WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump's surprise choice to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs made a good impression on the boss in January when giving a glowing health report on Trump's physical and mental well-being.
Trump told aides he liked White House physician Ronny Jackson's smooth turn before the cameras and his ability to field reporters' questions. Now Trump has tapped Jackson to replace David Shulkin as VA secretary.
During the January briefing, Jackson spent nearly an hour exhausting reporters' questions, extoling 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 goal: effectively stamping out questions that had been brewing about the president's mental fitness.
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