Jackson separately told
The New York Times about how he’d called Trump after the shooting at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, offering to help him however he could. “I would prefer to have you here,” Jackson says Trump told him. “And I said, ‘OK, enough said.’”
Jackson then flew to New Jersey and arrived at Trump’s private club in Bedminster in the early hours of Sunday, according to the
Times. In so doing, Jackson was by Trump’s side in the hours and days after the first major attempt on an American president’s life in decades.
Jackson’s self-described “really close” relationship with Trump comes after years working as his doctor in the White House. After a career in the Navy, Jackson had served in the White House Medical Unit under three presidents—but it was with Trump that Jackson appeared to have forged a particularly friendly connection.
In 2018, Jackson used a press conference to describe Trump as being in “excellent” health, which he in part attributed to “incredibly good genes.” “I told the president that if he had a healthier diet over the last 20 years, he might live to be 200 years old,” Jackson said.
Trump was so taken with Jackson that he nominated the physician to become the head of the Department of Veterans Affairs that year—an honor that ultimately unraveled when a series of damaging allegations emerged about Jackson’s behavior during his time in the Navy and the White House.
He was allegedly
referred to as “the Candyman” for his willingness to give out prescription drugs as though they were candy. Jackson was also accused of drinking on the job and hostile behavior in the workplace. He described the allegations as “completely false and fabricated” as he withdrew his nomination.
Even after being elected to Congress two years later, the claims of wrongdoing continued to emerge. The Defense Department’s inspector general’s office released a damning report in 2021 that
concluded he’d made “sexual and denigrating” comments about a female subordinate while working as the top doctor in the White House and that colleagues had worried his use of a prescription sleeping drug while on duty might make him unable to provide proper medical care to government officials, including the president.
“Three years ago I was the subject of a political hit job because I stood with President Trump,” Jackson said in a statement at the time. “Today, a Department of Defense Inspector General report has resurrected those same false allegations from my years with the Obama Administration because I have refused to turn my back on President Trump.”
As a lawmaker, Jackson has echoed Trump’s attacks on
Joe Biden, recently
calling for the president to submit to drug tests before and after the presidential debate. His swipes at Biden have reportedly aggrieved his one-time friend and colleague Pete Souza, the former White House photographer during Obama’s administration. Souza got into a habit of publicly retaliating to Jackson’s slights on Biden on X. In
one, Souza claimed Jackson once told him about his admiration and respect for Biden, while another
included a photo and accused him of being “hungover while the on-duty doctor for the President of the United States.”
Jackson has also made headlines outside politics. Last year, he was briefly detained in a
bizarre incident at a rodeo in Texas. Jackson was slammed to the ground and handcuffed after allegedly refusing to comply with deputies’ instructions to clear the way so EMS could help a girl having a seizure, with the
congressman filmed on bodycam launching into a sweary tirade against a trooper.
His previous wrongdoing has also continued to haunt him. In March,
reports emerged that Jackson—who’d retired from the Navy as a one-star admiral in 2019—was demoted to the rank of captain in 2022 in the wake of the Pentagon inspector general’s report on his inappropriate behavior. Jackson had nevertheless continued to described himself as a retired rear admiral in statements despite the Navy reclassifying him as a retired captain, according to
The Washington Post.
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