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A cancer diagnosis usually brings messages of support. But when Joe Biden revealed he had an aggressive form of prostate cancer, the comforting words were barbed.
Vice-president JD Vance wished the former president the “best” and a “right recovery”, but added: “We really do need to be honest about whether the former president was capable of doing the job.
“Why didn’t the American people have a better sense of his health picture? Why didn’t the American people have more accurate information about what he was actually dealing with?”
It has been 10 months since Biden abandoned his 2024 re-election bid and more than six since Donald Trump’s victory over his replacement, Kamala Harris.
But the Democratic party is still riven with recriminations over the 46th’s president’s health and fitness for office, undermining its efforts to rebuild itself and providing ample fodder for Republican attacks.
The release this month of Original Sin, the latest in a series of books on the run-up to last year’s presidential election, has added to the soul-searching, with journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s damning warts-and-all portrayal raising questions over Biden’s mental and physical acuity and his inner circle’s efforts to shield him from scrutiny.
“I think we all bear responsibility,” Chris Murphy, the Democratic senator from Connecticut, told NBC News on Sunday. “Ultimately, in retrospect, you can’t defend what the Democratic party did because we are stuck with a madman, with a corrupt president in the Oval Office, and we should have given ourselves a better chance to win.”
The news of Biden’s cancer diagnosis generated some bipartisan sympathy, especially in the Senate, where he had worked for decades and knew many of the lawmakers.
“Joe and Jill have devoted their entire lives to public service. Like everyone else, I am pulling for Joe and expect him to put up a strong fight,” Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, wrote on X.
But many Republicans have relished the chance to renew attacks on the former president, which proved effective throughout much of 2023 and 2024, hinting at a cover-up by his closest aides.
Trump on Monday responded: “I think it’s very sad, actually. I’m surprised that . . . the public wasn’t notified a long time ago.”
Biden’s office said in its announcement on Sunday that the former president, who is now 82, was diagnosed on Friday, just two days before disclosing the illness. On Monday he posted a picture of himself with Jill Biden, the former first lady, on X, writing: “Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.”
Some Democrats are frustrated by the renewed focus on Biden’s health, saying it is a distraction from Trump’s sweeping policies to upend the federal government, the global economy and pillars of US foreign policies such as international aid.
“It keeps the attention off [Trump],” said Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic strategist in Massachusetts. “Say what you will about Joe Biden but he got the country out of Covid. He got everyone back to work and the economy going again, and you can’t say any of those things about Donald Trump.”
Democratic strategist Paul Begala said it was a “tragedy” that Biden ran for re-election and there had to be “accountability” for the party’s decisions ahead of the vote. But he did not think the debate around the former president’s health would be a factor in the 2026 midterm elections or the 2028 presidential race.
“If the Republicans think that that’s going to affect a midterm election that is 531 days away, or a presidential election that is 1,266 days away, they’re nuts,” he said. “It’s inconceivable that there’s a single voter who’s going to say, ‘My house was destroyed in a tornado, and Fema wasn’t there to help me, but I’m going to vote Republican because I’m mad about Biden lying about his health.’”
Meanwhile, Republicans relish the opportunity to score political points. On Tuesday afternoon, Trump lashed out at the former president on Truth Social, accusing him of being duped by staff into supporting lax immigration policies.
“It wasn’t his idea to Open the Border, and almost destroy our Country, and cost us Hundreds of Billions of Dollars to get criminals out of our Country, and go through the process we are going through now. It was the people that knew he was cognitively impaired,” Trump wrote.
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