Vice President JD Vance voiced his own concern over Joe Biden‘s health Monday in a statement that implied the former president suffered from health problems before leaving office.
Last week, it was announced that doctors found a small nodule in Biden’s prostate during a routine exam. On Sunday, it was revealed that he was diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.
Vance wished Biden well and offered prayers for his health. Still, when talking to reporters, he shared his skepticism about Biden’s condition.
“I will say, whether the right time to have this conversation is now or at some point in the future, we really do need to be honest about whether the former president was capable of doing the job,” Vance said. “You can separate the desire for him to have the right health outcome with the recognition that whether it was doctors or whether there was staffers around the former president, I don’t think he was able to do a good job for the American people. That’s not politics, that’s not because I disagreed with him on policy, that’s because I don’t think that he was in good enough health. In some ways, I blame him less than I blame the people around him.”
This latest discovery came after a small cancerous lesion was found on Biden’s chest in 2023 and was removed that March. Biden, 82, had regular skin cancer screenings during his presidency.
While Biden retained a healthy weight and body mass index during his term, former White House physician Kevin O’Connor found that Biden had high cholesterol, an irregular heartbeat, acid reflux, seasonal allergies, and spinal arthritis. Following the removal of the lesion on Biden’s chest, O’Connor determined that Biden would not need further treatment.
“Why didn’t the American people have a better sense of his health picture?” Vance continued. “Why didn’t the American people have more accurate information about what he was actually dealing with? This is serious stuff. The guy carries around the nuclear football for the world‘s largest nuclear arsenal. This is not child’s play.”
BIDEN CANCER DIAGNOSIS SETS OFF FIRESTORM OF ACCUSATIONS ABOUT TREATMENT AND TIMING
During a 2022 speech in Massachusetts that announced $2.3 billion in new funding to combat climate change, Biden detailed a story from his childhood about air pollution, suggesting it had given him cancer. He said oil pollution was “why I and so damn many other people I grew up [with] have cancer.”
At the time, White House officials denied that Biden had an outstanding cancer diagnosis.
