Add Vice President JD Vance to the long list of MAGA weirdos wasting time spinning conspiracy theories about President Joe Biden hiding a cancer diagnosis while in office.
On Monday, Vance was asked by a reporter aboard Air Force Two to comment on the news of Biden’s diagnosis of an aggressive form of prostate cancer. But instead of offering basic human decency—or even facts—he leaned straight into speculation, hinting at a cover-up.
“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?” Vance said, treating it as some scandal and not a serious medical diagnosis.
But he didn’t stop there.
“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. That’s because I don’t think that he was in good enough health. In some ways, I blame him less than I blame the people around him,” he said.
Vance’s remarks echo broader right-wing baseless claims that Biden—and the Democratic Party—knew about the cancer all along and chose to hide it. Since news of his diagnosis broke on Sunday, conservative influencers—none of them doctors—have been pushing this nonsense.
“What I want to know is how did Dr. Jill Biden miss stage five metastatic cancer or is this yet another cover-up???” Donald Trump Jr. asked.
Far-right activist Laura Loomer, meanwhile, alleged that Biden knew he was “terminally ill” and withheld that information from the public while he was president.
Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, Trump’s ex-White House physician with a well-documented allergy to facts, also chimed in, claiming that Biden’s doctor “was more concerned about assisting with the political cover-up than providing world-class medical care.”
Even conservative podcaster Tim Pool jumped in, insisting that “Democrats knew” and suggesting that Biden’s doctors couldn’t have missed the cancer, never mind that he was reportedly diagnosed only after developing symptoms.
President Joe Biden
According to his office, Biden was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer after experiencing urinary issues, and the cancer has metastasized to his bones. His team said the disease is hormone-sensitive, meaning that it can still be treated. The cancer has a Gleason score of 9, one of the most aggressive forms of prostate cancer.
Some medical professionals have pointed out that a cancer this advanced likely developed over time, but there’s still no evidence that Biden or his team knew about it while he was in office, let alone actively hid it.
Still, MAGA world has become obsessed with the idea that Biden’s health was secretly deteriorating during his presidency. Their fixation comes just days before the release of “Original Sin,” a book by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson, which reportedly details how aides once considered putting Biden in a wheelchair but didn’t, fearing political backlash.
Also conveniently timed, Axios recently dropped hours of audio from Biden’s 2023 interview with special counsel Robert Hur in which Biden can be heard struggling to recall dates, slurring his speech, and stumbling through long pauses, which is only adding fuel to the right-wing narrative machine.
But while most of the MAGA world is throwing elbows, one person struck a notably different tone: President Donald Trump.
“Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis,” he posted on Truth Social. “We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.”
It was a rare note of civility from Trump. But his vice president and allies are clearly taking a different route: using a cancer diagnosis to push baseless conspiracies and score cheap political points.
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