The Dan Bongino Show - Interview With Former White House Doctor Ronny Jackson (Ep 1209)

Episode Date: March 20, 2020

In this episode, I interview Dr. Ronny Jackson, former White House physician for Presidents Trump, Obama, and Bush. Copyright Bongino Inc All Rights Reserved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino. Welcome to Dan Bongino's show interview series. Today, we interview Dr. Ronnie Jackson, Rear Admiral in the Navy, former White House doctor, a personal friend, many of you know him from the vicious, disgusting political attack that happened to him by a Democrat senator after President Trump nominated him to be the VA secretary. One of the most disgusting political attacks you'll ever hear about in your lifetime. We address that. We also get into some coronavirus stuff about the Wuhan virus with Dr. Jackson,

where I ask him a simple question a lot of people haven't addressed. He gives a great answer here. I always record these after the interview so you know what's coming. Why all these different disparities and results? Why do some people recover with no problem and it seems like it's a bad cold for them and other people, it's obviously tragic. Why? What's going on?

Great answer there. I also ask him, listen, as the former White House doctor for President Trump, President Obama, and under President Bush, Is the president safe here? How is this going to work out? How do we bridge this to a vaccine? What do we do? How do we protect the president? A question suggested by the lovely Paula, by the way. All right, let's get to it. Today's show brought to you by buddies at ExpressVPN. Listen, when you use the bathroom, you close the door behind you, right? You don't want random passersby looking in on you. So why

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and get an extra three months free. It's a nice deal. That's expressvpn.com slash Bongino. Now for my interview with Rear Admiral Ronnie Jackson, congressional candidate now from Texas District 13. All right, welcome to the Dan Bongino Show interview series. I'm here with Dr. Ronnie Jackson, who I'm honored enough to call a friend, a former co-worker. I got a long list of things to get to for you, Ronnie. So hold on. Ronnie is a rear admiral, was a rear admiral in the Navy, is one of our brave patriots who served in our military. He was the White House doctor under many administrations where I met him. Ronnie is also a candidate for Congress in Texas District 13.

He is at Ronnie Jackson, the number four, TX, Texas, at Ronnie Jackson for Texas on Twitter. Ronnie, welcome to the Dan Bongino Show. It's great to have you here. Hey, thanks, Dan. It's a pleasure to be here, man. Thank you for having me. No, listen, it's an honor. You've been a friend to me for a gosh, a very long time, well over a decade now. I've got so many great personal stories about you. I can only tell a few of them during the show here. But I couldn't think of a finer guest during this time. Obviously, you have you're a medical doctor with a impressive CV, a medical history. Yeah, I worked with you in the Secret Service where you were the White House doctor and being a candidate for Congress. Obviously, you know, you have some political experience now going through this. But the first question for you, I think my audience would be

interested in how the heck do you become the White House doctor? Like, were you just sitting around in the Navy one day and someone taps you on the shoulder and goes, hey, they need a doctor. All the years I've known you, I've never thought to ask you that. Yeah, no, it's kind of crazy, Dan. It's a lot of, I tell people, a lot of it is being in the right place at the right time, to be honest with you, right? So I was a Navy emergency medicine doc, and I got assigned to the second Marines, right? So I was out with the second Marines in Iraq.

And while I was out there, they had, at the White House at the time, this is during the Bush administration, and they had six docs there two army two navy two air force and uh unbeknownst to me they decided they wanted emergency medicine doc there because all six of the docs they were uh they were family practice or internal medicine right and so they decided which was good on their part they said hey we need an er doc at the white house which you would have thought they would have had one there already but they they didn't. So they, the Navy guy was the one that was rolling out next. So they reached out to my detailer, the guy that controls everything, you know, in my life in the Navy, you know, where I live, where my kids go to school, you know, what my job is. They reached

out to this guy and said, Hey, we need a Navy emergency medicine doc. So this guy threw my name in the hat without me even really even knowing about it. I didn't even know he'd done so. Right. So I was out there one day, I was checking my email. It was a pain in, it was a real pain in the butt to check your email out there. I needed to stand in line for a long time. It took forever to get on. It was super slow. I had two email accounts. I had a Marine Corps account, which was my primary account now. And I had an account from the Naval hospital where I'd come from before I got assigned to the Marines. I was just checking that one, like every seven to 10 days, just kind of keep up with the, uh, you know, with the gossip at the Marines. I was just checking that one, like every seven to 10 days, just kind of keep up with the gossip at the hospital.

I wasn't really, I didn't need to be checking that one, but I checked it one time. It'd been about 10 days since I got on. There was an email in there from my detailer saying, hey, you've been selected as one of, the way it said, actually, you've been nominated for a job at the White House. Please have your CV, your personal statement,

your last six fitness reports, all this information they wanted from me, official photos, everything. And when I saw it, by the time I saw it, I had five days to get it in, right? So I wasn't even going to do it. I was like, there's no point in this. I'm in the middle of the desert. I can't do this. So I was just going to blow it off and talk to my wife that night on the phone. She was like, you know, there's no, there's no point in this. I'm in the middle of the desert. I can't do this. So I was just going to blow it off and talk to my wife and that night on the phone, she was like, Hey Ronnie, why don't you go ahead and at least go through the process of trying to get it? You know, it may mean something someday that you were considered for the job. So at least you can say you were considered. So I said, all right, well, that makes some sense. So I went ahead, got my package in, tried to scramble to get it all done. She was digging stuff out of the filing

cabinet back home, trying to send it in. I was ginning stuff up electronically out there, you know, supposed to be getting like my official photo, sending it and everything. I had a picture of me, you know, with this, you know, HESCO bomb barrier behind me and my camis and everything. But I got it all in by the deadline, got it all in there. But once again, I figured it's going to be, everybody's going to have these nice squared away packages. I'm going to have this big pile of crap, big pile of garbage.

