NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - NBC News Special Report: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin diagnosed with prostate cancer

Episode Date: January 9, 2024

Lester Holt anchors an NBC News Special Report as Walter Reed National Military Medical Center officials announce Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Good day. We're coming on the air with breaking news. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. That's according to a new statement from Walter Reed Medical Center where Austin was hospitalized. It comes as Austin has been treated there for several days, including in the intensive care unit. He was admitted on New Year's Day for complications from a surgery he had to address the prostate cancer. The Pentagon did not disclose his hospitalization until several days later. NBC News also learned that President Biden or Austin's second in command knew about his condition until days later. Walter Reed Medical Center also saying that the defense secretary never lost consciousness nor underwent general anesthesia. Let's go straight

to NBC News Pentagon correspondent Courtney Kuby. Courtney, how significant is this? It's very significant. So we finally are learning some of the details surrounding what's been sort of the biggest mystery in D.C. that we've seen in quite some time. On December 22nd, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin went to Walter Reed for what the Pentagon has been describing as an elective medical procedure. What we now know was, in fact, treating prostate cancer. Now, initially, he spent the night there, was discharged on the 23rd. Initially, his prognosis was excellent. But about 10 days later, on New Year's Day, he started experiencing extreme pain in his leg, in his extremities, and he was taken to the hospital via ambulance.

Now, initially, he was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, according to the statement from Walter Reed. But his condition worsened overnight, and by the next day, doctors had determined that he had... Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and is in good condition. By now, you should have seen the statement released by Walter Reed National Military Medical Center officials regarding his medical care. And for the sake of ensuring that everyone here today and everyone watching has the same information, I will read that full statement. This is a statement from Dr. John Maddox, Trauma Medical Director and Dr. Gregory Chestnut, Center for Prostate Disease Research of the Murtha Center Director at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Beginning the statement, as part of Secretary Austin's routinely recommended health screening, he has undergone regular prostate-specific antigen PSA surveillance.

Changes in his laboratory evaluation in early December 2023 identified prostate cancer, which required treatment. On December 22, 2023, after consultation with his medical team, he was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and underwent a minimally invasive surgical procedure called a prostatectomy to treat and cure prostate cancer. He was under general anesthesia during this procedure. Secretary Austin recovered unventfully from his surgery and returned home the next morning. His prostate cancer was detected early and his prognosis is excellent. On January 1st, 2024, Secretary Austin was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center with complications from the December 22nd procedure, including nausea with severe abdominal, hip, and leg pain. Initial evaluation revealed a urinary tract infection. On January 2, the decision was made to transfer him to the ICU for close monitoring and a higher level of care.

Further evaluation revealed abdominal fluid collections impairing the function of his small intestines. This resulted in the backup of his intestinal contents, which was treated by placing a tube through his nose to drain his stomach. The abdominal fluid collections were drained by non-surgical drain placement. He's progressed steadily throughout his stay. His infection is cleared. He continues to make progress and we anticipate a full recovery, although this can be a slow process. During the stay, Secretary Austin never lost consciousness and never underwent general anesthesia. Prostate cancer is the most common cause of cancer among American men, and it impacts one in every eight men and one in every six African American men during their lifetime. Despite the frequency of prostate cancer, discussions about screening,

treatment, and support are often deeply personal and private ones. Early screening is important for detection and treatment of prostate cancer, and people should talk to their doctors to see what screening is appropriate for them. End statement. Secretary Austin continues to recover well and remains in good spirits. He's in contact with his senior staff and has full access to required secure communications capabilities and continues to monitor DOD's day-to-day operations worldwide. At this time, I do not have any information to provide in terms of when he might be released from the hospital, but we'll be sure to keep you updated. And until then, we will continue to release daily status updates on his condition. We in the Department

of Defense, of course, wish him a speedy recovery. The department recognizes the understandable concerns expressed by the public, Congress, and the news media in terms of notification timelines and DOD transparency. And I want to underscore again that Secretary Austin has taken responsibility for the issues with transparency and the Department is taking immediate steps to improve our notification procedures. Yesterday, the Secretary's Chief of Staff directed the DOD's Director of Administration and Management to conduct a 30-day review of the Department's notification process for assumption of functions and duties of the Secretary of Defense. While the review is underway and effective immediately, the Chief of Staff also directed several actions to ensure increased situational awareness about any transfer of authorities from the Secretary of Defense to include ensuring that the DOD General Counsel, the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Combatant Commanders,

