The former White House doctor who raved about Donald Trump’s “excellent” health to a sceptical public is now claiming that the disturbing new Covid-19 variant omicron is nothing but a midterm election ploy by the Democrats.
Dr. Ronny Jackson, now a Republican MAGA congressman from Texas, scoffed at the variant the World Health Organisation (WHO) has deemed “highly transmissible” and “concerning”.
“Here comes the ... Midterm Election Variant!” Jackson quipped in a tweet Saturday, calling it nothing more than a trick to “push unsolicited nationwide mail-in ballots”.
Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, lashed Jackson on CNN Sunday for dangerously spreading outrageous misinformation about Covid-19.
He blamed people like Jackson as the reason 50 million people have yet to be vaccinated in America, and people continue to die.
The continuing Covid toll is due to “people like Ronny Jackson, people who doubt the severity of this pandemic, people who have doubted the consequences of not getting vaccinated, people who have doubted the efficacy of masks,” Reiner told Jim Acosta.
“So now as a new potentially dangerous variant is identified, you see this anti-science coming from a former doctor. I call him ‘former doctor’ because that’s how he behaves.”
Acosta called Jackson an “embarrassment”.
Misinformation from Jackson isn’t a big surprise. He gushed about Trump’s “excellent” health after the then-president’s physical in 2018, despite Trump’s extra pounds, well-known high-fat diet and golf-cart golf for his only exercise. There were also concerns about his mental acuity.
Jackson also listed Trump’s height at 6-foot-3 and weight at surprising 239 pounds, though many weren’t buying it, especially since the stats put Trump just under the threshold for obese.
Asked how he could reconcile Trump’s health habits and appearance with a determination that his health is “excellent,” the fervent Trump supporter chalked it up to “genetics”. That’s “the way God made him,” said Jackson.