So I didn't hear anything for about two and a half months. I didn't hear a single word for like two and a half months. So I thought, man, somebody else already got the job and I just hadn't heard about it because I'm out here in the middle of nowhere. Right. So I kind of stopped checking that email again. You know, I probably should have been checking it still, but I kind of, it was like I said, it was difficult to do. I got on there again, two and a half months into this, there was an email in there from my detailer again. He said, Hey, you've been selected as one of three people to interview for a job at the White House. Please be at the White House in D.C. in five days.

I was like, man, I was pretty excited that I made it to that point. But I was like, this is where the road ends. There's no way I'm going to be in D.C. in five days. So like I tell people all the time, a lot of it's being in the right place at the right time. A lot of it's just having people in your life that they they want to see you succeed they really don't have any anything to gain from your success but they just want to see you succeed and i was in that situation out there it turns out that the commanding general at the time out there he used to be the military aid like you know but a lot of your uh listeners might not the guy that carries a nuclear football he was

the military aid for bush 41, right? So he knew exactly what was being offered to me. I didn't really have a good feel for what I was being offered anyways. But this guy, he had been with the doc for a couple of years, every day with Secret Service and the physician. He had worked side by side with these guys for years. So he summoned me to his office and I didn't really know the general. He'd come through our tent a few times when we're getting casualties. So I knew who he was, but I didn't know him knowing, but he summoned me to his office and he said, so, Hey, tell me what's going on. So I said, well, sir, this is what's happening. And he goes, well, what are you going to do?

And I said, well, sir, there's no way I'm going to be in DC in five days, obviously. So I said, you know, I might try to do a video teleconference or see if I can do an interview over the phone. I don't know how competitive I'll be, but I'm going to give it my best shot. And he said, standby. And so he picks the phone up and he calls the air boss, the guy that controls all the air assets out there, the helicopters, the planes, everything, right? He talks to this guy. Last thing he says basically is like, you know, I want his butt out of here by sunset. He hangs the phone up. He says, go pack your crap. You're leaving. I said, yes, sir. So he flew a dock in an emergency medicine dock from a nearby base, had him there in a couple hours to backfill me. I went straight back to my hooch, got my sea bag, threw some stuff in it, went out to the flight line, got on a helicopter,

flew to Baghdad, got to Baghdad, got on a C5 cargo plane full of broken helicopters, flew back to Cherry Point, North Carolina. Yeah, exactly. Once I landed in Cherry Point, I got a rental car, drove back to Virginia Beach where I was living at the time. And I had been working out like a fiend out there. I mean, we weren't getting casualty. I was running in the morning, running in the evenings. I'd lost 40 pounds. I mean, none of my clothes fit. I was supposed to interview the next day at the White House, two days in a suit and one day in a uniform, right? So I was kind of panicked. I was home. I just got home in Virginia Beach, just drove there from Cherry Point. I ran down to the men's warehouse that night, brought a brand new suit, just begged them to tailor it for me on

the spot. So they helped me out. They did. I brought my uniform in, begged them to help me make that presentable, which they did. And then I jumped back in my rental car, drove to DC, interviewed at the White House for three days for the job. At the end of the three days, they told me I got the job. I went back to Iraq, finished my tour for four months, and then got back on a plane. As soon as my time there was done, I went straight from Iraq to the White House. That was in early 2006, and I had been there ever since. So you started, see, I didn't know this. Again, I've been around you for a long time. I didn't even realize you started under 43, Bush 43. I ran into you, of course, under Obama, where you and I both worked. Yeah, I was there the last three years of the

Bush administration too. And I'm still really good friends with the Bushes. I mean, I see them every time I go to Dallas. I stop in, see the president. On occasion, I've been over to their house to eat dinner, things of that nature, but I stay close to them. And I'm running for Congress out here in Texas 13, and President Bush was the very first person to contribute to my campaign. When I got my P.O. box for my for my campaign, I opened it up. The very first check I got in my P.O. box was George and Laura Bush. So, you know, they've been they've been supporting me. You know, I have never been a big supporter of a lot of policies in that administration, but I can tell you and I can attest to what Ronnie just said that he was a classy gentleman. That was not an act. He was a deeply spiritual man, him and his wife both.

And they really gave a damn about people. Remember, Ronnie, when we used to do advances, remember under the wing at every stop, President Bush used to meet with the Gold Star families who had lost someone in combat. And one of the stories I tell on my show once in a while, I haven't told in a long time, but I know you'll know this better than I do. Ronnie was, me and Ronnie were on so many trips together. Before the show, we were chatting, you know, about old times and I had forgotten what trips we were on. We were on so many.

But he would stop President Bush. He'd get off Air Force One, do the wave, he'd come down. And on every trip, he would meet under the wing of the plane with these families that had lost people in combat. And me at the time, I was a transportation agent. And I only remember it so well because, one, he would stay there and talk to them forever. But it would screw up the motorcade routes because you're on the microphone telling the highway patrol, keep the highway closed. He's still talking. And no one, I mean, obviously, for obvious, no one's going to interrupt that. They deserve to talk to the

president of the United States, but he would sit there, Ronnie, because he cared so much about them and he would talk to them. Remember that? He'd sit out of the way with those calls. So he'd be there the whole time. Yeah. He loved them. Absolutely. And I'll tell you, you know, he was a good man and he really like, he cherished his role as commander in chief. He took it very serious and he just loved that role. And I'll tell you, even beyond that, I've seen multiple times when no cameras are around, you know, we'd go into the hangars or we'd go somewhere, we'd meet with these gold star families. And I've seen him just cry. I mean, just weep with the families, you know, and that man really cares. He's a good man. No, he did. That was, that used to impact him.