the Service Secretaries, the Service Chief of Staff, the White House Situation Room, and Senior Staff of the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense are all notified, and that the notification for transfer of authorities includes an explanation of the reason. We'll keep you updated regarding the results of the review and any additional significant changes to process and procedures as appropriate. And as I highlighted to many of you yesterday and any additional significant changes to process and procedures as appropriate. And as I highlighted to many of you yesterday, nothing is more important to the Secretary of Defense and the Department of Defense than the trust and confidence of the American people and the public we serve, and we'll continue to work every day, work hard every day to earn and deserve that trust.

Separately, Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks is traveling today en route to U.S. Space Command headquarters at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado. Tomorrow, she'll preside over the U.S. Space Command change of command at 12 p.m. Eastern time between General James Dickinson and Lieutenant General Stephen Whiting. The event will be live streamed on Divids and on Defense.gov. Also, Dr. Michael Chase, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia, began talks yesterday with People's Republic of China Major General Song Yanqiu, Deputy Director of the Central Military Commission Office for International Military Cooperation at the Pentagon for the 17th U.S. PRC Defense Policy Coordination Talks.

Those meetings conclude today, and we'll issue a readout later this afternoon. Finally, as some of you may be aware, the United States of America Vietnam War Commemoration was launched in 2012, authorized by Congress under the Secretary of Defense in support of a national 50th anniversary commemoration to help thank the nation's Vietnam veterans and their families for their service and sacrifice on behalf of our nation. Notably, thousands of organizations known as commemorative partners have joined the U.S.-Vietnam War Commemoration to honor America's 7 million Vietnam veterans, both at home and abroad, and the 10 million families of all those who served. This Saturday, January 13th at 4 p.m. Eastern, a special commemoration

of the service, courage, and legacy of Vietnam War veterans and Gold Star families and a renewal of American commitment to account for those heroes who may remain missing 50 years after the war's end will be observed at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., hosted by a commemorative partner, the Air and Space Forces Association, and 40 supporting organizations. The event is open to the public and will also be live-streamed. For more details, I'd refer you to the Air and Space Forces Association or National Cathedral website. And with that, I will take your questions. We'll start with Associated Press, Tara. Hi, General Rotter. Thank you for doing this. Have you or the staff had a

chance to speak to the Secretary? And has he shared at all why he was reluctant to make his condition public until now? And given the seriousness of his treatment, do you suspect that he might have to take a step back from some of the more rigorous parts of his job, such as a lot of the overseas travel he's been doing, and maybe delegate that to Secretary Hicks? The staff has been in contact with the Secretary. I have not personally spoken to the Secretary, but I do know, for example, that he's in regular communication with his Chief of Staff. As for his travel schedule, of course, I don't have anything to announce. I can tell you that he is actively engaged in his duties, as I highlighted, and fully engaged. And so, you know, completely confident in that.

And we'll obviously keep you updated in terms of his status in the hospital. Has he expressed at all why he was reluctant to share what he was going through until now? I don't have that specifically from the Secretary Tara, but obviously, as I highlighted, you know, it's prostate cancer and the associated procedures are obviously deeply personal. And so, again, you know, we'll continue to work hard to make sure that we're being as transparent as possible moving forward. And again, wish the Secretary a speedy recovery. And then just last, you know, there's still a lot of questions on the process about all of the notification that didn't happen. When he was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed and had personal security detail with him, why at that point wasn't there like a call to an operations center or something that would have triggered a greater awareness that he was getting medical care? Yeah. So again, a fair question. And for the

sake of not doing the review here from the podium, as I highlighted, the director of administration and management has been directed to lead a thorough review to locate exactly those kinds of questions, the relevant facts and circumstances during the period in question to evaluate the processes and procedures by which the Deputy Secretary of Defense was notified and the associated timeline. So again, we'll commit to being as transparent as we can in terms of the results of that review. Let me go to Liz here. Thanks, Pat. The Chief of Staff and the Senior Military Advisor were both told on Tuesday that Secretary Austin was in the hospital. Could the Chief of Staff have asked the SMA to make the proper notifications for her since she

