President Joe Biden should take a drug test before and after his upcoming CNN debate with former President Donald Trump, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) said on Sunday.
Jackson, who served as a White House physician for Trump and former President Barack Obama, told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” he plans to make a formal request.
“Tomorrow, I’m sending a letter to President Biden, to his physician, Dr. [Kevin] O’Connor, and I’m CCing his entire Cabinet,” Jackson said.
“It’s embarrassing that I have to do this and it’s really embarrassing as a former White House physician to have to do something like this but we don’t have any choice, based on what’s going on,” he added.
DRUG TEST BIDEN BEFORE THE DEBATE!
Will we see Sleepy Joe, who lives in the White House Basement, or will we see Jacked-Up Joe who made an appearance at the State Of The Union???
The American people deserve to know if their "President" is taking Performance Enhancing Drugs!… pic.twitter.com/bAriC4LxaY
— Ronny Jackson (@RonnyJacksonTX) June 23, 2024
Some Republicans have speculated whether Biden uses drugs to perk up before a performance. The White House rejected such talk after Biden’s State of the Union address this year.
“It’s telling that Republican officials are unable to stop announcing how intimidated they remain by [the] President’s State of the Union performance,” said White House spokesman Andrew Bates.
Trump, who has pressed for pre-debate drug tests in the past, suggested at a campaign stop in Philadelphia on Saturday that Biden will “come out all jacked up” for their face-off next week.
Jackson said his latest in a series of letters will be “demanding on behalf of many millions of concerned Americans right now that he submit to a drug test before and after this debate.”
The congressman noted he is “specifically” interested in performance-enhancing drugs and opined that Biden did not appear to be his usual self in his most recent State of the Union address.
“There’s just really no way to explain that, other than he was on something, that they’d given him medications,” Jackson added.
Pressed to comment on what drugs Biden could be taking, Jackson said Aricept is one that often comes up.
“But there’s all kinds of new drugs that are out there that are specifically for Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, things that cause these cognitive issues that the president seems to be subject to,” he added.
“Those drugs are out there. They treat the cognition part of it,” Jackson said. “They try to make it where he can think straighter and he’s not lost and confused as much.”
The congressman also mentioned drugs “that actually just increase alertness, like Adderall and other types of amphetamine-type drugs, maybe Provigil, things like that.”
He continued, “And then there’s a host of drugs that try to take the agitated edge off of most of these cognitive disorders.”
With Biden at the presidential retreat in Maryland for debate prep, Jackson pondered whether the president’s aides are working to see which arrangement of drugs works best.
“He’s going to be at Camp David for a full week before the debate,” he said. “Part of that is probably experimenting with just getting the doses just right, because they have to treat his cognition.”
Jackson concluded the interview by contending that Biden would be making a “dangerous” choice if he gets drugged up for the debate.
“On a day-to-day basis, we see a Joe Biden that struggles to stay awake. He looks sleepy. He slurs his speech. He shuffles when he walks. He’s having these freezing episodes now,” he said.
“So the American people need to know what’s going on,” Jackson went on. “And our adversaries and our allies see this. And it’s a national security issue for us.”