Law enforcement and military. He had a soft spot for them every time uh you know what he he was an early morning bird though he used to kill us in the white house because you know the white house mess where we eat in the white house folks there's a kitchen run by the military called white house mess and the mess didn't open up for breakfast until a certain time so usually when the president's upstairs in the residence you know if they don't come down till 8 30 or 9 it's good you can go eat before you got to walk them over. That was never the way it worked with, boy, he was an early bird, man. He was up before everyone would be like, damn it, stay to sleep for a little while, buddy. Come on. No, he was a worker. Like I said, some of the policies I disagree with, but that's

politics. That is definitely not personal. So Ronnie, you were the victim of a vicious, disgusting smear campaign. One of the most grotesque things, I'm not kidding, that I've ever seen in my time in politics, having been a candidate myself. You were nominated by President Trump, who I support. I know you do as well. I know you like him very much, to be the Secretary of the Veterans Affairs, the largest organization in the cabinet, actually. I thought you were the perfect pick i fully for what it's worth fully endorsed it thought you would have been great after that a smear campaign that was beyond disgusting alleging things i personally know to be colossal bull you can fill in the rest

um just lies i'm telling you for a fact i know total lies made up but not a scintilla of truth folks these were complete asap's fables is that what motivated you when you got out to run for congress number one and number two how did that feel to be sitting there and you were still in the navy at the time so you're obviously limited what you can say to know these stories are total bs nobody i know in the secret service or the White House staff of Republican or Democrat administrations had ever confirmed one of those BS stories that they were putting out there about you. Right. And they looked into it. They looked into it extensively and there was no truth to any of that crap. It was complete garbage. I'll tell you, Dan, like I tell people

now looking back, I put a lot of the pieces together after it was over. At the time, I didn't really know exactly what was happening to me. And there was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that I wasn't really privy to. And, you know, I tell you, this is one of those things where there was there were deep state folks in there that were in, you know, that were in the Senate, that were in different departments, you know, in executive office of the presidency. And this was part of that posse that really thought it was their duty to pick the president's cabinet for him. They didn't think he was capable of doing it. They thought it was their, you know, it was their duty to the country to pick his cabinet members for him and stuff and figure out who these people were and then sell it to him and, you know, and get him to, you know, to basically nominate these people.

And this looking back and I'll tell you the whole story. I go into a lot of detail sometime when we do a show again. But, you know, this is what happened to me. They had already picked long before my name ever came up, months and months, probably six months, but at least three months before my name ever came up. Everybody knew that David Shulkin was on the chopping block. Even David knew it. I was friends with David, you know, and everybody wasn't a question of, you know, of if but when, you know, when David was going to be let go and told to move on. Right. And just to be careful, just so the audience,

Ronnie, but just let me interrupt you. I did the audience of this service, just to be clear folks. So, you know, I don't want your head spinning. The allegations were that Ronnie was giving out prescription medication to people. I'm just so you don't like hypothesize anything crazy. No, I'm telling you, none of this was true. I was there. I worked with them, but I just don't want't like hypothesize anything crazy. I'm telling you none of this was true. I was there. I worked with him. But I just don't want anybody thinking it was something crazy, like you're a serial

murderer or something. But go ahead. So the secretary at the time is on the chopping block. When do you get wind that you're under consideration for this? So it comes late. Nobody knows about it. I mean, nobody except for the president, right? Because the president had just thought about it for a few weeks and he decided that that's

what he wanted to do. So they had already decided that, you know, okay, David Shulkin is going to be leaving, right? We have somebody that we want to put in there, right? So president doesn't know him very well. So president's not going to nominate him. We need to put him in as the acting for a few months, get some wins under his belt,

get him some face time with the president, right? And then, you know, we can get the president to make him the nominee. So that was the plan, right? And that's how they plan to go forward with this. And I'm talking people, you know, and the Veterans Affairs Committee, you know, people in DOD, people in the VA. Everybody had all these people had, you know, that had relationships that they thought that, you know, that this would be the person that they could, you know, to some extent, you know, they just had influence with because they knew him because they'd worked with him in the past, so on and so forth. Anyways, so that was the plan. And then out of nowhere, the president just drops my name in and we're coming back from Mar-a-Lago, right? We're coming back from Mar-a-Lago and Air Force One. President calls me up to the

cabin. He's like, hey, come on up. I need to talk to you. I come up and he's like, hey, I want you to do me a favor. And I said, yes, sir. I said, what do you need? He goes, I want you to be a member of my cabinet. And I said, sir. And he goes goes i want you to be a member of my cabinet and i said sir and he goes i want you to be my va secretary and i said sir i said uh what and he goes you can do it right and i go well hell yeah i can do it but i mean where did this come from you know and he goes ronnie you're the right guy for the job man he goes you know you're you're a rear admiral you've been in the navy 25 years he said you know we talk all the time you know you care about the veterans you're motivated by the right reasons you know you're not going to be driven by special interest or you know the lobby the lobby or any of any of that kind of stuff.

You know, you're doing it for the right reasons. You're you're putting the veterans first and foremost in every everything that we talk about. And that's the that's the VA secretary. I want somebody who's going to really put the veterans first. And you're the right guy for the job. You're the perfect person for the job. So I went to talk to my wife about it. We discussed it that night and everything. And long story short, it just evolved really quickly and in the next couple of days, he named me as the nominee. He did it in one fatal

swoop with the tweet. He said, Shulkin's out. Basically, Wilkie is the acting and Ronnie Jackson's the nominee. That was it. Then the smear campaign starts. Then the people that that wasn't their plan. So then everything went into high gear.

Everything was fine for a matter of like probably six weeks. Everything was going along in the nomination process until one week prior to my hearing was scheduled in the Senate. And all of a sudden, all these anonymous, completely to this day, still anonymous, right? Complete BS garbage complaints, right? They just leaked out from the Senate, from Tester's anonymous, right? Complete BS garbage complaints, right? They just leaked out from the Senate, from Tester's office, right? They just leaked them out to the press, right? And to this day, they will probably tell you, most of them, if you really question them, well, that might not have been true, but we still had an obligation to get it out to the press. It

was crap, right? I mean, that wasn't better. Any two-bit investigator could have spent one day looking into these allegations and realize that there was no truth to him. Right. I mean, they said that I was out recklessly prescribing narcotics. Are you kidding me? I can't. Just so everybody understands, Senator John Tester, who I listen, you say what you want, but is my show is a moron. He led. I'm sorry. You don't have to agree. It's OK. It's my opinion. I'm not speaking for I'm just telling you the guy's a moron. He led, I'm sorry, you don't have to agree. It's okay. It's my opinion. I'm not speaking for, I'm just telling you the guy's a moron. And what he did to Ronnie, if you're voting for this guy, I'm really sorry for you because what he did was shameful, destroying the, trying

