Former US President Barack Obama sent his former White House physician an angry email after he questioned President Joe Biden cognitive health during the 2020 election, Fox News reported.
A new memoir by Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), who served in the White House medical unit beginning with former President George W. Bush and then as physician to the president during the Obama and Trump administrations, "Holding the Line: A Lifetime of Defending Democracy and American Values," contains a passage about a terse email Obama send him regarding his comments as a doctor about then-candidate Biden’s "crazy statements and concerning mental gaffes.”
"Biden was on TV again, making crazy statements and concerning mental gaffes; he didn’t know what state he was in or what office he was campaigning for," Jackson writes in the book. "He apparently thought at one point that he was running for the Senate and later couldn’t remember what state he was campaigning in. This had been going on for months and was getting worse."
"Trump never made crazy statements like the ones Biden was making almost every day, but these people were jumping up and down: ‘He’s not fit to be president; he needs a cognitive test!’" the book says.
During the 2020 election, when Jackson was also running for Congress, he frequently posted videos to social media of Biden’s "latest cognitive misadventure,” including one in which he wrote, “Remember the cognitive test that I gave @realDonaldTrump? The one he aced! Sounds like somebody else might need some testing done!! Scary!!"
Twenty minutes after that post, Jackson recalled receiving a “scathing” email from former President Obama.
"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.
"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.”
The email left him shocked and he considered responding but in the end he did not.
"So, upon reflection, I thought, You know what? Screw that guy! I’m not doing it," Jackson writes in the book. "I just walked away from it, which was the last time I had any contact with [Obama].”
Jackson told Fox News that today he felt vindicated: "It’s awfully ironic now, considering [Biden’s cognitive health] is all anyone, including the liberal media, can talk about.”