The Biden Diagnosis

National Review Online

Monday, May 19, 2025

 

We wish former President Biden all the best in his fight against cancer. In a statement yesterday, Biden’s personal office announced that, on Friday, he had been “diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone.” The state of the disease was described as “aggressive,” but, per Biden’s team, “effective management” is still a possibility, and “the President and his family are reviewing treatment options.” God willing, he will make a full recovery.

 

Jumping at the opportunity, Democratic political operative David Axelrod contended that, as a result of this news, the ongoing debate over the many health problems that Biden suffered while president “should be more muted and set aside for now.” Alas, this will not do. With the aid of a couple of tell-all books and the belated release of the Hur tapes, the American public is slowly being informed about one of the worst political cover-ups in the history of the United States. It is possible that President Biden’s cancer diagnosis is unrelated to that conspiracy. But it is by no means obviously so. Pace David Axelrod’s insinuation, there is nothing untoward or scurrilous about the citizenry asking who knew what — and when.

 

Thus far, we have learned that, despite its members’ indignant insistence that all was well, Joe Biden’s inner circle knew full well that the president was unfit for office before his first term was even halfway complete. Among the revelations that have been made since Biden retired are that he frequently forgot the names of his staff and his friends; that his own cabinet was unsure if he would be capable of dealing with a crisis; and that, at one point, his aides privately discussed whether he would need to be put in a wheelchair should he win a second term. Last week, CNN’s Jake Tapper described the administration’s conduct like this:

 

The White House was lying not only to the press, not only to the public, but they were lying to members of their own cabinet. They were lying to White House staffers. They were lying to Democratic members of Congress, to donors, about how bad things had gotten.

 

It does not require too great a leap to wonder whether Biden’s prostate cancer was also concealed.

 

At the very least, the fact that Biden has ostensibly gone from being wholly undiagnosed to having an “aggressive” strain of cancer ought to raise questions about the medical attention that he was receiving while in office. Unfortunately, prostate cancer is common in older men, and, as a result, testing for it has become routine. In most patients, a Gleason score of 9 would suggest that the cancer had been present — and detectable — for years. Indeed, it is precisely because testing has become so standard that the survival rate is now as encouraging as it is. If, as Biden’s office suggests, the disease has only just been discovered, the doctors who attended to him have some questions to answer.

 

Ultimately, this latest episode serves as a stark reminder that, once trust is lost, it is nigh on impossible to regain. In the latter part of Joe Biden’s single term, the Democratic establishment made it clear that it was willing to hide all manner of problems with its president in order to keep its grip on power. For years, Biden’s team lied and distracted and misled and obfuscated, and attacked anyone and everyone who declined to follow suit. That those who are in the midst of reading about this deception will have questions about the veracity of those figures’ latest declaration is not a problem or an indignity or a sign of an ugly culture; it is the most natural thing in the world.