to destroy the reputation of this Patriot who's going to get the last laugh in this whole thing. But quick story about Ronnie in relation to this. I asked Ronnie once for ibuprofen. Ibuprofen, folks, you can buy it over the counter, but the White House doc carries it. They carry all kinds of medication. And I'll never forget, Ronnie, you told me, yeah, sure, I'll give it to you. No problem. You got to eat something first. I will never forget that because you told me, listen, it messes with whatever the mucus production, you don't want to get an ulcer. So anybody telling you the story who doesn't know Ronnie, that Ronnie was dishing out prescription drugs like the White House drug dealer or something

is so entirely full of crap. Dismiss them immediately at hand and laugh at them. And one more thing to back up your story here. It's not even your story. It's the truth. There is no other story. When this happened, we all knew Ronnie in the Secret Service. I got, I'm not going to say who, but Ronnie and I know who they are.

No less than 30 or 40 emails, texts, and DMs from people who had worked with Ronnie. And I'm not just talking secret service. I'm talking Obama White House. I'm talking a Trump White House, secret service, White House staff, Wham-O, WACA, everyone saying question mark, like Ronnie, like this is the dumbest story I've ever heard. So now you understand my anger at Democrat Senator John Tester for trying to sabotage your entire life when you were nominated to be secretary. Now, Ronnie, after this happens, what makes you decide eventually that, hey, I'm going to I'm going to withdraw here from the nomination process? Well, like you said, Dan, I'd never seen this happen to anybody ever. I mean, even people in the White House, they were just like, oh my gosh, I've never seen anything happen like this before. Everybody was just dumbfounded, right? And what I didn't realize at the time, but I got Kavanaugh

before Kavanaugh did, right? I was the warmup. I was the pregame. I didn't even know it, you know? Yeah. But anyways, so I ended up withdrawing my nomination. I talked to the president. It was crazy, man. They had tripods camped out at the base of my driveway. My wife couldn't leave the house. My kids went to these liberal schools in D.C. because there's nothing but liberal schools there. They were getting harassed at school. You know, and what was the worst part? The veterans were just being made into a political football. Right. And I tell people I told the president, I said, sir, the veterans, whether you're on the right or the left, they're like a national treasure. They've given us the freedoms to, you know, they've sacrificed life and limbs so that we have the freedoms that we have.

I'm not going to stand by and watch them become a political football in this. He was doing a lot of awesome things already in the VA, right? The president was, he was turning around a lot of things, making really great strides in the VA for our veterans. And it was starting to distract from his agenda with the VA. It was really, you know, the veterans themselves were coming to political football. So I said, sir, we got to find a better way, another way for me to serve. And so that's when I withdrew. But I'll tell you, Dan, for probably around five or six months after that,

I was disgusted with DC, man. I was like, I want out of this place. I can't stand this damn place. I don't like the people here. I don't like the politics here. I want nothing to do with this place. It really is a sewer and a swamp and I just want out. And I just wanted to go back home to Texas.

My wife is excited about going back home. I just wanted to get a place back here, come back home, retire. And I already planned to retire before I even got into the Trump administration. I already had over 20 years. I was already a Navy rear admiral. So, you know, I mean, I was all ready to retire anyways. So I said, I'm just going to retire, go home to Texas and put this behind me. But I'll be honest with you, man.

About five or six months into it, I started asking myself, am I okay with this? And I just started thinking, I don't know if I'm going to be okay with this. Like, you know, five, six years down the road, am I going to be that guy that's, I mean, I would have a nice job. I would have an income that, you know, was way higher than, you know, my Navy salary. So financially, everything was going to be great, you know, and I was going to be back home in Texas.

But I didn't want to be that guy sitting around at the cafe and the coffee shop, you know, for the next 10 years, talking about what a messed up system it was, how screwed up it was, how unfair it was. You know, I just decided, you know what, I got to do something about it. I can't, I can't be that guy. You know, I just can't. And then, but I didn't know what that was going to look like. And then whenever Mac Thornberry announced late in the game that he wasn't going to run in the 13th congressional district again, and that's the area of Texas I grew up in, in the Texas panhandle. And I realized that, you know, I'd already, I was planning to put my retirement paperwork in and get out this summer. So I was retiring. Mac Thornberry announced kind of out of nowhere that he wasn't going to run again.

And then I realized, you know what? President Trump's getting reelected, man. The left's gone way too far down this path. They can't turn this train around. It's a done deal now. He's getting reelected, right? And so those three things together, I said, this is an opportunity, an opportunity to get in the fight and make a difference. And I decided, you know what? I can go. I can run in the 13th Congressional District. I know those people there. I identify with them politically, socially, economically, culturally. I'm on the same page with them. I can represent them without changing anything about who I am or what I believe. And that's important, obviously, if you're going to represent someone, right? So I said, you know what? I'm going to get in the fight. I'm going to go back. I'm going to run for office. I'm going to become the

congressman of the 13th congressional district. I'm going to go to Congress. I'm not going to complain or bitch about it. I'm going to get in the fight and do something about it. That's what led me here. Ladies and gentlemen, we're talking to Ronnie Jackson, a personal friend, rear admiral in the Navy, a medical doctor, former White House doctor, and importantly now a candidate for Congress in Texas 13, the panhandle. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're out there in Texas, anywhere across the United States, I am a friend of Ronnie's. I am asking you to go to his website. Ronnie Jackson for F.O., T E X A S not the abbreviation, Ronnie Jackson for Texas 13.com. We'll put the website up on the screen. Ronnie Jackson for Texas one, three.com folks. I don't do this often. Matter of fact, I don't think I've

done this ever for a candidate. I know this guy. I know what happened to this guy. I know why he's running. He doesn't need any more TV time. He doesn't need to be in the Oval Office. He spent seven or eight years there. He doesn't need to be hanging around powerful people. I'm telling you, he's doing this for the right reasons. You will not be disappointed. You don't have to be from Texas to support him. So, Ronnie, I'm trying to think of some questions for the audience here that they sent in. I have so many of them, but one of them. So when you're the White House doctor, when I, when I was on the secret service side, we would go with you guys to local hospitals, say the president was visiting Philadelphia and you guys would be with us. And we'd be looking at the

hospital to make sure, God forbid, something happens to the president that it had the emergency medicine capacities. It was at level one trauma happens to the president, that it had the emergency medicine capacities. It was a level one trauma to handle the president of the United States. But what are some of the other things you did as the White House doctor? Because like I said, I was always there with you on these trips, but, you know, and our past would cross at countdown meetings and everything, but I never asked you what you did and, you know, outside of what I needed to know, hey, Ronnie, where are we going to the hospital?

