WASHINGTON — They were once seatmates in the spare limousine of the White House motorcade, traveling the globe together as part of the president’s inner circle.
Bonded by the miles they logged on the road and their unique access to power, Pete Souza, the former official White House photographer who took nearly two million photographs of former President Barack Obama, and Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas, the former White House physician who was elected to Congress as a Republican in 2020, were once close friends.
Now, they are the most public of enemies on social media, where Mr. Jackson routinely hurls insults and unsubstantiated claims of cognitive decline at President Biden and Mr. Souza responds with bitingly personal, sometimes salacious takedowns of the congressman’s character. He often begins them tauntingly with, “Hey Ronny.”
Their break is a particularly vivid and public example of how allegiance or opposition to former President Donald J. Trump has driven more Americans into partisan corners, sometimes transforming personal relationships in the process.
Mr. Jackson, once a little-known doctor on the White House medical staff, has morphed into a Trump-loving, MAGA Republican, one who became famous for praising Mr. Trump’s “great genes” while delivering the results of his physical. These days, he routinely alleges, without evidence, that Mr. Biden is senile and unfit to hold office. The transformation has left former Obama officials like Mr. Souza shocked and disgusted.
Mr. Souza is a former journalist who covered presidents before becoming Mr. Obama’s official White House staff photographer, and a key shaper of the 44th president’s public image. After leaving the White House, Mr. Souza became something of an activist and a microcelebrity among liberals, thanks in part to his social media feeds, where he used flattering photographs of Mr. Obama to troll Mr. Trump, ultimately compiling them into a book, entitled “Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents.”
Now, Mr. Souza uses his popular Twitter feed, which has more than 233,000 followers, almost exclusively to ridiculing and reproaching Mr. Jackson, who represents Texas’ 13th Congressional District, one of the most conservative in the country.
He accuses the congressman of spreading disinformation, getting his facts wrong about who is responsible for rising gas prices and rarely visiting his district when he’s not campaigning. But any of Mr. Jackson’s political foes could do that.
More notably, Mr. Souza has dug up photographs from his personal collection and posted pictures of Mr. Jackson asleep in hallways, accusing him of “being hungover while the on-duty doctor for the President of the United States.”
He also broadcasts lewd stories that he says Mr. Jackson shared with him in the past, including one eyebrow-raising anecdote involving the shaving of his nether regions.
“Hey Ronny,” he tweeted in February. “Remember when you told me the Saudis offered you $1 million annually to be the King’s doctor? But your wife didn’t want to live in the desert. (Others who were in the spare limo with us overheard this too.) Makes me wonder why you’re so un-American.”
When Mr. Jackson claimed that Mr. Biden is the worst president in his lifetime, Mr. Souza logged onto Twitter to correct the record.
“I remember when you told me how much you admired and respected Joe Biden,” he wrote in December. “Then you had that mind-altering cocktail: Trump kool aid mixed with alcohol.”
Mr. Jackson said he was aware of Mr. Souza’s tweets, but did not spend time dwelling on them.
“It seems pretty juvenile,” he said in an interview. “He seems to be totally consumed with me. We really were good friends and I have never said a single negative thing about him.”
Mr. Jackson insisted that Mr. Souza’s allegations did not get under his skin.
“It’s background noise,” he said.
Mr. Souza’s strategy is not popular among many of his former…
Read More: How Pete Souza and Ronny Jackson Became Public Foes