More than a dozen Republican House members, led by former White House doctor Ronny Jackson, asked President Biden Thursday to undergo a cognitive test and release the results “so the American people know the full mental and intellectual health of their President.”
“The American people should have absolute confidence in their President,” reads the letter to Biden in part. “They deserve to know that he or she can perform the duties of Head of State and Commander in Chief. They deserve full transparency on the mental capabilities of their highest elected leader.”
The letter, which is copied to chief White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci and current White House Physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor, claims that Biden’s “mental decline and forgetfulness have become more apparent over the past eighteen months.”
Examples Jackson (R-Texas) cites of Biden’s “mental decline and forgetfulness” include an incident from March when the president appeared to forget the name of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
“I want to thank the sec — the, the, ah former general. I keep calling him general, but my, my — the guy who runs that outfit over there,” Biden said March 8 while announcing the nomination of two female generals to lead US military combatant commands.
The letter also cites remarks Biden gave in Texas this past February when he visited the state following a deadly winter storm. According to Jackson, Biden “misidentified the time of day and Senator John Cornyn’s title, and you mispronounced Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee’s first name and Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher’s maiden name of Pannill. Then, apparently forgetting the purpose of your visit, you questioned, ‘what am I doing here?’
A third example given by Jackson recounts an abortive attempt by Biden to recite the first line of the Declaration of Independence in March 2020, during which he said: “We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women are created by the, you know, you know, the thing.”
“Most school-age children could recite that famous and revered patriotic phrase by heart, but you could not,” Jackson writes.
Jackson, a former Navy admiral who worked in the White House Medical Unit for more than a decade, first received national attention in January 2018 when he gave an unusually detailed briefing on then-President Donald Trump’s health. Jackson described the 45th president as being in “excellent” health and noted he had “no concerns” about Trump’s cognitive abilities.
In March of that year, Trump nominated Jackson to head the Veterans’ Administration. Jackson later withdrew his nomination amid claims he improperly prescribed medication — particularly opioids — to White House staff (earning him the moniker “Candy Man”), drank on the job, created a hostile work environment, and got so drunk at a Secret Service party that he crashed a car.
Jackson, who was elected to Congress in 2020, criticized the allegations as “baseless,” “completely false” and “fabricated.” However, a Pentagon watchdog report released earlier this year found that he made “sexual and denigrating” comments about a female subordinate, violated the policy on drinking alcohol on a presidential trip and took prescription-strength sleeping medication that caused his colleagues to worry about his ability to provide proper medical care.
The letter is signed by Jackson and 13 other Republicans, including Reps. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio), Jeff Duncan (R-SC), Andy Harris (R-Md.), Brian Babin (R-Texas), Jody Hice (R-Ga.), Claudia Tenney (R-NY), W. Gregory Steube (R-Fla.), Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), Jerry L. Carl (R-Ala.), Pat Fallon (R-Texas), Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.), and Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas).
With Post wires
The post GOP lawmakers, led by ex-White House doc, ask Biden to take cognitive test appeared first on The News Amed.