How are we getting there? And, you know, outside of what I needed to know. Hey, Ronnie, where are we going to the hospital? How are we getting there? And, you know, likewise for us. So what else did you guys do when you were over there as the doc? Yeah, so we basically made all those plans. You know, it's basically contingency planning, just like you guys did. But we did it from the medical side of the house. You know, what happens? You know, worst case scenario, the president takes a round to the chest or an IED hits

a motorcade or something like that. You know, where are we going to go? How are we going to get there? You know, do we have the resources we need? If we didn't, then we'd work with DOD and stuff and we'd fly surgical teams in and we'd have them staged somewhere ready to go, you know, so that we brought our own level one trauma center when we needed to, right? So we had unbelievable resources and, you know, you guys helped us move those around

and work those into your plan. And that's what protective medicine is all about. And that was really my, that was my area of expertise, protective medicine, you know, for the last like 14 years. But we did all that stuff. And then the other thing I did is basically I took care of everybody on the road.

I mean, and that's like, you know, all of the White House staff, the Secret Service, the White House Transportation Agency, the White House Communications Agency, you know, everybody, State Department, all the people that were with us. And, you know, we'd go overseas and there'd be as many as 500 people at each site that we went to

that were on the ground that I was responsible for, you know, so, you know, not only, you know, not to mention the fact that we go to places in Southeast Asia and Africa. And when I got off that plane with the pack that was on my back, I suddenly became the highest level of care in that country. And that's a scary thing, but that's a reality. You know, we go to places where, you know, you just, you are the highest level of care in the country. I know. You were with member Jordan. We went to Petra Jordan. There's the lost city of Petra Jordan folks, which if you're listening to the show is one of the most miraculous things you'll ever see. If you ever get the chance to travel, go to the Lost City in Petra, Jordan. It's about three hours down this desert highway

out of Oman. And Ronnie and I went to this trip out there and it was with the first lady, Mrs. Bush at the time. And when you're out in Petra, Jordan in the Lost City in the middle of the desert, there ain't no hospital around there. It was like Ronnie was the hospital. So he's not kidding when he tells you

Ronnie was the functioning medical So he's not kidding when he tells you Ronnie was the functioning medical unit at the time. But quick personal story about Ronnie is showing you what kind of guy this is. I wanted to go to medical school at the time and I was practically begging Ronnie for help. And Ronnie, who was super busy on that trip and others, took his time. I was emailing me, communicating with me. The only reason I couldn't go was because the Secret Service wouldn't let me go and I couldn't keep applying to other schools. But Ronnie spent so much time trying to help me out. I never forgot that. You were super busy. You were just incredible at the time, Ronnie. I got a bunch more questions for you, especially about Corona.

Let me just take a quick break. We'll be right back with Dr. Ronnie Jackson, candidate for Congress, Texas 13. Thank you for your patience, folks. The show today was also sponsored by Helix Sleep. Listen, get rid of that old mattress. Why would you sleep on an old, rancid old mattress that's falling apart? You spend eight hours of your night sleeping. Helix Sleep is a quiz. It takes two minutes to complete and matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. Spend those eight hours comfortably. We have a Helix Sleep mattress now. It's like sleeping on a cloud. Why? Because the two-minute sleep quiz customizes the mattress to you. You a side sleeper like me? A hot sleeper? Me too. You like a plush or a firm bed? With Helix, there's no more confusion

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That's how confident they are in this product. They'll even pick it up for you if you don't love it, but you will. Right now, Helix is offering up to $200 off all mattress orders for our listeners. Go to helix, H-E-L-I-X, sleep.com slash Dan for up to $200 off your mattress order. helixsleep.com slash Dan, helixsleep.com slash Dan. Now back to my interview with congressional candidate from Texasxas district 13 dr ronnie jackson we're back with dr ronnie jackson candidate for congress texas 13 his website ronnie jackson for texas 13.com help this guy out he needs it so uh ronnie have you ever seen anything like this this coronavirus i i know when when again you and i were working on the white house side and you obviously being in the medical unit over there in the white house i

remember all these flu outbreaks and things like that but i don't ever remember outside of your briefings we were on trips saying hey be careful about this wash your hands you know obviously don't drink the water in some places i don't ever remember seeing anything like this and the level of accompanying fear out there, which may or may not be understandable based on the risks when we determine the data later. You recall anything like this? No, Dan, I've never seen anything like this. I mean, we had H1N1, we had MERS, we had SARS, we had Ebola, we had all this stuff while we were there, you know, and I've never seen a reaction like this. And I'm not minimizing this virus or the potential it has, you know, to be a problem because it is a novel virus and we don't have any immunity to it. So it does pop up. And, you know, we're always worried about that one virus that really is the big pandemic that, you know, wipes out half the Earth's population.

