President Donald Trump could only make it two minutes into a speech at the White House’s Hanukkah reception Tuesday before completely derailing it by yapping about his favorite topic: himself.
Trump kicked off his remarks by condemning the mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney on Sunday. After reading off a few generic lines about how the antisemitic act that killed 15 Jewish people was a “terrible, terrible thing,” he moved on to introduce those in attendance at the reception.
When he read the name of Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) — the former White House physician turned GOP lawmaker — Trump decided to very abruptly change gears.
“He was my White House doctor,” Trump said before taking a few familiar jabs at his Democratic predecessors. “Ronny was asked, ‘Who’s the healthiest of all? Was it Barack Hussein Obama? Was it Sleepy Joe Biden? Or was it Donald Trump?’ And he said, ‘Trump was by far the healthiest.’”
The president continued, “He was the doctor for all three of us, and he said, ‘Trump was by far the healthiest.’ I love him.”
Somewhat undermining his boast, Trump then added: “If he didn’t say that, I would never have talked to him again.”
Trump then proceeded to have notable audience members come up on stage and kiss his butt for several more minutes before bragging about supplying weapons to Israel.
The president finally circled back to Hanukkah nearly 16 minutes in, but got distracted only seconds later and began talking about how he stopped Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
This is by no means the first time Trump has boasted about his purported health and “good genes.” In October, he said at a press conference that, as White House physician, Jackson had declared Trump the “best physical specimen” of the presidents he’d served.
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Jackson was part of the White House medical team under then-President George W. Bush, and eventually became physician to the president under both Obama and Trump. Biden had a different physician during his own presidency.
In 2018, Jackson was accused of fostering a hostile work environment, improperly dispensing prescription drugs and drinking on the job after the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee interviewed more than 20 people who had worked with him. In 2021, a Department of Defense internal investigation found he’d made inappropriate sexual comments about a female colleague and bullied subordinates.
