The White House is mocking Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, for reiterating his demand that President Biden sit for a cognitive exam.
Jackson told reporters on Wednesday that he’s making his fifth attempt at pressuring Biden to prove his mental fitness for office.
Asked about Jackson’s comments by Fox News Digital, White House spokesman Andrew Bates replied: ‘Hi, Dr. Nick!’
Attached was a photo of a character from ‘The Simpsons’ named Dr. Nick Riviera, a physician whose running gag in the cartoon is about his questionable medical practices and maiming of patients.
Jackson, a medical doctor who formerly served as the White House physician, slammed the White House for making light of the situation.
‘Even Dr. Nick knows something is wrong with President Biden,’ Jackson said in a statement to Fox News Digital. ‘The American people are legitimately concerned and the clowns in the Biden administration think this is a joke. This is not a joke.’
‘Rather than administer a cognitive test or coming up with legitimate answers to Biden’s apparent cognitive decline, the clowns inside the White House are sending cartoon memes to address a concern they know is real,’ he said. ‘Nearly 80 percent of Americans are concerned about Biden’s physical and mental health, and 73 percent of Democrats feel he is too old or unfit for another term.’
Jackson said earlier during a Wednesday press conference that he was sending a letter directly to the president as well as every member of his Cabinet.
‘We are going to continue to make this an issue. I will be introducing another letter today. This will be the fifth letter that I’ve introduced that I’ve sent to the president,’ he said.
Jackson pointed out that former President Donald Trump took a cognitive exam when he was in the White House after mounting questions about his mental state in the media.
‘I would like to see that same type of enthusiasm and insistence from the press right now, that President Biden submit to a cognitive exam as part of his physical exam,’ Jackson said. ‘And if he thinks he’s fit to lead this country, prove it to us with some objective data that says so.’
It comes as Biden’s critics continue to seize on a recent report by Special Counsel Robert Hur regarding the president’s handling of classified documents before he took office.
Hur’s 388-page report cleared President Biden of wrongdoing despite having ‘willfully retained and disclosed classified materials.’
Hur said Biden came off ‘as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory’ and that ‘it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him-by then a former president well into his eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.’
Earlier this week, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Biden would not be taking a cognitive test as part of his regular physical exam.