And, you know, and, you know, it's it's kind of disturbing to think that, you know, something as small as a virus can do that, but it can, you know what I mean? And so that's not where this is going, you know, this virus, but I'm saying we're always on the lookout for that, right? So understand, you know, the fact that we're taking this serious and everything, but like you said, we've had these things happen before, and I've never seen this level of fear and just being built up like this. And I honestly think that, you know, this was, this was spun extensively by the left when it first happened. I mean, they just seized upon this. Like they, I mean, I really feel like they, they, they, they just smell blood in the water,

you know? And I think the problem too, is we're getting lost in inanities. Like, obviously it's serious. Obviously people have died. There's a very serious situation in Italy. We totally get that. We get the question, as I've said on my show repeatedly, and I think I don't want to speak for you, but I think you'd agree with this, not is this a serious virus or not? They asked and answered, yes. The question is, how serious so we can appropriately gauge the risk? In other words, you being a doctor, we take the president, when we were doing our prior line work all over the world where there are unique uh viruses and bugs the president has no immunity to i mean i caught dengue fever in panama on a trip with jenna bush it was nasty i had no immunity to it at all it was

horrible but we don't stop people from going there and i guess my worry here is like we're getting lost in stupidity like this media infatuation now with what we call this virus from Wuhan, saying it's racist to call it the Wuhan virus. As you well know, as a medical professional, the Zika virus is named after its geography, Ebola, West Nile, Lyme after Lyme, Connecticut. This is not unusual, right? Spanish flu, exactly. I mean, this is crazy. There's literally hundreds and hundreds of viruses that are named after their origin. It's not an uncommon thing. And that's why I was yesterday, I was watching the press brief and I was just like, I was so disgusted, man. I was like, they were just trying their best to find anything they could to like

tear the president down. And they just kept on with this, you know, he calling him a racist and xenophobic and everything because he was associated with China. That's where it came from. And I was like, look, we got to place our resources elsewhere right now. I mean, we're way beyond that. Who cares what we call it at this point, right? We got to prepare so that we can defeat this thing, right? And so I think that it disturbs me that the press spends so much time trying to nitpick every single word that comes out of his mouth to try to find some fault in it and use it against him when they should be, you know, stepping up to the plate as Americans, right? And helping us figure out how we can, you know, get the public informed about what we need to do and how we need to get there. You know, and I mean, this virus, I mean, we're going to see,

Dan, when this is over, you know, the number of people that have this right now that are out there that don't even know they have it is probably huge. And when we look at the mortality associated with this, we look at the number of deaths we have and the number of people that we ultimately will find out that actually had the virus, the mortality is not going to be super high, right? And I mean, I tell people all the time, we just have to put this in perspective. Yes, you know, there's not a vaccine for it. Yes, we don't have any current medications that we know are effective against it right now. And it's a novel virus. But the flu, influenza, seasonal flu kills 30 to 60,000 people a year in this country, Americans every year, right? And what we've got like 150 deaths so far. Now, once again, I am not minimizing this,

we need to take this serious. This could quickly get it. So but I just tell people, step back and put this in perspective right now. Don't let the fear take control of your life right now. You know, the president's doing what he needs to do to protect perspective right now. Don't let the fear take control of your life right now. You know, the president's doing what he needs to do to protect us right now. And he's had a measured response. I mean, he started out pretty aggressively with restricting travel from China, which was huge. That was huge. And in the fact that we're doing it. Yeah, exactly. Right. And that's why Italy's where they're at right now, because they had tons of Chinese immigrants coming in and nobody was stopping it. The president stopped us from becoming Italy right off the bat.

And since that time, he's looked logically with the with the incredible team that he's got behind him. Teams made up from national security staff, from the CDC, from NIH, from DHS, DOD. I mean, all the medical experts that are out there that are really the best of the best make up his team right now. And they're giving him advice on what to do and when to do it. He's following their advice and he's keeping us safe right now. And we need to trust. I mean, I'm up here in the Texas panhandle right now. You know, I'm in Amarillo, Texas, and I'm responding.

The 13th congressional district is a Texas panhandle in North Texas. People up here, the one thing that's different than people up here than, say, on the East Coast, up in the Northeast and the West Coast, the people here trust our president to keep them safe. And they're following his direction. And when he ramps it up, they ramp it up. Whenever he says not to worry about it, they're not worried about it. You know, and I mean, I just think that he's the president of the United States. He's our lead on this right now. And he's got the experts behind him. We need to follow his lead. Yeah. I mean, I just don't

remember when President Obama and other administrations were attacking other pathogens, H1N1, swine flu, whatever. I don't remember this level of partisan nonsense. But Ronnie, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you this question as a former White House doctor for multiple administrations. How concerned are you about the president out there? You know the president. Listen, he's a self-admitted germaphobe. He said that himself. I'm glad he is actually right now. He's probably better off than he is. But how concerned are you?

I mean, he does shake hands. He's the president. He's acknowledged that, that even though we should probably dump that habit, he said, listen, it's politics. People come up to you and shake your hand. He said, I don't want to be rude. How concerned are you?

I mean, given that we don't have a vaccine, that he could be in a compromising situation, being that he's probably the most famous, if not one of the top five most famous men in the world. Everybody wants to touch and be around and handshake with him. Right. Well, you know, I'm concerned about it. You have to be concerned about it. If nothing else, just based on his age. Right. He's in that category. We have to be worried about, you know, what happens if he does get it. Now, if you or I get it, we're probably going to be fine. But it's the elderly population, the older population, people that are in their 70s and 80s, and the president's in his

70s now that are that are vulnerable, right? But the president, he's still got to lead this country still got to be president, you know, so there's certain risks that just you have to accept, you know, as part of the job. I mean, you guys couldn't mitigate every single risk to him as well. You know, you had to let him take certain risk as well. You just have to do that. So we were super careful, wipe things down, you know, just a very aggressive use of hand sanitizer and things of that nature. Keep a close eye on him, you know, so that if he does get sick, we know it like immediately. But, you know, he's walking a fine line right now. He's trying to put the protections that we need in place and be firm where he needs to be firm. But he's also trying

to be, he's trying to lead by example and not let, you know, fear take over our country. So he's out there. He's letting people know that like, you know, hey, we want to be safe and we want to follow, you know, the CDC's guidance on this and all, but we don't want this to take over our lives. And we're not going to lock him away in a closet somewhere, you know, just to keep him safe. We can't do that. He can't lead like that. So he's got to, he's got to lead this country. And part of that is he's got to be out there and he's got to be the face of this. Yeah, I think the medical unit, the White House medical unit probably is going to be extra focused if foreign travel does resume with the president or even domestic travel with probably thorough disinfection of anything around the president. I just don't want my audience to worry again, but I want them to be realistic. on the president. I just don't want my audience to worry again, but I want them to be realistic.

