24 hours after Sunday’s announcement that former President Joe Biden has an aggressive form of prostate cancer, one of South Carolina’s Rep. Jim Clyburn, one of his most solid supporters, he said he has not yet connected with him. Another close hill ally, Sen. Chris Coons, had not spoken to his fellow Delawallen during Tuesday afternoon.
Biden’s longtime friend, Bob Brady, a former Pennsylvania congressman who knew Biden for decades, said Tuesday afternoon that he hadn’t spoken directly to the former president since his cancer diagnosis. All three said they were going to talk to him soon.
Before his cancer diagnosis, Biden was on a train from Delaware to Washington, meeting with his presidential staff, allies and former ministers, according to Biden’s aides who admitted anonymity to speak freely. He met former President Bill Clinton in New York City, which appeared in “The View.” And last week he met with party star Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.
But for most of his career, he has not yet spoken with Capitol Hill’s longtime allies after receiving his diagnosis, Biden has not spoken with his longtime allies after receiving his diagnosis for most of his career, for the majority of his career, for the most of his career, for the most of his career, for the most of his career, for the most of his career, for the most of his career, for the most of his career. Having removed months from the presidency, Biden retreated as Washington’s official fixture and instead became the focus of his party’s denunciation.
Some Democrats said they were drafting memos or planning on talking to him. Coons said he is working to find time to connect with Biden. Delaware Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester said he reached out to people “very close” to his family. “I shared my love, my prayers.” Politicians on both sides of the aisle wanted him well.
Most Democrats are trying to maintain a pivot from Biden’s health as the GOP advances President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda.
Rep. Gabe Amo of Rhode Island, the only former Biden White House aide currently serving in Congress, took responsibility for Biden critics to take advantage of what he called “politics now.”
“It’s their interest to talk about this, not the day’s issue, so we’re still in that unfortunate reality,” Amo said. “I hope people are focused on one, the legacy of public service.
Or, as Texas Sen. Veronica Escobar, co-chair of Biden Reelect, “We live through the historic and terrifying backslide of democracy… I’m not very interested in talking about this issue.”
Not everyone wants to change the subject. Some Democrats feel burned probably by how Biden’s decline is not protected in public, and have asked pointless questions about his cancer diagnosis.
On Monday, Ezekiel Emmanuel, an oncologist and former Biden pandemic advisor, opened the Biden-friendly “Morning Joe” door on Biden’s health.
At best, for Democrats, his remarks have been scanned by some observers as concerns about the care he received while in office. In the worst case scenario, they promoted more charges of White House cover-up.
In an interview Monday, Emmanuel said that although it cannot rule out the possibility that Biden had been diagnosed previously, the information somehow was not released.
“Look, I’m not his doctor,” Emmanuel said. “I can’t rule out that possibility because I don’t know what happened there.”
A Biden spokesman said Tuesday that the former president’s “last known” prostate-specific antigenic cancer screening test was in 2014, and that “President Biden had never been diagnosed with prostate cancer before Friday.”
This is not the first time Biden has faced health challenges. While running for vice president in 2008, Biden revealed that his prostate had expanded and he had a biopsy but found no evidence of cancer. His medical records also show that he had undergone a prostate-specific antigen test, which resulted in normal results.
More than a decade later, when he was campaigning at the White House in 2019, Biden revealed that he had received treatment for his enlarged prostate. File said he “had never had prostate cancer.”
Trump told reporters questions surrounding the diagnosis timeline (which he was quickly obsessed with the online obsession of Biden’s right-wing detractors). (Biden’s diagnosis is stage prostate cancer.) Vice President JD Vance said he denounced Biden “the people around him.”.
Asked about new allegations of a plot to keep Biden’s illness secret, Virginia Democrat Sen. Tim Kane said Republicans said, “What a soulless bunch. Anyone who spends his time will pray for him this Sunday.”
He told Biden’s allies, who relied on small and critics, that during his presidency, the island circle of advisors has even admitted such questions were bewildered.
“This just feeds on conspiracy theory. You have electors who don’t pay attention,” said Kellan White, a Democratic strategist who worked as a senior adviser to Biden’s campaign in Pennsylvania in 2024.
Rep. Sarah McBride (d-del.), who has been approaching the Bidens for a long time, sent a message to the former president through his team in a short interview, saying, “I have expressed that I am praying for him and I have repeated that he is in all Delawaren’s hearts now.”
She said she spoke to him for the last time at a St. Patrick’s Day event in Wilmington, saying, “He looked fine. He was healthy.”
Biden’s diagnosis was exactly the same as some of the Democratic Party’s brightest stars began working on questions about the impact of his decision to run for reelection and questions about fallout for the party.
“Hisists will have to sort out the overall politics,” said Rep. Jamie Ruskin (D-MD), who survived his own cancer diagnosis.
He added that he had not spoken to Biden, but he had drafted a memo for him. He said, “But at this point there is nothing to do, but for us who love men to express our solidarity and sympathy.”
