President Trump takes questions from reporters at an occasion within the Oval Workplace on Could 19, 2025.
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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Pictures
President Trump recommended with out proof on Monday that former President Joe Biden had delayed sharing his prostate most cancers analysis, saying it was a part of a sample of the Biden White Home protecting up the previous president’s decline.
Trump — who initially had been gracious after Biden first introduced his analysis on Sunday — rapidly pivoted on Monday to options that the previous president had been lower than forthcoming about his well being.
“I am stunned that the general public wasn’t notified a very long time in the past as a result of to get to Stage 9, that is a very long time,” Trump mentioned, when a reporter requested for remark in regards to the analysis at an unrelated occasion on the White Home.
Trump appeared to conflate the Gleason rating — a measurement of how aggressive most cancers cells seem like — with the stage of Biden’s most cancers. Biden’s Gleason rating was 9, indicating it’s aggressive. He has Stage 4 most cancers, probably the most critical of the 4 phases. (There’s not a Stage 9 most cancers.)
Trump additionally mentioned that he believed screening for prostate most cancers was “commonplace” in bodily exams. The U.S. Preventative Providers Activity Pressure doesn’t suggest that males over the age of 70 get routine prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening as a result of the potential harms outweigh the advantages. The duty drive recommends that males ages 55 to 69 focus on PSA screening with their medical doctors.
“I believe that if you happen to have a look, it is the identical physician that mentioned that Joe was cognitively nice,” Trump mentioned. “And that is being confirmed to be a tragic scenario.” He insinuated that Biden officers had been successfully working the workplace by utilizing the autopen to signal paperwork — a spurious idea on the far-right.
Biden’s private workplace didn’t instantly touch upon Trump’s assertions.
Disclosures of medical data are as much as the White Home
Presidents will not be obligated to disclose their medical data, and there’s a lengthy historical past of presidents concealing their medical points. Disclosures of physicals is left as much as the White Home.
Trump, who himself has been lower than forthcoming about his well being data in recent times, famous that he had been screened for prostate most cancers throughout his latest bodily. He additionally identified that he had been given a cognitive check, which Biden had not.
Biden’s final presidential bodily was in February 2024. On the time, the White Home mentioned that the examination drew on the experience of 20 medical doctors, however didn’t contain a cognitive examination — one thing his press secretary mentioned was not required given his each day efficiency of a rigorous job.
There had been issues about Biden’s age raised in a particular counsel report that described him as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, aged man with a poor reminiscence.” When Biden froze up throughout a presidential debate with Trump in June, his doctor launched a letter with extra particulars about visits with a neurologist.
That debate prompted Democratic leaders to push Biden to drop out of the race. After Vice President Kamala Harris misplaced the election to Trump, many blamed Biden for insisting he may run for a second time period.
The problems are a part of a brand new e-book about Biden’s decline and efforts made by his workers to hide it from voters.
Trump advised reporters on Monday that the shortage of public details about Biden’s well being had been “harmful for our nation” and pointed to Russia’s conflict in Ukraine for instance. Trump often blames that conflict on Biden, though it was began by Russia.
“I really feel very badly about it, and I believe individuals ought to attempt to discover out what occurred,” Trump mentioned, suggesting that “any individual shouldn’t be telling the information.”
