Former First Lady Jill Biden said that while President Joe Biden received 'amazing care' from the White House's medical team, his prostate cancer 'somehow ... was missed.' Four months after leaving the White House, the former President was diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer that had metastasized to his bones.
Without evidence, President Donald Trump tried to contend that Biden's diagnosis had been kept secret from the public while the Democrat remained in office. But during interviews for her forthcoming memoir, View from the East Wing, Dr Biden called the diagnosis a 'shock.'
'It was shocking,' the former First Lady told CBS Sunday Morning. Correspondent Rita Braver pressed Biden on whether the White House doctors should have discovered the cancer. 'Well, you know, the doctors said that according to the American Urological Association, that men over 70 don't need a PSA, a blood test anymore, because it's a slow-growing cancer,' Biden explained.
Sitting down with the Today Show's Craig Melvin on Monday, Biden described her husband as doing 'OK.' She said, 'I think if he had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer, that's one thing because that can be cured. But the fact that it metastasized to his bones, that makes it a whole different story. And so I think Joe will live with cancer til the rest of his life.'
The former First Lady's interview with Melvin got heated at times, as she continued to claim that the former President's addled 2024 debate performance was a one-off. Melvin pointed to Special Counsel Robert Hur's assessment of Biden being a 'sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.' He also brought up George Clooney's assertion that the Biden he saw at a June Hollywood fundraiser was the same man that Americans saw on the Atlanta debate stage.
Dr Biden visibly winced when Melvin mentioned Clooney's name. 'He aged. He did. He got older. And we all saw him aging. There were the words he would forget. But we were all aging,' she said with a laugh. She pointed at her husband's White House medical team again. 'The doctors did assure us, I mean, he had an exam every year, a health exam, like every President does. The doctors assured us he was, you know, he was healthy. And I saw him doing the job every single day.'
The former first lady noted that her husband stuttered a bit more at night when he got tired. 'But he was still doing the job, and he was doing a good job,' she added.
Melvin also asked the former first lady to square her positive public comments about the former President's debate performance with what she's revealed in recent days, that it was so worrying that she thought he'd had a 'stroke.' 'Well, Craig, look at it from my point of view. So, I'm watching, just like everybody else was, scared to death, like, what is going on? He gets off the stage, I see, he appears to be OK. He says to me, "Jill, I really, in other words messed up, didn't I?" And I said, "Yes, you did,"' she recalled.
She said her mind was racing as they headed to the next event - a watch party in the Atlanta area with Democratic supporters. 'What do I say that will lift him up that is true? I want to say things that are true. So, I said, you answered every question,' Biden recalled. Melvin noted: 'That's a pretty low bar.' 'I'm his wife. I'm not going to get out on the stage there and say, Joe, you really screwed that up. I couldn't come out and - I mean, really, publicly say, Joe, you did a terrible job in a debate?' she said.
Some Democrats have been griping about the timing of the release of Dr Biden's book as the party tries to get its footing ahead of the midterm elections. 'I'm not reopening old wounds,' she insisted to Melvin. 'We are moving on. You know Democrats have a great future. I think, we're looking forward to winning the midterms, and I think things are going to move forward in a more positive way. And yes, we look back, and we're going to learn from the mistakes made.'
