At an event over the weekend in Detroit, Michigan, former President Donald Trump tried referencing Ronny Jackson, the physician-turned-GOP Congressman who, when on the job in the White House during the Trump administration, gave the then-president the cognitive test about which he has extensively bragged. But alas, Trump flubbed Jackson’s name.
He referred instead to “Ronny Johnson,” thinking perhaps of Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), who is known as a Trump ally. “Doc Ronny Johnson. Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor, and he said I was the healthiest president, he feels, in history, so I liked him very much indeed immediately,” Trump said, as highlighted by the Associated Press.
Trump was saying at the time that incumbent President Joe Biden, who Trump is expected to face in the general election for president later this year, should take a cognitive test.
On Monday, journalist Ramin Setoodeh, who is co-editor-in-chief at the entertainment industry-focused news outlet Variety, claimed on “Morning Joe” that the ex-president had suffered from “severe memory issues,” citing his own interactions with him following Trump’s presidential term.
“Over the weekend, he was talking about how Joe Biden needs to take a cognitive test, Joe Biden isn’t all there,” Setoodeh recapped on air. “Donald Trump had severe memory issues. As the journalist who spent the most time with him, I have to say — he couldn’t remember things. He couldn’t even remember me. We spent an hour together in 2021 in May, and then a few months later, I went back to Trump Tower to talk to him about his time in the White House.” And Setoodeh claimed that Trump indicated at the time that he did not remember those previous interactions. Setoodeh has a new book coming out about Trump.
