Former President Barack Obama rebuked a former physician who worked in his administration for questioning President Joe Biden’s cognitive health during his 2020 presidential campaign, according to emails detailed in a forthcoming book.
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), who worked in the George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations, received the email after Jackson posted a tweet in 2020 suggesting Biden should take a cognitive test, according to Jackson’s memoir, Holding the Line: A Lifetime of Defending Democracy and American Values, obtained by Fox News.
FOX CORROBORATES ELEMENTS OF VIRAL STORY OF OHIO CHILD RAPE VICTIM SEEKING ABORTION
“Biden was on TV again, making crazy statements and concerning mental gaffes; he didn’t know what state he was in or what office he was campaigning for,” Jackson wrote of the 2020 campaign season. “He apparently thought at one point that he was running for the Senate and later couldn’t remember what state he was campaigning in. This had been going on for months and was getting worse.”
Jackson was chastised by several on the Left after conducting a cognitive test for former President Donald Trump in 2018 and determining he was in “excellent” mental shape and “had absolutely no cognitive or mental issue whatsoever.” However, the former physician began getting frustrated with the lack of attention from the media on similar gaffes by Biden, he wrote.
“Trump never made crazy statements like the ones Biden was making almost every day,” Jackson wrote. “But these people were jumping up and down: ‘He’s not fit to be president; he needs a cognitive test!’”
Jackson then began pushing for doctors to perform a cognitive test for Biden during the 2020 run, tweeting that “somebody else might need some testing done!! Scary!!”
Within 20 minutes of the tweet being posted, Jackson received what he called a “scathing” email from Obama expressing disappointment in his “unprofessional” conduct for the “cheap shot you took at Joe Biden.”
“I have made a point of not commenting on your service in my successor’s administration and have always spoken highly of you both in public and in private,” Obama wrote to Jackson. “It was unprofessional and beneath the office that you once held. It was also disrespectful to me and the many friends you had in our administration. 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.”
Jackson considered calling Obama after receiving the email but ultimately decided not to, he wrote, noting it was the last time he “had any contact” with the former president.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“It’s awfully ironic now, considering [Biden’s mental fitness] is all anyone, including the liberal media, can talk about,” Jackson said. “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. Joe Biden’s cognitive failures are on full display for the whole world to see.”
Jackson’s memoir details his experience as a Navy physician, his tenure in the White House, and his early political career. It is set to be released on July 26.
