On Monday morning, the major broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC provided extensive coverage on former President Joe Biden’s horrible diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer, but saw no reason to question the timing just days before the release of the blockbuster book by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. In fact, they went so far as to suggest Biden’s team was telling the truth these symptoms arose only recently and the cancer might have only just formed and spread into his bones.
ABC’s Good Morning America never even raised the book’s upcoming release and didn’t even open the door to Team Biden not being entirely truthful.
“Former President Biden’s cancer diagnosis, the urgent manhunt for prisoners on the run, and guess who’s bringing the thunder? Former President Biden announcing he has an aggressive form of prostate cancer, which has spread to his bones. What his office said about treating the disease and the reaction from political leaders this morning,” co-host Michael Strahan declared in a tease.
Virulent Trump-hating correspondent Rachel Scott largely stuck to the genuine well-wishes from across the spectrum and reading from the Sunday afternoon statement by Biden’s team:
As CBS and NBC would also do, Scott brought up Biden’s late son, Beau: “The former President’s cancer diagnosis comes nearly ten years after his beloved son Beau lost his battle with brain cancer. That loss motivating Biden the establish the Cancer Moonshot Initiative.”
ABC medical contributor Dr. Tara Narula popped up in the second half-hour for more whitewashing (see the transcript for a blow-by-blow):
NBC’s Today tried to have it both ways. Senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez also started with the so-called facts as we know them and the reality that we all are praying for his health.
Gutierrez tied in Beau and a previous health scare as a U.S. Senator:
Cancer has devastated the Biden family before. As Vice President, he led a moonshoot effort to find cures for the disease after his son Beau died from an aggressive form of brain cancer in 2018...In 1988, then-Senator Biden battled two brain aneurysms that threatened to end his political career.
Then, however, he turned up the heat as the only network correspondent to acknowledge Biden’s “most recent White House medical exam at Walter Reed was in February of last year when a physician assessed he was fit for duty.”
He even used the opportunity to bring up the released audio of his interview in 2023 with then-Special Counsel Robert Hur (click “expand”):
GUTIERREZ: But, during his presidency, Biden faced mounting questions about his health, age, and mental fitness, which ultimately led him to drop his bid for re-election. This weekend, Axios published audio from Biden’s 2023 interview with Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated his handling of classified documents. At some points during the interview, Biden appeared to struggle to remember key dates and details.
[HUR AUDIO EXCERPT]
GUTIRREZ: Tomorrow, a new book by two journalists is set to be published, raising more questions about whether Biden’s inner circle may have concealed any cognitive decline during his time at the White House, something the Bidens denied in a recent interview.
BIDEN [on ABC’s The View, 05/08/25]: They’re wrong. There’s nothing to sustain that.
GUTIRREZ: As for the release of the special council audio, Biden’s spokesperson says his administration had released a transcript more than a year ago and that the audio does nothing but confirm what is already public.
He wrapped with the actual question skeptical Americans are asking: “Meanwhile, a major question today that we don’t yet have an answer to, how was the cancer missed in earlier screenings?”
NBC News medical contributor Dr. John Torres broke down what Biden’s Gleason score of nine means and possible treatments, but also ran cover for the timing with zero reason to doubt it:
Torres joined the 3rd Hour of Today for more of the same, reiterating regular testing for such conditions were scaled back some time ago.
CBS Mornings was even more vague. Senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang tacked onto the end of her report about the diagnosis and well-wishes that “this is all unfolding at a sensitive time because a new book that dives into President Biden’s cognitive and physical health and whether top aides concealed that information during the 2024 campaign is set to be released tomorrow.”
Medical contributor and former Biden transition official Dr. Celine Gounder defended the sudden diagnosis, arguing there shouldn’t be reason for concern about transparency because, in her analysis, men at Biden’s age stop testing for prostate cancer (click “expand”):
KING: But you hear the thing, spread to bones. How long does that take? We hear he was just diagnosed last week. Does it spread to the bones very quickly? I always thought it took a while to do that. Wouldn’t he be getting regular checkups?
GOUNDER: Yeah, so depends on the kind of cancer you’re talking about here. We know it is quite aggressive. Again, the time in which it would take to spread the bones is going to be shorter than with a less aggressive cancer. And he is 82. Normally, doctors will stop screening for prostate cancer at 75 or so —
KING: Mmmmm.
GOUNDER: — because after that the prostate cancers you typically pick up are very slow growing and so, the harms of all of the testing and treatment —
BURLESON: Gotcha.
GOUNDER: for something that may not kill you —
KING: Got it.
GOUNDER: — you know, you’re talking about risk versus benefit, it may not be worth the risk.
DOKOUPIL: Isn’t there a blood test that men can take to know if they have an issue that might warrant further examination?
GOUNDER: So there’s something we call a PSA test, but that can also be indicative of many different things. It could just be you have an enlarged prostate. Maybe you have a low-grade infection in the prostate. There are many things that can cause that. And so, this is again why, after a certain age, doctors will typically stop screening for prostate cancer.
DOKOUPIL: Wow.
GOUNDER: But in his case, it’s not screening. It’s important to emphasize this was diagnostic because he had urinary symptoms. And so, there was a reason to do more testing.
Gounder doubled down on CBS Mornings Plus. When asked whether was something he could have been living with for awhile or something that genuinely just came about, Gounder said either could be true:
He could have been living with this for a while, but typically men are — we stop screening men for prostate cancer around the age of 75. He's 82. And why is that? Because most of the prostate cancers we pick up in, men over 75 are slow growing and you're weighing the risks of all of the diagnostics, the biopsies, the treatment. And that may not make sense when this is a prostate cancer in most men that may not kill them. We say many people die with prostate cancer, not from prostate cancer, so it's certainly possible he could have been living with this with some for some time, and only now developing symptoms, that it was that they did some testing for this.
To see the relevant transcripts from May 19, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS Mornings), here (for NBC’s Today), and here (for NBC’s 3rd Hour of Today).
