Biden's health back in focus after cancer news
Sam Hawley: He dropped out of the presidential election campaign race last July, but the focus is now back on Joe Biden. The former US leader has not only been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, but a new book released this week has accused the White House of covering up a decline in his health. Today, Bruce Wolpe, a senior fellow from the US Study Centre on Biden's cancer diagnosis and why staying in the race for so long may have changed the course of history. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Bruce, let's start with the cancer diagnosis itself. Prostate cancer is common in men, but for Joe Biden, it's gone further, of course, because it's spread to the bone. So it's really quite serious from what you read.
Bruce Wolpe: That's exactly... Well, yes. And any time anyone gets a cancer diagnosis, it's very serious. At 82 years old, he's facing something quite difficult.
News report: The 82-year-old was diagnosed last week after seeing doctors for urinary symptoms and the cancer cells have spread to the bone.
News report: In a statement, a spokesperson for Joe Biden said the cancer appears to be hormone sensitive, which allows for effective management. The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.
News report: The 82-year-old pulled out of the presidential race against Donald Trump last year, and questions are starting as to when the first signs of cancer were detected.
Bruce Wolpe: He has strong support from his family. They've been a constant source of affirmation and love throughout his life, and he will turn to that.
Sam Hawley: Yeah, well, of course, there's been a lot of support being expressed to Joe Biden and his family, including from Donald Trump.
Bruce Wolpe: Including Donald Trump. That's right.
News report: President Donald Trump has released a statement and it reads, Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden's recent medical diagnosis. We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.
Bruce Wolpe: He disparages Biden every time he opens his mouth. But at least he and Melania said, yes, we wish him well.
Sam Hawley: The thing is, as a president, he would have had really good access to health care, to doctors, to health checks. So it's surprising in a sense, isn't it, that this cancer has actually spread to the bone, or is it not? We don't know. I suppose we're not doctors.
Bruce Wolpe: We're not doctors. He does have access to the best medical care available in America. And I'm sure he utilised it. The question is whether he was tested for prostate disease throughout his presidency. But let's think about this for a moment. At age 82, let's say he had won the race and won the election. He would be facing this as president, and he would have more than three years to go in his term. And that would raise a whole other series of questions. So what it does is just reinforce doubt about the wisdom of his decision making leading up to where we are today. This diagnosis comes at age 82, when there is a firestorm raging because of recent reporting and a new blockbuster book that'll be out this week about the decisions he made as to whether to run for the presidency in 2024. And then when it was clear he had no path to victory, he stayed in. It took a month for him to finally stand aside. And did that cost the Democrats and the country Donald Trump? And that is a huge issue. And that is building in its own way.
Sam Hawley: Well, let's just talk more about that book that you've mentioned. It's called Original Sin. And what it does is really considers Biden's health decline. What we get out of it, as far as we're aware, is that things were much worse behind the scenes than the public was aware of.
Bruce Wolpe: Yes. And the authors conclude that there was a cover up of Biden's condition. There was always concern about it, but it never publicly expressed itself until he froze during the debate with Donald Trump.
Joe Biden, former US President: Excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with. Look, if...
Bruce Wolpe: And no one sort of broke ranks. No cabinet secretary resigned and said, I can't work with Joe Biden. He's just not up to the job. No members of a senior staff left. There were no leaks out of the White House. So the authors of the book say this is a conspiracy of silence. And others say we did have a functioning president and he did a really good job and we knew how to manage this cognitive issue to an extent where he was not diminished in his job. He was absolutely diminished as a public communicator. But he still did the job as president. So that's the that's the tension in this discussion.
Sam Hawley: Yeah, and it comes this book, along with newly released recordings from the news organisation Axios of an interview by special counsel Robert Hur with Joe Biden over his handling of classified documents, where it appears that Joe Biden suffers from severe memory loss, including that he can't remember the date of his son's death.
Joe Biden, former US President: Yeah, when did Beau die.. May? Was it 2015 he died?
Bruce Wolpe: And certainly when he was conducting those interviews over two days, it was very stressful and he did not perform well. And that's why Hur at the time, the special counsel made a judgement. If we indicted him and he went to trial, the jury would say he's a well-intentioned elderly man, but unable to really defend himself and really project himself. When Hur made that statement, the White House came down on him like a ton of bricks. But we can see that it was actually an act of some sensitivity to the person that they were talking to as to whether to prosecute. So those tapes validate the concern. But something else very interesting. Bob Woodward, one of the greatest journalists of our time, wrote a book last year called War, and it discussed Biden in Ukraine and Biden in Gaza and Israel. And his conclusion was that Biden was a perfectly functioning, extremely well-functioning president in managing those two crises. So we have this disparate information that he was proactive, managing wars, managing tension. But at the same time, yeah, he could really slip from time to time. And right now, people are looking back on this and saying, well, we need a president that can do both, can act and can communicate. And that is feeding doubts about Biden's judgement.
