A Texas Republican who previously worked as former President Donald Trump’s physician allegedly threatened to beat up a state trooper and bring down a local sheriff while he was briefly detained at a July rodeo, according to a sheriff’s report.
“I’m going to beat that motherfuckers’ ass!” Rep. Ronny Jackson allegedly said during the July 29 incident at the White Deer Rodeo, a Carson County Sheriff's Office’s incident report obtained by The Texas Tribune states.
The outburst is among several new details about the incident, where authorities allege Jackson screamed at deputies trying to clear the area for emergency medical workers attempting to help a teenager who was having a seizure. During the incident, deputies allegedly asked the former White House physician, who also served under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, to step back about four times so they could assist the teenager.
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Eventually, after Jackson allegedly refused to comply, deputies were forced to handcuff and briefly detain the Republican congressman.
After he was released, Jackson allegedly went scorched earth on law enforcement officers, demanding that Carson County Sheriff Tam Terry call him. While on the phone, the report states, Terry said Jackson warned that he would “bury me in the next election.” Jackson also allegedly said he was “fucking pissed” about the incident, said the deputies exercised bad judgment, and demanded an investigation.
“Game on,” Terry wrote in the report about the election threat.
The report, however, starkly contrasts Jackson’s version of the July 29 incident. In a statement after the event, a spokesperson for Jackson insisted that the lawmaker was detained amid a “very loud and chaotic environment” and was released when authorities realized the doctor was just trying to assist. The statement also stressed that Jackson was merely sitting in the stands during the rodeo near Amarillo, Texas, “in full view of the assembled crowd.”
“Congressman Jackson was not drinking and was prevented from giving medical care in a potentially life-threatening situation due to overly aggressive and incompetent actions by the local authorities present at the time of the incident,” a Jackson spokesperson told The Daily Beast on Saturday.
“Again, he was asked to help the teenager when no other uniformed medics were present. Congressman Jackson, as a trained ER physician, will not apologize for sparing no effort to help in a medical emergency, especially when the circumstances were chaotic and the local authorities refused to help the situation,” the spokesperson added.
But the report offers a different story. According to The Texas Tribune, the report states that Jackson was drinking backstage at the White Deer rodeo. After the teenager collapsed, the report states that Jackson was among the group that crowded around the teenager, prompting authorities to try to clear the area.
In an interview with CNN, a traveling nurse who was related to the teenage patient said that Jackson was trying to assist in the “loud, chaotic” incident where “everyone was just screaming ‘Get back, get back, get back.” She added that she was pushed back and punched in the chest while authorities were trying to clear the area—and that she saw a law enforcer scream in Jackson’s face to “Get the fuck back.”
The report states that Jackson then allegedly uttered the profanity at the Department of Public Safety Trooper after he asked him to move back.
“He was trying to tell them that he was a doctor and probably trying to tell him who he was, to be honest. And they were screaming that they did not effing care who he was,” Linda Dianne Shouse told CNN. “And the next thing I knew, they had him on the ground, grabbed him by the shirt, threw him on the ground, face first into the concrete, and had him in cuffs.”
Jackson was then escorted out of the rodeo grounds, where the handcuffs were removed. The report states that afterward, the congressman allegedly continued to yell, and his wife even demanded the law enforcer’s information. Later that evening, he allegedly had a call with the sheriff.
The congressman first joined the White House Medical Unit as a physician in 2006, where he served under three presidents. He was first elected 13th Congressional District in 2020 and re-elected in 2022, setting up a potential U.S. Senate run in 2026.
Jackson is also notably one of Trump’s most vocal allies and was named to be a part of the former president’s Texas Elected Leadership Team in March.
