Rep. Ronny Jackson — to me, at least — is one of the more fascinating figures in modern Washington.
As President Obama’s personal physician, he was welcomed into that administration’s inner circle — keeping their confidences, treating their friends and family, even becoming privy to hugely sensitive decisions.
Then he repeated the feat with President Trump and his administration — but this time, grew so close to the president that he advised on national policies, got nominated for a Cabinet post and ended up relying on Trump’s political support to get elected to Congress.
I can’t think of anyone else who made a pivot like that. Can you?1
Now, Jackson is injecting himself into the 2024 presidential campaign because he’s made himself the GOP’s loudest critic on whether President Biden is fit to serve another term. Those are concerns that many Americans do share, regardless of party.
I worked on a long story in The Washington Post this weekend about Jackson, specifically how he helped lead and shape the White House medical team across the Obama and Trump administrations.
One way that Jackson endeared himself to officials was by being always on-call — by trying to provide whatever they needed, whenever they needed it. But the Pentagon concluded that he and his team repeatedly dispensed inappropriate medical care and prescriptions.
More here from me and my colleague Michael Kranish:
‘No prescription needed’: Inside a White House clinic’s ‘systemic problems’
(No paywall on the above! It’s a gift link.)
We started on the piece weeks ago, sparked by a Pentagon watchdog report that confirmed what many officials said was an open secret: that Jackson’s medical team was loose with prescriptions and flouted a number of federal regulations.2
To do the story, we spoke to Jackson’s former colleagues, his patients, even Jackson himself.3 We reviewed Pentagon reports and whistleblower complaints, including some previously undisclosed documents.
We also looked back at Jackson’s speeches, interviews, and his own memoir.
The picture that emerged: an incredibly driven person, whose ambition carried him from hardscrabble roots in West Texas all the way to the White House and later into Congress.
That ambition and intensity appeared to backfire too, with colleagues sharing stories of being frequently berated by Jackson or how his White House medical team bent its practices to satisfy powerful people.
Jackson’s memoir also included candid reflections that jumped out to me, such as when he wrote about working all the time to cover the costs of college — and sometimes tweaking the rules when it suited him. (Bolding is mine.)
I was the [residential adviser], and I probably shouldn’t say this, but I oversaw all the other RAs, and we kind of ran the place like the mafia. We weren’t supposed to have any alcohol on campus or have parties. If you came in and talked to us first, and we blessed you, we might look the other way and let certain things happen. If you didn’t, we might come to your room, confiscate your beer and liquor, and shut the party down. In other words, if you kissed the ring beforehand, we might let your party go on.
Jackson and his team have disputed the various Pentagon and whistleblower reports, arguing that they’re politically motivated attacks because he’s a Trump ally.
His office also didn’t respond to a number of questions we submitted, including about action that the Pentagon took against Jackson after conducting its investigations.
While we did this story as a deep dive into Jackson’s years-old White House tenure, it seems clear he’ll remain in the news.
Days after we began our investigation, Special Counsel Robert Hur released a report that took aim at Biden’s memory — fueling questions that launched Jackson back into the national news cycle.
“I just want to let everybody know that we’re going to continue to make this an issue,” Jackson said at a press conference with House Republican leaders last week, announcing that he was sending a fifth letter demanding that Biden sit for a cognitive exam. “I think if there was ever, ever a time that we need a cognitive test for a sitting president of the United States, it’s right now.”
The NYT’s Annie Karni had a revealing 2022 story about how Obama photographer Pete Souza and Jackson went from private friends to public enemies, capturing the betrayal that many Obama officials felt over Jackson’s shift.
Some of this originally spilled out in a whistleblower report to Congress in 2018, which Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) made public.
Embedded in The Post article are audio clips from an interview that I did with Jackson on Jan. 31, standing in the halls of Congress.