JD Vance Uses Biden's Cancer Diagnosis To Criticize His Job As President

Vice President JD Vance responded on Monday to Joe Biden’s new cancer diagnosis by criticizing the former president’s performance in the White House and furthering claims that those close to the Democrat hid his poor health from the public.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force 2, the vice president first wished for Biden to make “the right recovery,” saying the 82-year-old’s diagnosis “sounds pretty serious.”

Vance essentially ended his empathy there, accusing Biden of doing a bad job leading the country and pinning his capacity to serve as president on his poor health.

“I will say, whether the right time to have this conversation is now or at some point in the future, we really do need to be honest about whether the former president was capable of doing the job,” Vance said. “You can separate the desire for him to have the right health outcome with a recognition that, whether it was doctors or whether there were staffers around the former president, I don’t think he was able to do a good job for the American people.”

“And that’s not politics. That’s not because I disagreed with him on policy,” he continued. “That’s because I don’t think that he was in good enough health.”

Biden was diagnosed Friday with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, which his office said has metastasized to his bones. Doctors diagnosed him after finding a prostate nodule while looking into the former president’s urinary issues earlier this year.

The Democrat’s age and health came front and center last year after his concerning presidential debate performance while seeking reelection. Biden eventually stepped down to allow Vice President Kamala Harris to run in his place with just months until the election. Harris lost to Donald Trump, leading many Democrats to blame Biden’s initial persistence for their party’s loss.

Biden recently faced renewed bipartisan concernsregarding his health amid the upcoming release of “Original Sin,” a book by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson that claims Biden aides intentionally hid the extent of his physical and cognitive decline from the public. 

The allegations have led Republicans like Donald Trump Jr. — and apparently Vance — to baselessly accuse Biden and those close to him of hiding his cancer while he was still president. Trump Jr. faced backlash earlier on Monday for spreading, without evidence, a conspiracy that Biden was likely diagnosed while in the White House and that his wife, Jill Biden, helped keep it from the public.

“In some ways I blame him less than I blame the people around him. And 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?” said Vance, who serves as vice president to the man whose cognitive healthhas repeatedly come into question due to the 78-year-old’s frequent and incoherent ramblings, his memory issues and his impulsivity with respect to major political decisions.

“This is serious stuff. This is the guy who carries around the nuclear football for the world’s largest nuclear arsenal,” Vance continued. “This is not child’s play, and we can pray for good health, but also recognize that if you’re not in good enough health to do the job, you shouldn’t be doing the job.”

Cancers that have spread to other parts of the body are normally difficult to treat — but because Biden’s cancer appears hormone-sensitive, according to his office, he may be able to treat it by depriving the tumors of hormones. Doctors have said that, while metastasized prostate cancer is incurable, men receiving such treatment can expect to live for an average of five more years.