Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Twenty-four hours after the Sunday announcement that former President Joe Biden has an aggressive form of prostate cancer<\/a>, one of his staunchest supporters, Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, said Monday he had yet to connect with him. Another close Hill ally, Sen. Chris Coons, had not spoken with his fellow Delawarean as of midafternoon Tuesday.<\/p>\n Biden\u2019s longtime friend Bob Brady, the former House member from Pennsylvania who has known Biden for decades, said as of Tuesday afternoon that he hadn\u2019t talked with the former president directly since his cancer diagnosis, though he did touch base Monday with his family<\/a>. All three said they planned to speak with him soon.<\/p>\n Before his cancer diagnosis, Biden had been taking the train from Delaware to Washington, meeting with his post-presidential staff, allies and former Cabinet secretaries, according to a Biden aide granted anonymity to speak freely. In New York City for his appearance on “The View,” he met with former President Bill Clinton. And last week he met with Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a rising star in the party.<\/p>\n But Biden, an inveterate creature of Washington who for most of his career seemed to gain life from glad-handing and working a room, hasn’t yet talked to some longtime allies on Capitol Hill in the wake of his diagnosis. Months removed from his presidency, Biden has receded as a fixture of official Washington and has instead become a focal point of his party\u2019s recriminations \u2014 his planned reemergence after departing the White House running headlong into a devastating health diagnosis and an unsettled party growing increasingly anxious in the wilderness.<\/p>\n Some Democrats said they are drafting notes or plan to speak with him. Coons said he was working on finding a time to connect with Biden. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware said she has reached out to people \u201dvery close\u201d to the family \u201cand just shared my love, my prayers.\u201d Politicians on both sides of the aisle wished him well.<\/p>\n Most Democrats are trying, yet again, to pivot from Biden\u2019s health to stay on message as the GOP advances President Donald Trump\u2019s domestic agenda.<\/p>\n Rep. Gabe Amo of Rhode Island, the only former Biden White House aide who now serves in Congress, faulted Biden\u2019s critics for capitalizing on what he called the \u201cpolitics of the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s in their interest to talk about this rather than the issues of the day, so we’re stuck in that unfortunate reality,” Amo said. “I hope that people are focused on one, a legacy of public service, and two, wishing him well in his recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n Or as Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas, a Biden reelection co-chair, put it, \u201cWe are living through a historic, terrifying backsliding of our democracy \u2026 I am so profoundly uninterested in talking about this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n Not everyone wants to change the subject. Some Democrats, perhaps feeling burned by how Biden\u2019s decline was kept out of public view, are asking pointed questions about his cancer diagnosis \u2014 both publicly and privately.<\/p>\n On Monday, Ezekiel Emanuel, the oncologist and Biden\u2019s former pandemic adviser, opened the door on MSNBC\u2019s Biden-friendly \u201cMorning Joe\u201d<\/a> to a round of questions about Biden\u2019s health when he said that Biden \u201cdid not develop [cancer] in the last 100, 200 days. He had it while he was president. He probably had it at the start of his presidency in 2021.\u201d<\/p>\n At best for Democrats, his remarks scanned to some observers as concern about the care the president received while in office. At worst, they fueled more accusations of a White House cover-up.<\/p>\n In a Monday interview, Emanuel said he could not rule out the possibility that Biden had been diagnosed earlier but that information somehow wasn\u2019t released.<\/p>\n \u201cLook, I\u2019m not his doctor,\u201d Emanuel said. \u201cI can’t rule out that possibility because I don’t know what transpired there.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Biden said Tuesday the former president\u2019s \u201clast known\u201d prostate-specific antigen cancer screening test<\/a> was in 2014 and that \u201cprior to Friday, President Biden had never been diagnosed with prostate cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n This isn’t the first time Biden has faced health challenges. When he was running for vice president in 2008<\/a>, Biden disclosed that he had an enlarged prostate and a biopsy but that no evidence of cancer was found. His medical records also showed<\/a> he had undergone prostate-specific antigen tests, which yielded normal results.<\/p>\n More than a decade later, when he was campaigning for the White House in 2019<\/a>, Biden revealed he had been treated for his enlarged prostate, first with medication and later with surgery. The files stated he \u201cnever had prostate cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n