In an appearance on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo, Jackson expressed his intentions clearly: “I’m sending a letter to President Biden, to his physician, Doctor O’Connor, and I’m CCing in his entire Cabinet. And 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.”
Jackson elaborated on his concerns, pointing to what he perceives as discrepancies in Biden’s performance: “But I’m going to be demanding, on behalf of many millions of worried Americans right now, that he provide a drug test before and after this debate, specifically looking for performance-enhancing drugs, because we see, we’ve seen recently in his State of the Union address, that there was a version of Biden that appeared that was different to what we see on a day-to-day basis for the last three and a half years.”
The congressman went further to speculate on Biden’s debate preparations, suggesting there might be an effort to calibrate medication doses: “You know, he’s going to be Camp David for a full week before the debate; part of that is probably experimenting with, you know, just getting the doses just right. Because, you know, they have to treat his cognition. They need to provide him something to assist him to think more clearly. They have to give him something to wake him up, you know, to for his alertness. And then, you know, he’s been flustered, we see it all the time. And that’s the usual symptom of signs of the cognitive impairment he seems to be suffering from. And so, they’re probably going to give him something to take off the edge of that as well.”
Jackson’s call for a drug test echoes similar remarks made by former President Trump, who has frequently joked and speculated about Biden’s alleged drug use, especially during high-stakes events like debates. Trump’s remarks at the Minnesota Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner included comments about Biden being “so jacked up” and “high as a kite” during public appearances.
The Biden administration, through campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa, has consistently denied these accusations, labeling them as distractions from substantive policy discussions. Moussa characterized Trump’s claims as “a bizarre outburst” aimed at diverting attention away from real issues.
As the controversy continues to unfold, the focus remains on whether Jackson’s demands will be met and how Biden’s team will respond to these serious allegations of substance use. The call for a drug test adds another layer of contention to an already highly polarized political environment leading up to the debate.