More than a dozen Republican House members, led by former Physician to the President Ronny Jackson, have asked President Biden 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 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.
Other examples cited in the letter include the president confusing Air Force One and Air Force Two, and an abortive attempt to recite the first line of the Declaration of Independence in March 2020, during which Biden 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 was elected to Congress in 2020, made headlines in 2018 when his nomination to head the Veterans’ Administration was derailed by 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 withdrew his nomination while criticizing the allegations as “baseless,” “completely false” and “fabricated.”
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)