He emphasizes that the former president “had never been diagnosed” with the disease before last week’s official announcement.
Former US President Joe Biden underwent his last prostate cancer test in 2014 before being diagnosed with the disease last week, a spokesperson confirmed, after current President Donald Trump suggested he might have delayed releasing this information.
“President Biden’s last prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test was in 2014,” the spokesperson said, according to NBC. “Before Friday, Biden had never been diagnosed with prostate cancer,” he concluded.
The brief statement was released after Trump said on Monday that he was “shocked” that “the public wasn’t notified a long time ago” of this diagnosis. “It takes a long time to get to stage nine,” he noted, apparently conflating the Gleason scoring system—which measures the aggressiveness of cancer cells—with the stage.
Biden’s office explained on Sunday when announcing the diagnosis that tests revealed he has stage four cancer, the most serious of the four possible stages, with a score of nine on the Gleason system, indicating an aggressive cancer that has already spread to his bones.
Trump also claimed that his predecessor’s administration had made efforts to cover up details about his health, including on a “cognitive” level. “Someone is not telling the facts, which is a big problem,” the White House resident added.
