Saddled with new questions about former President Reagan’s health after President Trump’s doctor said he assumed there were mental issues at the end of the Gipper’s two terms, the Reagan Foundation is seeking a retraction to clear up the confusion.
The issue flared Tuesday when Dr. Ronny Jackson, a Navy rear admiral, was addressing Trump’s physical exam and mental test and made a reference to Reagan, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease long after leaving Washington.
Discussing Trump’s mental test and easy passage, Jackson told reporters:
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.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute said that comment fired up critics who have wrongly claimed that Reagan suffered from any mental disease while president.
“Dr. Jackson’s performance in front of the White House press corps in general was superb,” said John Heubusch, executive director of the Reagan Foundation. “However, he no doubt knows better. To speculate on President Reagan’s health in office with no access to his medical records and in contradiction to the plain truth was just wrong. Our hope is that he retracts any credence he just gave to the myth of President Reagan and failing health while in office in order to set the record straight. President Reagan deserves no less.”
The Foundation added, “It is a known medical fact that President Reagan was not diagnosed with early onset of Alzheimer’s until five years after leaving office. President Reagan’s own White House physicians, who had routine access to him every day of his eight year presidency as well as the 40th President’s doctors at the Mayo Clinic, found absolutely no evidence of the onset of early Alzheimer’s disease in President Reagan until five years after leaving office in 1994.”
Yesterday, Secrets reported that others, notably Reagan biographer Craig Shirley, were also calling for a White House correction.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