And, you know, interestingly enough, you gave that, by the way, I got to hat tip my wife who was interested in that question, how you protect the president in light of this coronavirus outbreak. So hat tip Paula there. But you gave a briefing at the White House, which I watched alive on Fox when you were the White House doc. And you gave simple medical facts about the president's health. He had gotten a checkup and showing you again. And now we live in the dumbest of political times. You were even attacked for that, for just stating the obvious that, listen, the president's in good health. Do you remember that? I mean, if you could walk the audience. I remember it like it was yesterday. I'm telling you, Dan, they were working this up for like for weeks and maybe even months where they were building this narrative, you know, that the president was mentally and physically unfit to be president.

Right. And I've been around for a while. Right. But I, you know, and I was they knew I was getting ready to do his physical and everything. So I did his physical. I did a thorough, thorough physical exam. And we did all kinds of stress testing, cardiac stress test and everything. I'm telling you, like I had all the results there ready to read off if they ask him for me. But the president just knocked it out of the park as far as his cardiac testing goes for his age group. He was in the top 10 percent for his age on his cardiac testing. So, you know, I did a thorough physical exam and then they were they were making this. They were running this narrative that, you know, cognitively he wasn't fit to be president. So, you know, never been done before. No clinical indication whatsoever to do this.

But I did a cognitive test on him, right? And we did it because he asked me to. We talked about it and he was sick of hearing about it. And he's like, let's just do it and put it to bed. Same reason he got tested for the flu the other day, or for the coronavirus. There was absolutely no indication, no clinical indication for him to get tested.

He did it just basically because he had to, to shut the press up about it, you know, and just move on to something else. I mean, they just will not stop talking about it. And then they went after you as if you were some kind of lackey for the president for putting out basic medical information they asked for. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the good thing about it is, you know, there's two things. One, you know, it didn't work to, it didn't work to their,

you know, the way they wanted it to that day. What happened is I just stood up there and took the fire. I was up there for an hour and five minutes, I think. And they just kept on and kept on asking questions. They eventually ran out of stuff to ask. And they started asking ridiculous questions. So much so that the rest of the press was basically criticizing them, saying they made themselves look foolish, you know?

Roddy, I watched that whole thing. At the end, it was like, what's his shoe size? Is that in any way correlated with his iq level but oh it was ronnie's not kidding ladies if you go back and watch it on youtube just fast forward to the end it's like an hour or so long the questions at the end were so absurd people should have turned in their press credentials on the way out it was so embarrassing ronnie in your medical opinion be yeah sorry go ahead i was gonna tell you they literally asked me like do i'm honored how much tv he watches and stuff i was like no he's not five years old and i'm not his i'm not

his father i'm not a watcher you know it's crazy but here's the other thing dan that i don't know if you've noticed or not but guess what guess what nobody's asking me about anymore nobody's asking me about the president's cognitive test anymore now that we got joe biden as the as the nominee potentially shocker right suddenly i've kind of switched a little bit didn't it yeah they don't want, they don't want that topic to come up after Joe Biden, who doesn't even know what state he's in. Yeah, God forbid that comes up again. Sheesh.

So, Ronnie, you, again, you being a medical doctor, we've traveled around again a lot. I can't say that enough because, again, I have a personal experience with Ronnie. I know what kind of guy he is, but hydroxychloroquine, sorry, chloroquine, I should should know this because as i said on my show yesterday my wife is i've been on that medication for a long time she gave me permission to talk about it for an autoimmune disorder but uh it goes by the

generic name i guess plaquenil in some cases but uh hydroxychloroquine this was a drug you are very familiar with i know that because again, having traveled with you, it is used and correct me if I'm wrong as an anti-malaria medication. And whenever you go to various countries that still have malaria issues, obviously transmitted by mosquitoes, you had this in your medical bag all the time. I had heard of this. I'm not a doctor, obviously Ronnie is, but I'd heard of this drug a long time. But what do you think of this news coming out today? President Trump said it at the White House that this may be early, but may be an effective treatment for the coronavirus. Yeah, we'll have to look at it and see. I think, you know, there's several drugs out there that hold promise right now.

And, you know, this is one of them. Like you said, we used it for malaria prophylaxis. Now, we used another drug, youarone mostly, but we did carry this stuff to treat malaria if we got it because it's also part of the treatment. So it's a drug that's been out there forever. I mean, the good thing about it, and this is, you know, the president has freed up billions and billions of dollars now with the emergency declaration that are available to the private sector now. declaration that are available to the private sector now and lets the private sector work with our university academic centers and with the government to figure out what drugs that are already out there that are already being used that might be useful in treating this disease. And that's really going to expedite things. He's also got rid of a bunch of the regulations and the SOPs that have slowed things down. So chloroquine, this is one of the drugs that

are out there. There's another one that I think has a lot of promise as well. It's called remdesivir. And it's a powerful antiviral that's in the family of drugs that we use to treat HIV and stuff. And it's being looked at right now, too. There's clinical studies going on with this drug. But both of these drugs have great potential. They've both been used. Remdesivir was actually used in Ebola. So they've both been used in people, in humans before.

in Ebola. So they've both been used in people, in humans before. So, you know, the normal process we have to go through and we spend all this time, you know, not only trying to develop a drug and make sure that it works on the disease that we're going to target with it, but also worry about, you know, human safety, you know, and use of the drug. Some of these drugs like chloroquine, we don't need to worry about that now because it's been used so extensively in people before that we can put that behind us. It's just a matter of whether or not it works. So they're going to really expedite testing of this. And if it works, we have lots of it available. We'll get it out there. But I think the goal here is to just string this thing out enough so that we get past the spring and into the summer because I really think it's going to be seasonal. I think it's going to fall off when

the weather warms up. I think it's going to be one of those seasonal illnesses like the flu. And then it's probably going to come back in the fall. But when it does, we'll have these drugs ready to go. We will know which ones work and they'll be approved and we can use them. Right. Hopefully we'll get them even approved before that. But we'll definitely have them by the fall. And then that allows us a few more months to make it into the early next year where we're going to have a vaccine that's going to be available. So they've got a great plan in place right now. The president's just done incredible things to reduce the regulations, the regulatory burdens, to allow this stuff to happen and happen quickly. And we're going to get there and get there quick. Can you correct some misinformation? I saw some stuff on Twitter

today, you know, where everybody all of a sudden is a medical professional other than actual medical professionals like you. And I saw a commentator on another network i'm not going to say where it's not even worth our time but was suggesting that chloroquine which again may very early but may be a treatment for the wuhan virus here that because it's only recommended for malaria on an on-label use she was suggesting that it can't be used elsewhere runny listen i'm not a doctor but that's asinine on-label use. She was suggesting that it can't be used elsewhere. Ronnie, listen, I'm not a doctor, but that's asinine. Off-label use for medication. Can you, okay, please, you just take it from me.

