Trump suggests without evidence that Biden delayed sharing his cancer diagnosis

President Trump suggested without evidence on Monday that former President Joe Biden had delayed sharing his prostate cancer diagnosis, saying it was part of a pattern of the Biden White House covering up the former president’s decline.

Trump — who initially had been gracious after Biden first announced his diagnosis on Sunday — quickly pivoted on Monday to suggestions that the former president had been less than forthcoming about his health.

“I’m surprised that the public wasn’t notified a long time ago because to get to Stage 9, that’s a long time,” Trump said, when a reporter asked for comment about the diagnosis at an unrelated event at the White House.

Trump appeared to conflate the Gleason score — a measurement of how aggressive cancer cells appear to be — with the stage of Biden’s cancer. Biden’s Gleason score was 9, indicating it is aggressive. He has Stage 4 cancer, the most serious of the four stages. (There is not a Stage 9 cancer.)

Trump also said that he believed screening for prostate cancer was “standard” in physical exams. The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force does not recommend that men over the age of 70 get routine prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening because the potential harms outweigh the benefits. The task force recommends that men ages 55 to 69 discuss PSA screening with their doctors.

“I think that if you take a look, it’s the same doctor that said that Joe was cognitively fine,” Trump said. “And that’s being proven to be a sad situation.” He insinuated that Biden officials had been effectively running the office by using the autopen to sign documents — a spurious theory on the far-right.

Biden’s personal office did not immediately comment on Trump’s assertions.

Disclosures of medical information are up to the White House

Presidents are not obligated to reveal their medical records, and there is a long history of presidents concealing their medical issues. Disclosures of physicals is left up to the White House.

Trump, who himself has been less than forthcoming about his health information in recent years, noted that he had been screened for prostate cancer during his recent physical. He also pointed out that he had been given a cognitive test, which Biden had not.

Biden’s last presidential physical was in February 2024. At the time, the White House said that the exam drew on the expertise of 20 doctors, but did not involve a cognitive exam — something his press secretary said was not required given his daily performance of a rigorous job.

There had been concerns about Biden’s age raised in a special counsel report that described him as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” When Biden froze up during a presidential debate with Trump in June, his physician released a letter with more details about visits with a neurologist.

That debate prompted Democratic leaders to push Biden to drop out of the race. After Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election to Trump, many blamed Biden for insisting he could run for a second term.

The issues are part of a new book about Biden’s decline and efforts made by his staff to conceal it from voters.

Trump told reporters on Monday that the lack of public information about Biden’s health had been “dangerous for our country” and pointed to Russia’s war in Ukraine as an example. Trump frequently blames that war on Biden, even though it was started by Russia.

“I feel very badly about it, and I think people should try and find out what happened,” Trump said, suggesting that “somebody is not telling the facts.”