was sick with the flu? Yeah, again, we fully recognize that there are going to be many questions in terms of notification timelines, as well as the transparency issues that we've highlighted. So I really think that this review is going to help us get to ground truth in a holistic way so that we can learn from it importantly, but also ensure that we're doing better next time. So I think we really need to allow this review to run its course in order to do that. In the meantime, we've taken some immediate steps, as I highlighted at the top. I mean, would that have been under procedure for the SMA to notify the White House National Security Advisor?

Again, certainly, you know, we want to make sure that notifications are happening in a timely way. And in this way, as we've acknowledged, there were some shortfalls. And so it's important that we go back and look at what those shortfalls were, what could have been done better, and make sure that going forward, we're improving those processes. So again, this review will help us. Let me go to Courtney. Do you still think it's appropriate to call his medical procedure on December 22nd, the prostatectomy, elective medical procedure if it was treating prostate cancer? So I'm going to defer to medical officials on this. Again, this is the, you know, we released

this information as soon as we had it. And so, again, I'm going to refer back to the statement and, you know, going forward, we'll use that as the baseline in terms of describing. But, you know, in this particular case, as soon as we had the information made available to us, we provided it to you. Do you, it seems, because it seems frankly like you were deceived by telling everyone that it was an elective medical procedure and by telling that to the public. I mean, it doesn't seem elective if he had prostate cancer and was treating it. I'm not a medical professional. Again, we're going to try to provide you with the most information we have as quickly as we have it, you know, and recognizing that, as I say, that we could have done a better job last week. So,

you know, again, we have this information now from these medical professionals. And I think that, you know, it will go a long way in terms of helping to understand the situation and what needs to be done going forward. And when was President Biden notified that the secretary was diagnosed with prostate cancer? I'd have to refer you to the White House. I just don't know. Natasha. Thank you, General Ryder. So the memo that was drafted by Austin's chief of staff that lays out the 30-day review that's going to be done, it doesn't mention the initial December 22nd hospital stay. So has the Pentagon determined that in that instance, all appropriate notification

procedures were followed despite the deputy secretary of the White House not being notified that he was undergoing surgery, which we now know that he was under general anesthesia for yeah i think i think that um the the information that we gather and the lessons that we learn from the period uh from last week will be applicable across the board, right? So, would similarly apply to the situation on December 22nd. The bottom line is ensuring that if there is a transfer of authority, making sure that the appropriate senior leaders in the chain of command know, and that importantly, there's a rationale to be able to provide some perspective in terms of why these transfers of authority are occurring.

So certainly lessons learned from that will be applied to transfers of authority in the future. And just to be clear, prior to him going under general anesthesia, he transferred his authorities to the deputy secretary? That's correct. Correct. Come over here, Laura, and then we'll go to Angelus. Yeah. Just again, when we've been listening to a briefing from General Major General Pat Ryder, he's the defense, the secretary, press secretary at the Department of Defense at the Pentagon, relaying the statement from Walter Reed Hospital about the condition and the procedures undergone by the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin. Some of the questions answered, we now know it was prostate cancer. We know the complications that sent him into the hospital, again, taken by

ambulance for treatment. What we don't still know is the delay in notifying the public and certainly notifying the White House. Let's go over to NBC News senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez. Gabe, what is the White House saying about the notification and about this revelation? Well, Lester, we don't know exactly when President Biden was notified about this exact diagnosis. We've been asking the White House for some time now, and it's expected to be a big part of the White House briefing, which is expected to get on the way in just a few minutes. But what we can tell you, Lester, is that the president and Defense Secretary Austin spoke on January 6th.

That's what we were told by the White House. That is one day after the public was notified and obviously several days since he went into the hospital. Something else from the Defense Department statement. We're now learning in early December that diagnosis first came up. We'll be asking the White House whether the president knew back then, Lester. All right, Gabe, thanks for again. Again, the Pentagon saying that the defense secretary is fully engaged. They'd say his recovery is going well. No date as to when he'll exit the hospital.