Former President Joe Biden made his first public remarks on Friday following the revelation that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
His comments come amid renewed scrutiny over his mental acuity, which has been the subject of a bombshell book and political commentary.
“You can see that I’m mentally incompetent, I can’t walk,” Biden said jokingly to reporters after a Memorial Day appearance. “And I could beat the hell out of both of them.”
Biden seemed to be referencing Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios, co-authors of the newly released book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.
The book, released May 20, alleges the president has experienced significant cognitive decline and suggests his staff tried to hide it from the public.
According to the book, Biden often struggled to form coherent sentences while filming campaign ads, Cabinet meetings were tightly choreographed, and senior aides allegedly coordinated efforts to mask the president’s deteriorating condition.
Biden’s team dismissed the claims in the book, defending the president’s performance in office. “There is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover up or conspiracy,” a spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
“Nowhere do they show that our national security was threatened or where the President wasn’t otherwise engaged in the important matters of the Presidency. In fact, Joe Biden was an effective President who led our country with empathy and skill.”
During the same conversation with a reporter, Biden was asked if he wanted to reply to Democrats who are questioning if he should have entered the 2024 presidential race in the first place.
“Why didn’t they run against me then,” he said with a laugh. “Because I would’ve beaten them.”
Biden publicly disclosed his diagnosis on May 18, describing it as an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer. His office later claimed this was his first diagnosis of the advanced disease.
On Friday, the president said he is undergoing treatment with a pill and maintained a hopeful outlook.
“My expectation is we’re going to be able to beat this,” Biden said.
President Donald Trump addressed Biden’s health situation during a press conference the same day. The president did not hold back criticism of his ailing predecessor.
“[Biden’s] been a sort of moderate person over his lifetime,” Trump said. “Not a smart person, but a somewhat vicious person, I will say.”
“If you feel sorry for him, don’t feel so sorry, because he’s vicious,” Trump continued. “What he did with his political opponent and all of the people that he hurt — he hurt a lot of people, Biden, so I really don’t feel sorry for him.”
The president also tackled growing calls for former First Lady Jill Biden to answer questions regarding her potential role in downplaying her husband’s health.
When asked by Fox News’ Peter Doocy whether Jill Biden should testify, Trump replied, “Well, I hate the concept of it.”
“It’s the wife of a man who is going through a lot of problems, and everybody that dealt with him understood that,” Trump said. “And I guess it came out during the debate loud and clear, that was the biggest signal of all … they have to do what is right. There was a lot of dishonesty in the election as you know, of 2020, that’s been now caught. People understand it was a rigged election.”
Trump then turned to questions surrounding Biden’s role in major decisions, pointing to what he characterized as suspicious presidential signatures.
“And when you go further out, when you see the auto pen, I think the auto pen is going to become one of the great scandals of all time,” Trump stated.
“Because you have somebody operating it, or a number of people operating it … cause I knew Joe Biden. Joe Biden wasn’t in favor of opening up borders and letting 21 million people in, from prisons and mental institutions and gang members, he wasn’t into that at all.”
“Who signed these orders, proclamations, and all of these different things that he signed, that were so bad for our country?” Trump asked.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt weighed in during Thursday’s press briefing, saying Jill Biden should be forthcoming about what she witnessed.
“I think, frankly, the former first lady should certainly speak up about what she saw in regards to her husband and when she saw it and what she knew,” Leavitt said.
“Because I think anybody looking again at the videos and photo evidence of Joe Biden with your own eyes and a little bit of common sense can see this was a clear cover-up. Jill Biden was certainly complicit in that cover-up.”
“There’s documentation, video evidence of her clearly shielding her husband away from the cameras. They were just on ‘The View’ last week. She was saying everything is fine,” Leavitt continued.
“She’s still lying to the American people. She still thinks the American public are so stupid that they’re going to believe her lies, and, frankly, it’s insulting and she needs to answer for it.”
Biden even looks like he has passed sanity. He has no real clue and has not for a long time. It is pretty clear now why Jill wanted the scam to continue. She was in charge and wanted it to stay that way.
Everything done during Biden’s four years was propably her and that aid and that damn pen they used.
So now that it is known, what is the GOP, (whom I voted for), gonna do about it? Seeing them not take back the funds found by Musk is sickening. And the further insult is what are they doing about this mess other than tell the nation about it? Will Jill in charge and large be pulled into a serious investigaition and reversing a lot of her big ideas and all the collusion and cover ups on the real power unelected in the White House? Or the usual NOTHING with the usual talk and no action?
Seeing and reading all of the news lately makes me as disgusted with the GOP as I am with the now newly renamed Blue MAGA Dimwit Nitwits. Those people have NO brains at all. And Blue Maga? Really? BMDN for Blue Maga Dimwit Nitwits.
But I am not disgusted with Trump because he is trying. However, the old guard in the GOP and those political judges including Roberts in the SC are way out of line. Who is in charge of the presidential powers? The courts? The nation has to be so sick of this back biting and in fighting on both sides of the aisle.
Congress appears to be full of egos, not people working for the country! And a down rating of the country shows it is time to think about the awful thing called a “budget”. Apparently we do need to cut back. I certainly don’t want to give congress more money to waste!
And when is the idiot Pocohontas Warren gonna stop showing the country that she though much older acts a lot like airhead bartender AOC? Do these morons get points with their constituents for threats about getting someone when and a big “IF” the dimwit nitwits get in charge again anytime soon.
Musk did a lot to find money that was wasted and from what I read it is long past time to clean out the trash, graft and fraud! So Pocohants shut up! The entire country knows there is a need to downsize, reconcile with audits, clean out the fraud and waste in the governments, all of them including state and federal. Musk just brought what was really bad and hidden into the light and made it quite clear somethings have to be changed and cleaned out!
A message to the GOP, get it together or I believe the BM dimwits might have a chance to take it back, heaven forbid!! And I sincerely hope you loafers read these messages seriously. Constituent here, and not happy with the inaction.
Is this the Real Biden or clone??