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President Trump's Veteran Affairs pick nicknamed 'candy man' for handing out prescription drugs

Earlier reports also stated that Trump's physician was also accused of drinking on the job and creating a hostile work environment.

BY NAMRATA TRIPATHI

UPDATED JAN 23, 2020

Montana's Democratic Senator, Jon Tester, on Tuesday said that President Donald Trump's White House physician, Navy Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, who the Republican has nominated to head the Department of Veteran Affairs has been nicknamed "candy man" for handing out prescription drugs, according to reports.

Tester, while appearing on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360", said that "in overseas trips, in particular, the admiral would go down the aisle way of the airplane and say, 'All right, who wants to go to sleep?' and hand out the prescription drugs like they were candy."

The Senator, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, said that the Senate panel had heard accounts of over 20 individuals serving in the military or retired about how Jackson would allegedly freely dispense prescription drugs to them.

Tester said: "That’s the reports that we got from the people, 20-something people, who got a hold of us and said, 'We have a problem. This doctor has a problem because he hands out prescriptions like candy.' In fact, in the White House they call him the candy man."

Physician to the President U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson waves to journalists as he heads into a meeting with Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Johnny Isakson (R-GA) in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill April 16, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Source:Getty Images)

"That’s not a nickname that you want in a doctor and if you consider the prescription drugs we have a problem within this country right now, it’s not the example we need to have set,” Tester added.

Earlier reports also stated that Trump's physician was also accused of drinking on the job and creating a hostile work environment. All these allegations have put Jackson under intense scrutiny as the Senate is set to decide his future in the Trump administration.

Texter's aides reportedly said that they heard that Jackson had become intoxicated during an official White House travel. There were other reports of him being found passed out in his hotel room during a trip during the Obama administration. Jackson was allegedly found inebriated at a time when the White House needed to reach him during the trip, according to The Hill.

Despite multiple allegations leveled against him, Jackson has decided to push forward with his nomination, reports state.