A Democratic lawmaker said he began thinking Joe Biden was deteriorating as early as 2023 following an episode that left him "stunned."
Concretely, Rep. Adam Smith recalled the episode while talking to journalists Jake Tapper and Adam Thompson for their book "Original Sin," which details claims about a cover-up regarding the former president's health during part of his administration and his ultimately failed re-election run.
Smith said Biden was "completely out of it" while interacting with guests at the 2023 White House Christmas party. Fellow Democratic lawmaker Seth Moulton and his wife also noticed that Biden looked "frail" and "lethargic" compared to the same time the year prior.
Rep. Mike Quigley, also a Democrat, said he saw signs even earlier: during a trip to Ireland in April 2023. Back then he saw Biden go from energic to tired quickly. "This was how his father, Bill, had been before he died," Tapper and Thompson wrote in a passage of their book.
"Biden, Quigley thought, needed to go to bed for the rest of the day and night. He wasn't merely physically frail; he had lost almost all of his energy. His speech was breathless, soft, weak." Smith, Molton and Quigley were among the first Democratic lawmakers to call for Biden to drop out from the 2024 presidential race. After initially rejecting the notion, he decided to do so following a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump.
A Biden spokesperson rejected the accounts meant anything consequential: "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," the spokesperson told Axios.
Biden's health has jumped to the forefront of the public debate after announcing on Sunday he has late stage prostate cancer. The diagnosis is being described as an aggressive form of the disease, with a Gleason score of 9 and Grade Group 5–indicating that it has already spread to the bones.
Different doctors have said the former president has had cancer for several years, including while at the White House. President Donald Trump said the diagnosis was "very sad" before arguing that "somebody is not telling the facts" considering its advanced stage.
However, multiple oncologists said the possibility Biden was diagnosed for the first time with the cancer already at a late stage is not unheard of, NBC News reported. Concretely, 8% of all prostate cancer cases are diagnosed when it has already metastasized, meaning the patient has lived with the disease for years before becoming aware of it.
President Donald Trump also delved into the matter, reigniting concerns about Biden's use of an autopen, suggesting key immigration policies may have been signed without Biden's awareness. In the wake of this news, critics and political opponents have questioned how much of the administration's agenda was managed directly by Biden himself.
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