Less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump – and his White House – insisted that they would stand behind Ronny Jackson as their VA nominee, a series of new allegations emerged that raise questions about whether he can hang on.
The allegations, which emerged from a leaked Democratic memo detailing claims by whistleblowers, include:
- Crashing a government vehicle while intoxicated after a Secret Service going-away party
- Writing prescriptions to himself
- Providing a “large supply” of Percocet to a White House military staffer, a move that sent other members of the military staff into a “panic.”
Those accusations come on top of a series of other allegations on Tuesday, including that Jackson was known as “The Candy Man” for his willingness to provide prescription sleeping pills on overnight flights and that he had banged on the door of a female staffer, while intoxicated, on a trip abroad with President Obama.
Under normal circumstances, Jackson’s nomination would not have survived past Tuesday. Under extraordinary circumstances – and everything involving Trump and his administration counts as extraordinary – it’s hard to imagine how Jackson could possibly survive this.
CNN’s Elizabeth Landers caught Jackson coming out of press secretary Sarah Sanders’ office in the West Wing Wednesday afternoon. He insisted that he had never crashed any car, but offered no thoughts on the other allegations.
“We’re still moving ahead as planned,” he insisted.
For now.
The Point: Political gravity may be different under Trump, but it still exists. And there’s simply no way that Jackson can hope to combat all of these charges amid the growing media maelstrom.
Read Wednesday’s full edition of The Point newsletter.