Please tell people that's nonsense. That's ridiculous. That's total nonsense. We use drugs off-label all the time, right? And especially in an environment like this, where the president's already declared a national emergency. Give me a break. I mean, if we find out that this drug is useful to treat this disease, we will be able to use it when and where we need to. No questions asked. We're talking to Ronnie Jackson.

Please support this patriot. Good man. Good friend. Ronnie Jackson for F.O.R. Texas. One three dot com. Ronnie Jackson for Texas 13. That's where he's running for congress.com. Last question, Ronnie, I'll let you go. You've been very generous with my time. You're already on record. It's the longest interview we have ever done on this show. I think we've only done 10. You're in a pretty solid group. We get the president, Don Jr. Candace. So this is the longest one ever, but you've been so fascinating.

What do you think is going on in Italy and elsewhere where we're getting this wide disparity of symptoms and outcomes in these cases? Putting aside for a minute the elderly, I think it's already signed, sealed, and delivered that it's obviously very dangerous for people over 60. We get that. Sadly, it happens to be true. But you hear these press reports, and when we hear reports about the flu, when you get the flu, everybody pretty much says the same thing, Ronnie. It really sucks. Backache, headache, no appetite, can't sleep, high fever. But we're getting some people, like you see people on Fox News all the time, they come on,

and I'm glad Fox is doing this. They're like, hey, it was bad. I had a rough couple days. Then you see reports in the press, and I'm not suggesting these reports are wrong at all, where people say, listen, this was bad. I mean, I really felt horrible. What's the difference? I mean, why with the flu are the symptoms so relatively consistent? But with this, it's seemingly all over the map. Yeah, I mean, you know, over in Italy, the demographics are completely different over there. So I mean, first off, they did not lock their borders down. And they apparently, you know, they have a huge Chinese population that's involved in their leather industry over there. And whenever it first broke out in China, a lot of the folks from China fled China, went back to Italy where they have

relationships, whether it's work or whatever related to this leather industry. But they have a lot of Chinese immigrants coming in over there. They kind of flooded the country. And a lot of them were probably carrying the virus at the time. right? So they got a large introduction of the virus into the country right off the bat. They have a population, like you said, everyone knows this, but that's significantly older than we are. They have the oldest population of any country in Europe. And their average age over there is about 12 years older than we are here. So 25% of their country is over the age of 65. And then they have other things that factor into it too. They smoke like crazy over there, right? This is a respiratory virus. So they're probably have a little bit of, they're probably

more predisposed to getting the virus because of the fact that they smoke so much over there. You know, they also have different just habits as far as we do, as far as washing their hands and using hand sanitizer. I mean, you don't, you know, over here, everybody's got a bottle of hand sanitizer in their pocket in the car all the time. It's not necessarily the case over there. So, you know, it was able to just spread more effectively over there. It did a lot more damage as far as deaths because of the population. And I think even the younger folks over there that, you know, and they have more comorbidities over there than we do as well, because their healthcare system is not as robust and as good as our healthcare

system here. So there's a variety of reasons why Italy is in this position they're in. I think you can look at other countries. I say, you know, we look at South Korea. We want to be like South Korea. They did a good job and they're dealing with it effectively. If we believe the numbers coming out of China, I mean, China did a pretty good job handling it if we believe those numbers coming out of there right now. So we'll see where this goes. But we are looking at those examples and trying to not become Italy, but to rather look more like South Korea when this is all said and done. Ronnie Jackson, can't thank you enough for your time. I really hope what listen, when is your when's the election for you the run of you made it through the runoff, correct? When is the next election here? So I made it through the primary, there were 15 of

us in the race to start with, there's two of us left. There's a runoff election on May 26th. And I hope that stands. Hopefully this coronavirus is not going to push that date away to a later date. But right now, May 26th, runoff election, Texas 13, vote for Ronnie and get the vote out. And we're going to win this thing. I'll make you proud. You always have, Ronnie. You're a good friend. I've known you a long time. And let me tell you, it hurt me really a lot personally. I don't want to get overly emotional or dramatic. But when that happened to you at the White House, it was a damn disgrace.

Did I not say that, Paul? Hey, you know what, Dan? I walked into my wife and I said, this is effing disgusting. Those are my exact words. I said, this guy was one of the finest men I ever met. And what they did to you, really, if you ever, folks, if you ever believed anything I've told you, my audience, I have not seen a singular episode in DC politics so disgusting to a guy who didn't deserve it than what happened to Ronnie Jackson. I'm not kidding. It was really that

horrendous. And I felt for you, brother. I really did. It was gross. And I hope you get to D.C., win this seat in Congress, and you go and kick ass, man, because there's no better guy for you. I will. And I'll tell you what, Dan, it didn't kill me. It just made me stronger, and it led me to where I'm at right now, and I'm going to make a difference. Damn right, brother. All right, Ronnie. Again, folks, RonnieJackson4Texas13.com. Please support this guy. America needs some real, genuine patriots right now, and he's one of them. Thanks, Ronnie. I'll talk to you soon. Love you, brother. Thanks. You just heard the Dan Bongino Show. You can also get Dan's podcasts on iTunes or SoundCloud and follow Dan on Twitter 24-7 at DBongino.