President Donald Trump misspoke when asked about President Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis on Monday, May 19.
Following a ceremony in which he presented a Medal of Honor to the family of a fallen police officer, Trump took questions from the press, who asked about his reaction to Biden’s “aggressive” cancer diagnosis over the weekend.
“I think it’s very sad, actually,” replied Trump, 78, before mislabeling the diagnosis. “I’m surprised that it wasn’t notified a long time ago. Because to get to stage 9, it’s a long time.”
Biden’s spokesperson announced the new diagnosis in a statement on Sunday, May 18, revealing that the 82-year-old former president has stage 4 prostate cancer with a Gleason score of 9, which is related to how fast the cancer could spread.
Stage 4 is the highest possible classification for cancer. Dr. Christopher Wee, a genitourinary medical oncologist with the Cleveland Clinic, told PEOPLE that Biden’s cancer is a stage 4 “because it has spread outside of the prostate.”
Gleason scores, on the other hand, are specific to prostate cancer and range from 6 to 10. “The higher the number, the more abnormal the cells are,” Dr. Wee explained to PEOPLE. “And so when something is a Gleason 9 or a Gleason 10… generally speaking, people think that reflects a more aggressive behavior of the cancer.”
After reiterating that he found Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis “sad” in his remarks to the press on Monday, Trump shifted his focus to the former president’s cognitive health.
“There are things going on that the public wasn’t informed. And I think somebody is going to have to speak to his doctor,” he continued. “Why wasn’t the cognitive ability — why wasn’t that discussed? I think the doctors said he’s just fine, and it’s turned out that’s not so. It’s very dangerous.”
Suggesting again that advanced cancer such as Biden’s “can take years to get to this level of danger,” Trump continued to posit that details of the former president’s health were knowingly kept from the public while he was in office.
“It’s a very, very sad situation, and I feel very badly about it, and I think people should try and find out what happened,” he concluded.
Trump is one of many Republicans calling for more details about Biden’s health and accusing the previous administration of a cover-up.
On Monday, the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., took to social media to call out former first lady Jill Biden, who sometimes goes by Dr. Biden because she has a doctorate in education.
“What I want to know is how did Dr. Jill Biden miss stage five metastatic cancer or is this yet another coverup???” he wrote on X, also misclassifying the former president’s cancer as stage 5, which does not exist.
When one user commented on his post, “This is an effort to push the fact Joe was running the country as a vegetable under the rug,” Don Jr. replied, “Without question.”
