Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, a spokesperson for the former US president said.
Biden, 82, on Friday was diagnosed with the cancer, which involves metastasis to the bone, after doctors found a prostate nodule. The former president had been experiencing “increasing urinary symptoms”, Biden’s personal office said in a statement on Sunday.
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” it added.
“The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians”.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, President Donald Trump expressed sympathy for his predecessor, who he has repeatedly attacked since the election
Trump said his wife “Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis. We extend our warmest and best wishes to [Biden’s wife] Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.”
The news comes as the former president has in recent days returned to the spotlight in an effort to defend his legacy after leaving office in January, as damning accounts revealed his mental decline in office and his inner circle’s efforts to conceal it.
A book from journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, due out in the coming week, reveals new information about Biden’s cognitive lapses while in office, including a claim that he failed to recognise Hollywood actor and longtime friend George Clooney at an election fundraiser last June.
Clooney later publicly called for the president to drop out of the White House race. Biden did so in late July — but several weeks too late to give former vice-president Kamala Harris a chance, according to advisers quoted in the book.
In a recent television interview, Biden argued that he was fit and could have won if he had remained in the race. This is despite a drop in his polling numbers following a disastrous June debate against Donald Trump. In that televised confrontation, Biden appeared disoriented and stumbled over his responses.
Many Democrats have criticised Biden’s recent media blitz as counter-productive as the party seeks to bounce back from its devastating defeat to Trump in the 2024 election and prepare for the 2026 midterms.
Republicans have long accused Democrats of hiding the true extent of Biden’s incapacity. The issue was pushed back into the news this weekend when Axios published audio from Biden’s faltering 2023 interview with Robert Hur, the special counsel appointed to investigate his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
The Trump administration had planned to release the tape this coming week.
Hur declined to recommend charges against Biden, arguing that a jury would find him a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.
Biden’s representatives have not responded to a request for comment on Tapper’s and Thompson’s book, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.
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