Texas GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson, a former White House physician, said special counsel Robert Hur’s report “validates” what he and many have known for years: President Biden has “serious issues.”
Hur, who had been tasked with investigating Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, described the president in a report this week as appearing like a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
“It validates what most of us have known,” Jackson told Fox News Digital. “I’ve been saying since he was candidate Joe Biden that this man is not cognitively fit to be our president, our commander in chief and our head of state. I’ve been saying that over and over.
“I watched the man every day, you know, in and around the West Wing for eight years when he was vice president. There’s a drastic, drastic difference between then and now.”
Texas GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson, a former White House physician, said special counsel Robert Hur’s report “validates” what he and many Americans have known all along: President Biden has “serious issues.” (Getty Images)
“Go back and look at the videos from whenever he was first vice president and compare them to now. It’s not even the same person,” Jackson added. “He’s got some serious issues. I’ve been saying that for a long time. Now that the report says that — the special counsel report came out and said exactly that. That was a special counsel appointed by the Biden DOJ, and they’re saying the same thing that I and many Americans have been saying for a long time now.”
Despite the rampant concern over his mental acuity, Biden told Americans from the White House Thursday evening his memory is “fine” and defended his re-election campaign, saying he is the “most qualified person in this country to be president.”
Biden’s address to the nation came just hours after Hur released his report, which did not recommend criminal charges against the president for mishandling classified documents. Those records included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, among other records related to national security and foreign policy that Hur said included “sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”
Addressing Biden’s follow-up speech to the report, Jackson said the president made “all kinds of gaffes and proved in real time to the entire world that the report is accurate, that everything we’ve been thinking for the last three years is accurate.
“He’s cognitively unfit to be our commander in chief, and it’s going to be a problem for us,” Jackson said.
“It’s a real national security issue. I mean, it’s always been a national security issue, but it’s a national security issue that just gets worse by the day.
“We have lots of stuff going on overseas. Our adversaries absolutely, positively have no respect for us. They have no fear of us and our allies. I mean, they don’t trust us, and they don’t really know if we’re going to be there if something bad happens.”
President Biden held a press conference Thursday in response to special counsel Robert Hur’s description of his age and memory. (Reuters)
Aside from Biden’s memory and mental acuity, Jackson said he believes the report “validates that the government has been weaponized for political purposes.”
“The Democrats have weaponized the government against Donald Trump. Anybody just has to beat Donald Trump for political purposes — the FBI, the DOJ,” he said.
Jackson, who previously served as the White House physician to former presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, faced criticism from Obama for his critique of Biden’s cognitive health on the 2020 campaign trail.
In his 2022 memoir, Jackson detailed a “scathing” email he received from Obama about comments he had made on Twitter about Biden’s mental state when Biden was a presidential candidate.
“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. You always served me and my family well, and I have considered you not only a fine doctor and service member but also a friend,” Obama wrote in the email to Jackson.
“That’s why I have to express my disappointment at the cheap shot you took at Joe Biden via Twitter. 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.”
Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, formerly served as White House physician to presidents Obama and Trump. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Last February, after Biden had his annual physical, Jackson told Fox News, “The majority of Americans can see that Biden’s mental health is in total decline. Yet there is no transparency from the White House on what’s going on, if anything, to address this issue and his inability to do his job.”
He also took issue at the time with there being no mention of the president undergoing a cognitive test amid his “deteriorating mental health.”
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“Nowhere in the report was there mention of Biden’s deteriorating mental health,” the GOP lawmaker said. “This is alarming, considering I have already sent three letters to the White House demanding that Biden receive a cognitive test and that the results be made public, all of which have been ignored. Everyone can see something is wrong — the cover-up needs to end.”
A Monmouth University poll released in October found that 76% of voters viewed Biden, who was 80 at the time, as “too old” to serve another term, compared to just 48% who said the same about Trump, 77.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
