggested that exams can overlook mental issues, and lumped Reagan in, the doctor went with it and said “let’s just assume that he did have some evidence of cognitive impairment toward the end of his presidency.”

Biographer Craig Shirley documented Reagan’s final days in Last Act.

It’s those assumptions that allies of Reagan, his chief biographer, and the Reagan Foundation have been fighting for years.

“It is well documented that Reagan went to Mayo every year and passed his cognitive testing with flying colors,” said biographer Craig Shirley.

Shirley, who has written four biographies including one about Reagan’s final years, added, “A thousand people have testified to Reagan’s superior intellectual abilities — staff, reporters, doctors, etc — even at the end of his presidency. There was no evidence because it did not exist.”

The Reagan Foundation which has been fending off questions tied to Reagan’s health status since Trump first raised the issue in a January 6 tweet, is hopeful that the White House will clarify the issue. Jackson’s remarks yesterday only further besieged the organization with media speculation over the Reagan myth.

Reagan left office in January 1989. He revealed his condition in a Nov. 5, 1994 letter to the nation in which he said, “I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life.” The letter said the disease became noticeable in the prior 12 months.

Shirley and Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute Executive Director John Heubusch recently penned a column for CNN pushing back on the false claims about Reagan that have been elevated in the debate over Trump’s tweets and fight with media over his “genius.”

“Rumor and innuendo that suggests a story to the contrary do a real disservice to our 40th President — and history itself,” they warned.

Below is the transcript of the question about Reagan and Dr. Jackson’s reply:

QUESTION: Doctor, can you say — given the president’s age, he’s somewhat of a peer to where President Reagan was at this time in his presidency. Can you say — given that there is scrutiny of what was overlooked at the time with President Reagan, in terms of Alzheimer’s and things he was then known to suffer from at a later date, can you say whether the test that you ran would exclude any of those things and what the possibility of overlooking something like that would be? You know, how can you tell the American people that this time you’re certain?

DR. JACKSON: I can say that that test — and I don’t know President Reagan’s actual medical condition and I don’t know what his condition was like toward the end of his presidency. I’ve read things and seen the documentaries and stuff, just like everybody here.

But let’s just assume that he did have some evidence of cognitive impairment toward the end of his presidency. I think that I can reliably say, and I think that the folks in the mental health community out there would back me up on the fact that, if he had some type of mental cognitive issue, that this test is sensitive enough — it would pick up on it. He would not have got 30 out of 30 on the test.

So I’m very confident, at this particular stage, that he has nothing like that going on. And like I said, my personal experience has been that he has absolutely no cognitive or mental issues whatsoever, that he is very sharp.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]