VA pick impressed president when giving health report
Ronny Jackson’s glowing assessment won over president.
Ronny
WASHINGTON — Jackson passed his screen test with President Donald Trump before casting even began.
Jackson, the president’s personal physician and surprise choice to lead the massive Department of Veterans Affairs, stood before the
White House press corps in January to announce the results of the president’s first physical in a perfor- mance that showed he was quick-witted, hard to throw off-kilter and unfailingly complimentary of Trump.
Marveling at the 71-year- old president’s good health, Jackson opined, “It’s just the way God made him.”
Now, the Navy doctor who
has been entrusted with the health of the past three presidents is poised for a promotion, tapped to replace David Shulkin at an agency
that has been badly bruised by scandal.
Trump’s unexpected pick is the latest example of the president’s reliance on familiar faces. And it shows Jackson has succeeded at
arguably the most import- ant measure in the Trump administration: winning the president’s trust.
Trump, in a statement, called Jackson “highly trained and qualified” and said that, as a service mem- ber himself, Jackson “has seen firsthand the tremen- dous sacrifice our veterans make and has a deep appreciation for the debt our great country owes them.”
Jackson’s name was not among the roughly half- dozen candidates the White
House was said to be actively reviewing in recent weeks. But Trump has formed a close bond with his doctor in the hours they’ve spent together at the White House and traveling on Air Force
One. Dr. Richard Tubb, the lon- gest-serving White House physician and the person who trained Jackson, said in a letter read at Jackson’s star-turning briefing that members of the White House medical team have been “figuratively Velcro-ed” to Trump since the day after his election and that “on January 20, 2017, Dr. Jackson became that Velcro.”
Tubb explained that Jack- son’s office is “one of only a very few in the White House Residence proper,” located directly across the hall from
the president’s private elevator.
Trump has told aides and outside advisers that he is fond of Jackson personally, according to a person familiar with the president’s thinking but not authorized to discuss private conver- sations.
The president was also impressed with Jackson’s performance at the podium in January, telling aides that he liked Jackson’s smooth turn before the cameras
and ability to field reporters’ questions as he offered a glowing report on the pres- ident’s physical and mental well-being.
During the briefing, Jackson spent nearly an hour exhausting reporters’ ques- tions, extolling the president’s “incredible genes” and joking that if only Trump had eaten a healthier diet over the last 20 years, “he might live to be 200 years old.”
And he achieved a more consequential, if less noticed, goal: effectively stamping out questions that had been brewing about the president’s mental fitness.
A White House official said Shulkin himself had recommended Jackson for an undersecretary position at the VA last fall, and Trump ultimately decided he was more comfortable with Jackson than with other top can
didates.
A native of Levelland, Texas, Jackson graduated from Texas A&M with a degree in marine biology and went on to attend medical school at the University of Texas Medical Branch, graduating in 1995.
From there, he headed to the Navy, where he attended
the Navy’s Undersea Medical Officer Program and served in a number of roles, including diving safety officer at the Naval Safety Center in
Norfolk, Va.
In 2005, he joined the 2nd Marines, Combat Logistics Regiment 25, and deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom as the emergency medicine physician in charge of resuscitative medicine for a Surgical Shock Trauma Platoon On Capi-
tol Hill, Jackson’s selection was praised by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. “If there ever was a home run pick, Adm. Jackson fits the bill,” he said. But a major veterans’ organization worried about whether Jackson had the experience to run the huge
department.
“The a d mi n istration needs to be ready to prove that he’s qualified to run such a mas s ive agency, a $200 bil l ion bureaucracy,” said Joe Chenelly, the national executive director of AMVETS.