President Trump called the cancer diagnosis for former President Joseph R. Biden “very sad,” and then questioned why it wasn’t revealed sooner.
“I think it’s very sad, actually. I’m surprised that it wasn’t, the public wasn’t notified a long time ago,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office.
“To get to stage nine, that’s a long time,” he said.
Mr. Biden was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday, “characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone,” according to a statement from his office released Sunday.
There had been nothing publicly released in previous physicals about Mr. Biden have prostate cancer, much less it having reached a virulent stage and spread to other parts of the body.
Mr. Trump talked about his own physical, saying he “did a very complete physical, including cognitive tests.”
“But when you take tests, medical, as a male, that test is very standard. I don’t know if it’s given to everybody, but it’s given just about and it takes a long time to get to that situation, you know, to get to a stage nine,” he said.
The president questioned the doctor, saying “it’s the same doctor that said that Joe was cognitively fine.”
“In other words there are things going on that the public wasn’t informed of and I think somebody’s going to have to speak to his doctor if it’s the same, or even if it was two separate doctors,” he said.
He said it’s a “very, very sad situation and I feel very badly about it and I think people should try and find out what happened.”
