Texas Republican Congressman Ronny Jackson – and Donald Trump’s former White House physician – tried to help a girl during a medical emergency when an argument with a state trooper escalated into a profanity-laced rant.
The Department of Public Safety released body camera footage, obtained by the Texas Tribune, of Mr Jackson at the White Deer Rodeo near Amarillo on July 29.
The footage captured Rep Jackson being handcuffed as troopers held him to the ground, face-down.
A DPS trooper repeatedly asked the congressman to step aside so that EMS could respond to a girl suffering from a medical emergency. But he disagreed, and instead confronted the trooper off to the side.
“I was just trying to help – this has nothing to do with who I am or what I do. I’m an ER doc,” Mr Jackson is heard saying in the footage. The trooper tried to explain that multiple people had asked the congressman to get out of the way for emergency services.
The congressman maintained, “I’m an ER doc. I f***ing went to four years of medical school and four years of residency.” He pointed fingers at the trooper throughout the conversation, saying that he was never asked to move; the trooper said he personally asked the Texas Republican to move twice.
“I’m gonna call the governor tomorrow and I’m gonna talk to him about this s*** because this is f*****’ ridiculous,” Mr Jackson told the trooper at one point. “F***ing ridiculous.”
“You are a f***ing full-on d***!” he continued to yell, adding, “You better recalculate, motherf***er!”
Once the congressman was out of the frame, people around the trooper he was yelling at started asking who he was. “Someone said he’s a senator,” one person said.
According to a Carson County Sheriff’s Office report, obtained by KAMR, Sheriff Tam Terry alleged Mr Jackson “did not comply” with law enforcement instructions and was “very angry and aggressive.”
The congressman reportedly “aggressively advanced toward” officers, used profanity, “threatened to ‘beat’” a state trooper. On top of this, the report stated, Mr Jackson even told the sheriff he would “bury” Sheriff Terry “in the next election.”
The Texas Republican released a statement following the release of the footage. “I’m glad the video is out. It shows the incompetence of the authorities and their complete disregard for the young girl in distress. We have the best Sheriffs in the country here in the panhandle and north Texas. Unfortunately, the Sheriff in Carson County is not among them,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“I will apologize for my language, but I will not apologize for getting upset & speaking my mind considering the circumstances,” he continued. “If I had to do it again, I would still step up & act in a life-threatening situation. I will ALWAYS help someone in need. I WILL NOT apologize for that.”
