Continuing the liberal media’s insistence that they can diagnose someone as mentally or physically ill, Monday’s Deadline: White House on MSNBC featured detestable liberal Republicans Nicolle Wallace and David Jolly asserting that Ronald Reagan had Alzheimer’s while president to the point that he may have been unfit for office.
Reagan came up during a segment about the likelihood that there’s something wrong mentally or physically wrong with President Trump (which the show insinuated was a yes).
Wallace used the late Michael Deaver (and YouTube videos) as her main sources for claims Reagan having Alzheimer’s while in office, wondering to Jolly if Trump knew about Reagan while tweeting over the weekend: “I don't know if the President doesn't know, has never heard Michael Deavers — the late Michael Deaver post-White House really heartfelt, really honest, really frank articulations of what it was like to see Ronald Reagan age.”
“I wondered today, rereading Donald Trump's tweets about Reagan, if he knew that Ronald Reagan was suspected to have had the early signs of Alzheimer's during his second term as President,” she concluded.
Jolly agreed without hesitation, declaring that Reagan was suffering from the disease “in his sixth year”:
[T]his is a very grave conversation. It has been over 30 years since this nation had a conversation about whether or not our president was fit to serve and that's a very grave conversation and the important thing in this is if we are having the conversation, that necessarily means there is concern among the body politic[.]
He also bemoaned the questioning of someone’s health despite having just done so:
[I]f you are talking about the President's mental fitness, you are not on message regarding his agenda nor the interest of the country and so what we are seeing among this President, whether it be true or not is based on his own irascible behavior, we're having a national conversation that not is just challenging for the President but it's challenging for the country.
Somewhere, liberal Republicans and resistance sycophants Kurt Bardella, Charlie Sykes, and Bret Stephens must be proud.
Bill O’Reilly made this claim in his much-maligned book Killing Reagan and it drew widespread condemnation. At the time, George Will penned an absolutely scathing takedown on the book, including the portions about Regan having Alzheimer’s while in office.
Reagan biographer Craig Shirley trashed the book as “garbage” and “total B.S.” for peddling such views. Reagan library executive director John Heubusch said the book was “a disservice to history.”
The Heritage Foundation’s Lee Edwards addressed Reagan’s health in reviewing a Shirley book, writing in 2015 that Reagan “had no serious health problems before his Alzheimer’s diagnosis in 1994.”
When Reagan’s son Ron alleged the same in 2011, his half-brother Michael denied the claim by arguing that Ron “was an embarrassment to his father when he was alive and today he became an embarrassment to his mother.”
Here’s the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Deadline: White House on January 8
MSNBC’s Deadline: White House
January 8, 2018
4:09 p.m. Eastern
NICOLLE WALLACE: And David Jolly, I don't know if the President doesn't know, has never heard Michael Deaver — the late Michael Deaver post-White House really heartfelt, really honest, really frank articulations of what it was like to see Ronald Reagan age and let's assert every president, every man — there's never been a woman — every man ages at warp speed in the presidency, but Ronald Reagan was — he was officially diagnosed and revealed to the country in 1994 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. But if you go back and I’ve watched some of it on YouTube today and you watch Michael Deaver, you watch some of the other people who were around Ronald Reagan, I wondered today, rereading Donald Trump's tweets about Reagan, if he knew that Ronald Reagan was suspected to have had the early signs of Alzheimer's during his second term as President.
DAVID JOLLY: Sure in his sixth year and you're right about how it ages a president. We saw it in Bush 43. We saw it in Obama. But, Nicolle, this is a very grave conversation. It has been over 30 years since this nation had a conversation about whether or not our president was fit to serve and that's a very grave conversation and the important thing in this is if we are having the conversation, that necessarily means there is concern among the body politic. You know, there is an axiom in politics, and you know this well. If you are explaining, you ain't campaigning. And my apologies to my fifth grade grammar teacher, but the reality is on that, if you are talking about the President's mental fitness, you are not on message regarding his agenda nor the interest of the country and so what we are seeing among this President, whether it be true or not is based on his own irascible behavior, we're having a national conversation that not is just challenging for the President but it's challenging for the country.
