JD Vance questions whether Biden should have EVER served as president after damning Hur tapes and evidence he hid cancer diagnosis
Vance spoke to reporters shortly prior to his departure from Rome as he indicated he wished the best for Biden's health. But he soon pivoted to questions about the former president's fitness to serve in office.
'We really do need to be honest about whether the former president was capable of doing the job,' he said.
The vice president argued that it was possible to both wish Biden well but also ask questions about the serious issue of his health.
'This is not child's play. 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,' he said.
He blamed the former president's staff and his medical doctors for trying to cover up details about his health.
'In some ways, I blame him less than the people around him and why didn't the American people have a better sense of his health picture?' he asked.
Vance specified the argument was more than just a difference in politics, but on the very stability of the country.
'This is serious stuff. This is the guy who carries around the nuclear football for the world's largest nuclear arsenal,' he said.
Vance spoke about Biden just hours after the former president's staff revealed he had was given a Gleason score of 9 and a Grade Group of 5, a dire stage of the rapidly-spreading prostate cancer, just days after doctors revealed they had found a 'small nodule' on his prostate.
But a growing bipartisan coalition of cancer doctors expressed skepticism about the official timeline of the former president's diagnosis.
Oncologist Dr. Zeke Emanuel, on MSNBC's Morning Joe, said Biden 'did not develop [prostate cancer] in the last, 100, 200 days.'
'It is a little surprising to many of us oncologists that he wasn't diagnosed earlier,' Emanuel said.
He raised questions about what the Biden family and their doctors knew about the president's condition.
'He had it while he was President,' Emanuel claimed. 'He probably had it at the start of his presidency, in 2021. Yes, I don't think there's any disagreement about that.'
Republican congressman Greg Murphy, M.D. of North Carolina also called into question the timing of the announcement surrounding the president's diagnosis.
'It's been said Biden's prostate cancer is "hormone sensitive," he wrote on X. 'It takes at least 5 weeks to figure this out with a medicine called Firmagon. So his original diagnosis was at the latest about 6 weeks ago.'
Biden's personal physician Dr. Kevin O'Connor wrote in a statement in February 2024 after a check-up that 'the President feels well and this year's physical identified no new concerns. He continues to be fit for duty and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations.'
But more questions about the effort by the former president's family and staff to cover up the truth about the president's health have surfaced with new reporting after he dropped out of his 2024 re-election campaign.
Audio of Biden's interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur was published by Axios, reaffirming Hur's assessment that the president was 'a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.'
Biden aides also privately discussed putting the former president in a wheelchair if he won reelection, as his walking gait had deteriorated to alarming levels.
News of Biden's cancer diagnosis garnered a host of well-wishes from political leaders around the world.
On Monday the president's X account posted a message thanking everyone for their support.
'Cancer touches us all,' Biden wrote, sharing an image of him and Jill sitting together with their cat Willow.
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