Biden seen for first time since cancer diagnosis

Telegraph

25-05-2025

Battered and bruised by a week of revelations about his health, Joe Biden took comfort in a familiar routine and attended evening mass on Saturday.
His slimmed-down motorcade – just two black SUVs – drove up just as the bells at St Joseph's on the Brandywine, near his Delaware home, finished tolling.
Just as he has done for decades, as senator, vice president and president, he attended five o'clock mass, arriving with just his security detail.
He wore a blue blazer and slip-on trainers for his visit, walking past gravestones on his way to the church entrance, offering a cheque for the collection and a hug to a church official.
Afterwards he emerged with his sister Valerie, and spent 20 minutes greeting and talking with parishioners, who said he appeared strong and was finding comfort in his faith.
Mgr John Hopkins said: 'He's been part of this community for what... 40, 50 years. This is a place where he can be at peace.'
A week earlier Mr Biden, 82, revealed that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
During the past week, a book was also published that contains extraordinary allegations that he had struggled to recognise friends or aides at times during his four years in office, while his top officials battled to keep him in power.
The details threaten to derail post-presidential plans to build his legacy with a library and to cash in with a memoir and lucrative speaking engagements.
Donors are reportedly lukewarm on supporting his library and a slew of strategists told The Telegraph that Mr Biden has become a political liability ahead of crucial midterm elections next year.
In the meantime, he has been adjusting to civilian life by returning to a routine well-known to residents around his home in Greenville, an upmarket neighbourhood outside Wilmington, where he built a family home in the 1990s on four acres of land.
He has become a regular sight at the railway station, travelling back and forth to Washington, DC. He has posed for selfies at a nearby cafe, shopped at a drugstore, collected takeout from his favourite diner and browsed the rails at a menswear store where he is famous for rarely making purchases.
President Biden yesterday visited caffe Brewhaha in Greenville, suburb of Willmington, Delaware.
Source of photo: Brewhaha pic.twitter.com/YHLbq150PA
— Biden Activities Tracker (@BidenActivities) May 7, 2025
He visited a JoS A Banks store about three weeks ago, according to Johnnie Morrison, the store's manager. Mr Morrison said staff had gotten used to seeing Secret Service agents turn up minutes before the former president.
Mr Biden browsed the shirts, suits, socks and underpants before leaving empty-handed.
Mr Morrison said: 'It's what he always does. It's like a habit.
'It's like he does it to get out of the house and get a bit of peace and quiet.'
He did the same while he was president. His press pool, waiting outside on a bus, often reported that he had visited the store and left without having bought anything.
Mr Morrison added that the man who visited the store bore little resemblance to the 'old man' he saw on television.
He said: 'I'm not seeing that doddery old man. I'm seeing a very sharp individual.'
Residents have closed ranks around one of their own. But Mr Biden's mental acuity and fitness for office have been under intense scrutiny.
Original Sin, by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, was published last week and it claims to lay out exactly who knew what about Mr Biden's growing frailty, as well as the truth about the former president's delayed decision to drop out of the election last year.
It revealed that Mr Biden did not recognise George Clooney, someone he had known for decades, at a fundraiser that the actor was throwing in the then president's honour.
And staff even discussed the possibility that Mr Biden might have to use a wheelchair during a second term.
The book said: 'Given Biden's age, [his physician Dr Kevin] O'Connor also privately said that if he had another bad fall, a wheelchair might be necessary for what could be a difficult recovery.'
The former president is now seen as a liability in his own party.
A slew of strategists and donors told The Telegraph that he should stay out of the limelight as Democrats prepare for midterm elections next year.
One strategist said: 'The best thing he can do is stay home and let a new generation move forward.'
This has put a dent in Mr Biden's plans to raise money for a library, which some now fear may not open in his lifetime.
For now, it means that he is spending more time in Greenville, where he remains a beloved figure, even among those who wish he had admitted his shortcomings earlier and never run for re-election.
'He's a local hero,' said Peggy Barker, a retired marketing executive, who described running into Mr Biden at restaurants for decades.
But she said she felt sadness for a man whose health was clearly in decline.
She stopped to talk outside a Walgreens drugstore, which is about a seven-minute drive from Mr Biden's home and where he is often seen.
A cashier said: 'He was in a couple of weeks ago.'
Another member of staff said he was a regular.
She said: 'He'll buy anything, a pack of paper plates, a drink, just normal stuff like anyone would buy. It's like he does it to feel normal.'
He returned to political life last month, giving a speech in Chicago, during which he accused the Trump administration of taking a 'hatchet' to the social security system.
Prior to Original Sin's publication, he conducted a handful of prebuttal interviews
He told ABC's The View: 'They are wrong. There's nothing to sustain that.'
Yet, most of his time has been spent with family.
On Thursday, the former president travelled to Connecticut for the graduation of one of his grandchildren.
His staff laid out some details of his post-presidential life, describing how he has been taking the train back and forth to Washington for meetings.
Evidence of his travel can be found easily enough at Wilmington's Joseph R Biden Jr railway station.
A member of train cleaning staff waiting to board the next Amtrak service south said: 'Look, look, I have a selfie.'
'Amtrak Joe'
He scrolled through the images on his phone to show Mr Biden – nicknamed 'Amtrak Joe' because he would ride the train back and forth to Delaware every day when he was a senator – all smiles in a navy suit.
In a video, dated March 31, he walks down the platform surrounded by Secret Service agents, carrying his own briefcase.
'To me he looked great,' said the Amtrak worker, who declined to give his name for fear of getting into trouble.
However, he spent most of the past weekend, which included Memorial Day, at home.
None of his regular Greenville haunts reported a sighting.
He was last seen in Brewhaha, a coffee shop, two weeks ago.
And staff at the Charcoal Pit, where he has dined for decades, said he had picked up a takeaway on the Wednesday before last – his usual is a cheesesteak sandwich and its famous black and white triple malted shake.
Chris, a 17-year-old student, sitting with a friend in one of the diner's booths beneath a photograph of Mr Biden with the restaurant's manager said: 'I just don't understand how he could have had cancer for so long.'
And then he voiced the question that is on everybody's mind: Were the Bidens keeping his illness a secret?
'That may be why he dropped out,' he said, before returning his attention to the sort of giant sandwiches for which the place is famous.