Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) said Sunday he would send a letter to President Biden asking him to submit to drug testing before or after Thursday’s debate with former President Trump.
Jackson, who served as Trump’s White House physician and medical adviser, also claimed, without evidence, that Biden was taking “performance-enhancing drugs” in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“I speak now on behalf of millions of concerned Americans. [Biden] “He should be drug tested before and after this debate, and specifically tested for performance-enhancing drugs,” Jackson said, “because as we saw recently in the State of the Union address, we saw a man who looks nothing like the Joe Biden we’ve seen for the last three and a half years.”
“And there’s really no way to explain it other than that he was on something – he was medicated.”
Biden’s State of the Union performance was praised by Democrats, with supporters saying the president appeared lively and energetic even as he continues to battle concerns about his age.
Jackson noted that he has sent five letters to the White House urging Biden to take a cognitive test similar to the one Trump took as president — a test on which Trump has repeatedly boasted he “performed with flying colors” — that is designed to detect signs of Alzheimer’s and other cognitive disorders.
The senator also speculated, again without evidence, that the president may have been drugged while at Camp David this week – where Biden is spending the week before the debate as part of his preparations.
“I suspect that’s probably what’s going on at Camp David this week,” Jackson said. “Part of it is experimentation to get the dosage right as they have to treat his cognitive abilities.”
“The doctors have to give him something to think more calmly. The doctors have to give him something to wake him up, to make him more alert,” he continued. “And he’s in an agitated state. We see that all the time. And it’s common. It’s a common symptom, a sign of the cognitive impairment that we think he’s suffering from.”
Jackson was accused of exaggerating the president’s health for political reasons while he was his physician, and Trump was a key supporter of Jackson’s during his 2020 congressional campaign.
The congressman was also retroactively demoted from the rank of rear admiral to colonel in 2022 after an inspector general report found he was drunk and abusive toward subordinates while serving as the president’s physician.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.
