Morning Wire - Biden Cancer Controversy | 5.20.25

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Biden’s cancer controversy prompts more questions, the Trump White House reacts, and Trump’s big, beautiful bill moves forward. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Vanta: Get $1,000 off Vanta at https://vanta.com/morningwire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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to world entire. Trouve of little enterprises like on other. Oneser.com. Former President Biden's cancer announcement prompts questions about an even deeper

health cover-up. This is a scandal and we don't know the full extent of it yet. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. It's Tuesday.

May 20th, and this is Morning Wire. How is the Trump White House reacting to the former president's health news and the timing of its release? I think it's very sad, actually. I'm surprised that it wasn't, you know, the public wasn't notified a long time ago because to get to stage nine, that's a long time. And Trump's budget bill clears another hurdle, but will it lead to unsustainable debt? Yes, this GOP bill could add nearly $4 trillion to our. deficit over the next decade. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. As we learn more details of Joe Biden's cancer prognosis, there are growing questions about whether the

former president was diagnosed while in office and the news was kept from the American people. Daily Wire senior editor, Cabot Phillips is here now with more. So Cabot, this story continues to send shockwaves through Washington. What have we learned in the past 24 hours? Well, the more we learn about this prognosis, the more concerning it appears. Prostate cancer is typically among the most treatable forms of cancer when caught early, but in President Biden's case, it's metastasized or spread to his bones. Doctors say that makes it nearly impossible to treat. Every case is different, but the five-year survival rate for prostate cancer patients deemed metastatic is just 28%. The severity of a prostate cancer diagnosis is graded on a glisten scale of 6 to 10, and President

Biden is a glisten scale 9, meaning it's incredibly aggressive and likely to spread further. So he certainly faces an uphill battle. Former president issued his first public statement since the news saying, quote, cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support. So devastating news for the president. Now, he said he just got this diagnosis on Friday,

but some experts are saying that that probably wasn't the case. Well, look, obviously it's a very touchy subject when you're talking about a man with state four cancer, but when that man is the former president of the president of the president, the United States, there's good reason to question when this diagnosis came. And if it came when he was in office and then was intentionally hidden from the American people. If Biden and his team knew he had this serious potentially fatal illness and still chose to launch a re-election campaign without telling anyone, it would obviously be a massive political scandal. And there are plenty of folks who now questioned the official timeline were being given here. First, it's very unusual for prostate

cancer to have already metastasized by the time of diagnosis. That's only the case for about 1 in 20 prostate cancer patients. Typically, it takes anywhere from three to 10 years for this cancer to spread the way it has. That has led a number of prominent doctors to publicly cast doubt on the timeline. For example, here's renowned urologist Dr. David Shusterman on News Nation. It takes from the first diagnosis of prostate cancer to spread would take five to 10 years. Even in the most aggressive form, it's just to me it seems very surprising, that the first diagnosis would be a metastatic diagnosis. There's definitely evidence that he probably knew about this for a while.

Dr. Schusterman and other urologists have said that a cancer this aggressive would almost certainly have shown up during a routine physical or blood work. And any president is the most closely monitored human on the planet. They said it would have been nearly impossible for a cancer this advanced to have gone under the radar through those checkups. To that point, here's Dr. Zeke Emanuel, vice provost at the University of Penn Medical School, speaking on MSNBC.

He did not develop it in the last 100, 200 days. He had it while he was president. He probably had it at the start of his presidency. I don't think there's any disagreement about that. And Dr. Stephen Quay, a former faculty member at Stanford's pathology department, put it more bluntly, saying, quote, it is highly likely he was carrying a diagnosis of prostate cancer throughout his White House tenure and the American people were uninformed.

And according to Dr. Vin Gupta, while past presidents all offered detailed, PSA reports of their prostate exams while in office. President Biden's medical reports only offered vague details on that topic. Have a listen. President Trump's, President Obama's, and President Bush II, in their most recent physicals, in their terms of authors, obviously 2025, President Trump, did comment on their PSA levels.

And so they got screened while in office and they commented on it. There is not a report of a PSA test on the most recent. that was right out for President Biden's last year in office. Well, and there's also some comments from the president himself that are now coming under scrutiny. Yeah, this is interesting. So during a 2022 speech addressing environmental concerns, then President Biden appeared to say that he had cancer. Have a listen. You had to put on your windshield wipers to get literally the oil slick off the window.

That's why I had so damn any other people I grew up have cancer. Now, at the time of that speech, the White House quickly issued a statement saying that President Biden had misspoken and was referring to a few small skin cancer spots that he had removed years earlier. But now there are plenty of folks who want to know if he actually had slipped up there and was letting folks know that he had prostate cancer. And finally, the timing of this announcement has cast doubt on the veracity of that timeline. The cancer announcement came just two days after audio recordings of his interview with Special Counsel Robert Her were released,

and just a day and a half before that highly anticipated book documenting his physical and mental decline was set to be published. Skeptics of the former president say the timing was no coincidence and was intended to deflect questions about a potential White House cover-up regarding his decline. So a lot going on here. Yeah, well, and a lot of medical professionals say there's no way he didn't know about this diagnosis earlier. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Absolutely. Trust isn't just earned.

