President Trump on Thursday predicted Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is going to have serious problems as a result of his comments on Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, the nominee to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“For Jon Tester to bring up stuff like ‘candy man’ and the kinds of things he was saying and then to say, ‘Well, you know, these are statements that were made.’ There is no proof of this,” Trump told Fox News. The White House announced Thursday morning that Jackson is withdrawing his nomination.
“For him to be doing this to this man and his family, I think Jon Tester has to have a big price to pay in Montana. I don’t think people in Montana — the admiral is the kind of person that they respect and admire — and they don’t like seeing what’s happened to him,” he added on “Fox and Friends.”
Trump said his 20-point win over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election was evidence that voters support him and will be angered by Tester’s recent public disclosures and could get revenge in November when the senator seeks a third term.
Tester, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said on Wednesday that Jackson was known as “candy man” because he would hand out sleep aides to Trump administration officials during long flights.
“In overseas trips, in particular, the admiral would go down the [aisle] of the airplane and say, ‘All right, who wants to go to sleep?’ and hand out the prescription drugs like they were candy,” Tester told CNN.
