Dr. Ron Paul, the 85-year-old three-time presidential nominee and former member of Congress appeared to have a stroke or similar medical emergency while live on his Liberty Report podcast and live stream on Friday afternoon.
During a live broadcast of the Liberty Report program started by Paul after he retired from Congress following his last presidential run, Paul began to have difficulty pronouncing words. Then, part of his face appeared to sag, and Paul became unintelligible, leaving the person he was interviewing aghast.
Paul was reportedly rushed to the hospital where he was admitted. It is still unclear if Paul suffered a stroke, as some reports claim Paul was admitted to the hospital for “precautionary reasons.”
Fox News reporter Chad Pergram wrote that “Ron Paul is hospitalized for ‘precautionary'” reasons after the clip of Paul appearing to suffer a medical emergency began to go viral on social media.
However, by 2 p.m., a message was posted to Paul’s Twitter account, showing the 85-year-old in a hospital bed offering a smile and a thumbs up.
The tweet was apparently posted by someone on behalf of Paul, and read “Message from Ron Paul: ‘I am doing fine. Thank you for your concern.’
Paul entered politics in the early 1970s after President Richard Nixon took the United States off the gold standard completely, and served in Congress several periods from the 1970s through the 2010s.
Paul represented a fledgling Libertarian Party as its presidential candidate in 1988, then ran for president as a Republican again in 2008 and 2012.
The octogenarian, often seen as the perennial critic to both Republican and Democrat presidents, gave a passing grade to President Donald Trump in 2018, saying the president had already earned a B for what he has said while president, and a C for what he has accomplished.