Former President Joe Biden had prostate cancer at “the start of his presidency in 2021,” according to a former Obama administration official. On Friday, May 16, 2025, Biden was diagnosed with “a more aggressive form of the disease,” which had spread to the bone, categorized as Stage 4B.
Appearing on MSNBC, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a key architect of ObamaCare who was once described as the “deadly doctor” with “Orwellian thinking”, said Biden most likely had the cancer for several years.
“You believe it is likely, if this prostate cancer has spread to the bone, that he could have had it for up to a decade, but certainly, likely, would it be fair to say, he’s likely to have had this for at least several years?” MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough asked.
Biden’s office said the cancer has a Gleason score of nine out of ten, indicating that it was the aggressive type that had rapidly grown and spread. Nonetheless, it took more than a few years to progress to Stage 4B, according to Emanuel. Stage 4B means it has spread farther away from the prostate, to either distant lymph nodes or bone, as in Biden’s case.
“Oh, more than several years,” he said.
“So this is, this is not speculation. If you have prostate cancer that has spread to the bone, then, he’s most certainly, you are saying, had it when he was president of the United States?” Scarbrough asked.
“Oh, yeah. He did not develop it in the last 100, 200 days. He had it while he was president,” Emanuel responded. “He probably had it at the start of his presidency in 2021. I don’t think there’s any disagreement about that.”
Meanwhile, the former President’s office says “the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management.” Treatment for this type of cancer typically involves androgen deprivation therapy, which involves reducing the level of androgens to slow down its growth. Biden’s office said his team is exploring treatment options.
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, the survival rate for prostate cancer was nearly 100 per cent within five years after diagnosis, but less than 30% after it had metastasized, like Biden’s.
According to Duke Health, bone metastases account for 73% of all progressions and have an overall median survival of just over 21 months. Lymph metastases account for 6.4% and have the longest median survival of about 32 months. However, the average life expectancy of a person with metastatic prostate cancer has recently increased to about five to six years, according to the Harvard Medical School.
In 2015, Biden’s oldest son, Beau, died from brain cancer at 46, prompting the then-former Vice President not to run for the highest office.
Meanwhile, Biden’s cancer diagnosis has brought additional scrutiny to the former President’s cognitive and physical decline, which is the focus of several books by liberal journalists such as CNN’s Jake Tapper, who claim to expose the cover-up that they aided.
Appearing on “The View,” the former President denied undergoing cognitive decline, claiming there was no evidence and that he assumed office during a time of unprecedented challenges.
“They are wrong. There’s nothing to sustain that. Number one. Number two, you know, think of what we were left with. We were left with a circumstance where we had an insurrection when I started — not since the Civil War.”
Meanwhile, Tapper claims that the White House’s claim that Biden’s moments of disorientation were “cheap fakes” was an attempt to cover up his decline.
“They did this all the time when there was video that seemed to show Biden acting in an odd or unusual, seemingly out of it, way. They would call it a cheap fake. It was not fake. It was actual video.”