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Here to discuss the political and public response as Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret O'Ollahan. Hey, Mary Margaret. So first, let's start with. the White House. How is the White House responding to this news? Good morning, Don. So yes, the White House has been pretty dignified in its response to the news thus far. Trump said in a statement last night that he and Melania are saddened to hear about the diagnosis. And I'm quoting here, we extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family. And we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery. Now, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt called a press briefing on Monday morning and she

repeatedly refrained from getting into the weeds on Biden's health. Many of us were eager to ask about this, especially since Biden has been president for many years and has routinely undergone physical examinations with his personal physician who routinely declared Biden fit for office. Here's what Caroline had to say on that point. Is there any interest in further scrutiny of Kevin O'Connor, the former president's position? I'll let the president speak on that. I spoke to the president again about the former president's health diagnosis last night, and he wanted to extend his warmest wishes to the former president and his family. But as for or any further action.

I'll let the president speak on that first. Now, Vice President Jody Vance took on the issue a little more directly when speaking with reporters on Air Force 2 yesterday. He was more aggressive, arguing that Biden was not fit to be serving as president. 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. And 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? This is serious stuff. And this is the guy who carries around the nuclear football for the world's largest nuclear arsenal. This is not child's play.

I said the vice president, not soft peddling this at all. widening out here, how are Republicans and Trump supporters reacting to this news? Social media has exploded with concerns about how long Biden had cancer, who knew about it, what role Biden staffers and Joe Biden herself played in covering up Biden's mental decline and more. Some people are arguing that we should stop talking about Biden's mental decline due to the cancer diagnosis, but others are saying that the announcement, which comes two days ahead of a massive book release on the cover up of Biden's mental decline, is highly

suspicious. One of those people is Donald Trump Jr., Trump's son, who told me that the announcement timing is suspicious, saying, and I'm quoting, the fact that it breaks this week, that he has it, and we are told we're not allowed to talk about anything Joe Biden right now, because that would be uncouth, screams to me to be an additional part of this cover-up. To that point, here's Democrat strategist David Axelrod calling for restraint on CNN. Those conversations are going to happen, but they should be more muted and set aside for now as he's struggling through this. Not many people heeding those directives at this point. What else are we hearing from Democrats? Well, Jill Biden's former press secretary went on Fox and Friends on Monday and pretty much

tore into the Biden administration for a lack of transparency. He had some fiery comments. Here's a taste of that. This was a group in the White House who were allergic. to transparency. I couldn't get reporters straight answers because nobody would give me straight answers. Senator Mike Lee told me yesterday that it's likely to put more focus on Biden's condition while he was in office. He told me, and I'm quoting, the announcement certainly evokes a lot of sympathy for the former president, but it probably magnifies the skepticism directed at those who enabled him and aggressively concealed his declining health. It's hard to argue against that point. Mary Margaret, thank you so much for breaking us down for us. Thank you.

In a rare Sunday vote, Trump's big, beautiful bill cleared a key procedural hurdle, despite grave concerns about national debt from within the GOP. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about the bill and the intra-party politics surrounding it. Hey, Tim, so this bill failed on its first attempt in committee, but then it passed the second time around. What changed? Well, conservatives got a few concessions. A deal was struck to put more cuts to green energy in the bill as well as push forward Medicaid work requirements. Under the current version of the bill, those won't kick in until 2029. It was only after those promises were made that Texas's Chip Roy and three other conservatives

decided to vote present so the bill could pass out of committee in a 17 to 16 party line vote. But even with those promises, the bill's future is still in limbo. Roy said in a post on X that, quote, the bill does not yet meet the moment. Of course, with more cuts wanted in the future, House Speaker Mike Johnson runs the risk of angering moderates with so many conservative reforms. So conservatives think the bill is too expensive? Yeah, they're concerned about the national debt. For context, the United States is nearly $37 trillion in debt with no realistic plan to pay it off. Through April of this year, the interest alone on the debt made up about 16% of all federal spending.

Jason Katz, the managing director and senior portfolio manager at UBS, spoke about the national debt. Here he is yesterday on Fox Business. The debt is a long-term train wreck waiting to happen. In the short run, however, we have this sugar high and hopefully, we could grow our way out of this issue through a larger tax base earning more money. So Katz there endorses what many Trump administration allies have said, that strict spending cuts aren't the only way to get out of the debt hole we're in. Now, speaking of debt, the United States credit rating was just downgraded last week.

What does that mean? Yeah, Moody's dropped the U.S. credit rating on Friday from the highest possible AAA to AA1. That sent yields on 10-and-30-year bonds up, and over time, it could push the cost of borrowing up. That means higher rates for auto loans, home loans, and even credit cards. It's worth noting that Moody's pointed to the ever-growing federal budget deficit to explain its decision. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt responded to Moody's decision on Monday. We have seen trillions of dollars of investments flowing into our economy since the president took office.

That is because America or people around the world have confidence in the United States of America. And if you also just look at the raw economic data that we're seeing last week when we were out of town, inflation dropped once again. Oil prices are dropping, gas prices are dropping. The president has added nearly a half million jobs to the American economy already. So there's a lot of optimism in this economy, and the president disagrees with that assessment. So the White House clearly not happy with Moody's decision. Well, we'll see if that gives conservatives some leverage negotiating this bill. Tim, thanks for reporting.

Thanks for having me. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back tomorrow morning with more news you need to know.