WASHINGTON (TNND) — Former President Joe Biden’s diagnosis of aggressive, late-stage prostate cancer has added a complicated new layer to Democrats’ efforts to examine what went wrong in 2024 and raised new questions about the state of his health while in office and what was known when.
The Democratic introspection has ramped up as the party tries to find a way to fight back in the congressional minority against a Trump administration flooding the zone with executive orders and drastic overhauls of all corners of the federal government. Some have questioned how to address Biden’s presidency and the abrupt end of his 2024 reelection campaign.
The party has been dealing with criticisms that it was not honest with the public about Biden’s health and mental acuity despite signs of aging. New revelations about Biden’s time in the White House have also prompted scrutiny of whether his staff concealed his decline from voters and lawmakers.
There has already been significant debate about Biden’s decision to seek a second term and for staying in the race as long as he did and whether it crippled the party’s chances to defeat Trump and keep the White House.
“The major challenge moving forward into 2026 and 2028 election cycles is, how do you praise the accomplishments of Biden while acknowledging the problems surrounding his presidency and candidacy? And how that happens, I don’t know,” said David McLennan, a political science professor and director of the Meredith poll. “As more and more evidence comes out of Biden not meeting with Cabinet officials but maybe once a year or just having a very limited inner circle, it challenges the credibility of the Democratic Party, but also those particular lawmakers that praised him.”
Biden’s disclosure of his stage 4 prostate cancer has added a new layer to the concerns surrounding his health during his time in office.
Some physicians have said it was possible Biden had the cancer while in office and raised questions about why it wasn’t detected sooner. Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, an oncologist who served as an adviser on the coronavirus pandemic for the Biden administration, said on MSNBC that it had likely developed over his time in office.
“He did not develop it in the last 100-200 days,” Emanuel said. “He had it while he was president. He probably had it at the start of his presidency in 2021. I don’t think there’s any disagreement about that.”
He also questioned whether he had received a blood test to detect the cancer during his annual physicals.
“It’s a little surprising. I looked back at the records and there’s no evidence that when he got his health status and the medical records were released, that he had a prostate-specific antigen,” Emanuel said.
Most prostate cancers are detected through a blood test that measures prostate-specific antigen, or PSA. But medical groups generally stop recommending those tests for men after the age of 70 due to false positives and overtreatment of low-risk forms of prostate cancer. Other guidance tells older men to make the decision on whether to continue receiving the test with their doctor.
“If someone’s been screened for prostate cancer through this time period, and they have not developed prostate cancer by the time they hit 75, at that point, the medical community has generally guidelines recommended to ease off on the screening for prostate cancer,” Dr. Mohummad Minhaj Siddiqui, director of Urologic Oncology and Robotic Surgery at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center, told The National News Desk on Monday.
Biden’s annual physical releases during his time in the White House do not specify whether he had received a PSA test and did not mention a risk for prostate cancer. There are no set guidelines for medical tests required for presidents and no standard for public release of information showing the results.
President Donald Trump, who is the second-oldest president at 78, does get PSA screenings. A release of his results last month showed a score of 0.10 ng/mL, below levels that would indicate a risk of prostate cancer. Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush also received screenings but were much younger and within the standard age range to receive the PSA.
Trump raised questions about why Biden’s cancer wasn’t detected and discovered earlier to reporters in the Oval Office and praised White House and Walter Reed medical staff.
“Someone is going to have to speak to his doctor,” Trump said. “I feel badly about it, and I think people should try and find out what happened.”
Oncologists have said it is possible Biden’s cancer developed rapidly over the last year and that it could have gone undetected if he was not receiving PSA tests but the questions about Biden’s health are still lingering amid accusations his staff covered up for cognitive decline that was a high-profile issue before he dropped his reelection bid.
The release of the audio of Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur and excerpts from new books like “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson that was released Tuesday, have also brought fresh scrutiny to Biden’s ability to serve as president as he struggled to recall details like when he left the vice presidency and stumbled over words.
Biden had continued to campaign until a dreadful debate performance against Trump led to enough public and internal pressure to get him to drop out of the race and endorse Kamala Harris to take his place as the nominee. Democrats are still trying to reckon with the fallout and have questioned whether Biden dropping out of the race sooner to allow for a full primary could have led to a stronger candidate and changed the election results.
But it also raises questions about the party’s credibility amid backlash from voters who had long made clear they had an issue with Biden’s advanced age, which comes amid years of declining confidence in American institutions like Congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court.
“I don’t think they’ll pay a huge political price for covering up for Biden’s mental or physical health, but it just adds to the cynicism that people have about Washington, and I think that’s the real impact,” McLennan said.