Sam Hawley: And look, it was only about a week ago that we did hear quite a bit from Joe Biden, didn't we? Because he conducted a range of interviews to mark Donald Trump's first 100 days in office. He was on The View on America's ABC, where he maintained that he would have beaten Donald Trump if he'd stayed in the race. Knowing what you know now, do you think you would have beat him?
Joe Biden, former US President: Yeah, he still got seven million fewer votes. Yes. OK. They're very close in those those toss up states. It was it wasn't a slam dunk.
Sam Hawley: Although then he did an interview with the BBC and he said that quitting was ultimately the right decision.
Joe Biden, former US President: It was a hard decision. But regrets though? No, I think it was the right decision.
Bruce Wolpe: I think he goes back and forth on it because it is the presidency and it is his life. And he really did want a second term. And the problem that he's facing is he decided to enter the 2020 race in order to beat Donald Trump. He did beat him, but he didn't defeat him because Trump came back and was elected president again. Biden knew that all this reporting was coming out and this book was coming. And I think he did those interviews as sort of to cushion and be proactive in trying to manage this beforehand. I don't think it's changed anyone's mind. And the American voters, when they were polled in the run up to 2024, is Joe Biden too old to be president? More than 60 percent said yes. Yeah. Now, but they felt that way about Trump, too. But Trump has consistently presented, even until this day, as a more active, proactive, aggressive, out-there man. And and he presented better than Biden. So the contrast was there and it was a factor in people's attitudes towards Biden and whether he should have a second term.
Sam Hawley: And it might be history, but the important thing is that people really blame the late switch to Kamala Harris for the Democrats' failure to win against Donald Trump. So this helped Donald Trump back into the White House.
Bruce Wolpe: If you look at the 2024 election Donald Trump got three million more votes than he got in 2020. Kamala Harris got seven million less votes than Biden-Harris got in 2020. And people are looking at that and reaching the conclusion it should have been done better. He should have right after the midterms when the Democrats did better in 2022 than expected. Yeah, they didn't take the House. They didn't take the Senate. But people were expecting a bloodbath. That did not happen. So should Biden have at that time said, I said I was going to be a bridge to the future. We've had a great first term. Let's pass the torch to the next generation and start really having a new presidential campaign. That didn't happen. You have to say that the result should have been better, probably would have been better if that had occurred.
Sam Hawley: Better in what regards? That Trump wouldn't have won?
Bruce Wolpe: That a stronger challenger or that even Kamala Harris, if she had contested the nomination for a year and become the nominee, any Democratic nominee would have been stronger going through that process than not. That's what people are thinking. Yeah. But in any event, again, Biden wanted to defeat Donald Trump. He didn't. Biden was a one term president bookended by Donald Trump. And that is a failure that history is judging.
Sam Hawley: Well, Bruce, let's just look briefly at the system in the US, because this matters as well, of course, because embedded in in it is a rule that enables a president to run for a second term. So should the two big parties have stronger mechanisms that could actually stop a president from doing that, from running for a second term if they're just not up to the job anymore?
Bruce Wolpe: Yes, I do think people will be asking for stronger evidence of all candidates of all ages, because cancer can strike anyone at any time and there can be other impairments to your health. People will be looking for documentation that, yeah, I'm in A-1 top shape. And I think people have sought that from President Trump for a long period of time. But even after the assassination attempt, the bullet that that nearly killed him, we never heard from the doctors who saw him at the hospital afterwards. There was no medical report per se. And even in the president's recent examination, it was much less discursive than other presidents have faced and released, including Biden and including Obama and Clinton and George W. Bush. So I think, yes, there will be heavier scrutiny. And I think and it will come especially with, I would say, candidates over 60 years old.
Sam Hawley: And what about the Democrats? Should they have been far tougher? Should they have stood up to Joe Biden early and just said to him, no, you have to go? Something they would not do.
Bruce Wolpe: That is right. And now there are recriminations over that. But there is something in the DNA of the Democratic Party, and it goes back to Jimmy Carter in 1980 against Ronald Reagan. The country was in terrible shape. High inflation, gas shortages, high interest rates. It was a mess. Carter was under pressure and he was a very unpopular president. And Ted Kennedy came back and says, I want to be president. I want my brother's legacy redeemed and we can do better. Carter defeated Kennedy, but it divided the party. And that meant that Ronald Reagan won. So in the DNA of the Democrats today is if you challenge an incumbent president, you're going to hand the election to the Republican. And that also prevented others from coming forward and saying, Joe, step aside. That didn't happen.
Sam Hawley: Hmm. All right. Well, of course, our sympathies do go out to Joe Biden and his family. But what will all of this, Bruce, mean for his legacy?
Bruce Wolpe: I think history will judge him harshly. There was another unpopular president, Harry Truman, even after he completed his term and people thought he wasn't that great a president. Decades later, they said, yeah, he was really great. Maybe people look back at Joe Biden when he stood for clean energy, leading the democracies of the world, standing up to Putin, standing by Israel and making decisions and so forth. Maybe people look back on him and say, yeah, you did a really great job. But we're not going to see that for quite a while yet.
Sam Hawley: This episode was produced by Sydney Pead and Sam Dunn. Audio production by Adair Sheppard. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.
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