President Donald Trump on Monday questioned the timeline of former President Joe Biden‘s recent cancer diagnosis, saying it was “dangerous” for the United States that the public was not informed sooner.
Biden’s office announced Sunday that the former president is suffering from prostate cancer, “characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone.”
Trump fielded one question on his predecessor during a Monday evening Oval Office ceremony and called Biden’s diagnosis “very sad” before adding that he was “surprised” by how such an advanced form of cancer went undetected for so long.
“I’m surprised the public wasn’t notified a long time ago. To get to stage nine, that’s a long time,” he said before recounting how he was screened for prostate cancer during his recent physical examination at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
“As a male, that test is very standard,” the president continued. “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. If you take a look, it’s the same doctor that said that Joe was cognitively fine, there was nothing wrong with him.”
“In other words, there are things going on that the public wasn’t informed of,” Trump declared. “I think somebody is going to have to speak to his doctor if it’s the same or even if it’s two separate doctors. Why wasn’t the cognitive ability? Why wasn’t that discussed? And I think the doctor said he’s just fine, and it’s turned out that’s not. So it’s very dangerous.”
“This is dangerous for our country,” Trump continued. “The other thing is, you have to say, ‘Why did it take so long?’ This takes a long time — it can take years to get to this level of danger.”
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“Look, it’s a very, very sad situation,” he concluded. “I feel very badly about it, and I think people should try to find out what happened. Maybe it was the same doctor, and somebody is not telling the facts. That’s a big problem.”
Trump’s comments can be seen in full below.