Biden skewered for claiming he effectively 'ended cancer as we know it': 'Why haven't the adults intervened?'
Biden touted administration's commitment to curing cancer during event at White House
President Biden was shredded on social media Tuesday after saying his administration has effectively "ended cancer as we know it."
Biden made the eyebrow-raising comment during a speech about expanding access to mental health care at the White House, where he discussed his commitment to tackling the nation’s mental health crisis as part of his "unity agenda."
"One of the things I'm always asked is why Americans have sort of lost faith for a while in being able to do big things. If you could do anything at all, Joe, what would you do? I said I'd cure cancer. They looked at me like, why cancer? Because no one thinks we can. That's why, and we can. We ended cancer as we know it," the president said.
The White House later clarified President Biden's comments in its official transcript of his remarks, which read: "One of the things I’m always asked is: You know, why — why Americans have sort of lost faith for a while on being — being able to do big things. ‘If you could do anything at all, Joe, what would you do’ I said, ‘I’d cure cancer.’ And they looked at me like, ‘Why cancer?’ Because no one thinks we can. That’s why. And we can. We can end cancer as we know it.."
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However, Biden's online critics were quick to seize the spoken comment, with some fact-checking the president and others mocking the apparent brazenness of his claim.
"The dementia is so bad that now he thinks he cured cancer," State Freedom Caucus Network Communication Director Greg Price wrote.
"Hey, @joebiden cured cancer, everybody! He just announced it! He did it with all the money Hunter got him from other countries! He’s a cancer-curing child-sniffing cocaine-doing hero! Bow down, Democrats, to the end of cancer hero!" actor Nick Searcy tweeted.
Conservative influencer Rogan O'Handley, who uses the handle @dc_draino, wrote, "Biden just announced that he’s cured cancer. Yes, he seriously did. We are an international joke."
Trending Politics co-owner Collin Rugg responded, "JUST IN: President Joe Biden has officially cured cancer according to President Joe Biden. What an amazing day for people all around the world…Biden will now be working to cure dementia."
"Don’t question him," he wrote in a follow-up tweet. "Joe is the 2nd smartest person I know of (Hunter is 1st)."
The Media Research Center shared the clip with the caption: "Fact-Check: Joe Biden has not cured cancer."
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"Who is briefing him and what are they telling him and why haven't adults intervened?" commented Omri Ceren, national security adviser for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
Liz Willis, a former broadcaster who lost her mother in 2021 to cancer, tweeted, "Idk my mom still seems pretty dead to me."
"According to the American Cancer Society there were 609,360 cancer deaths last year in the United States," wrote Josh Holmes, founding partner of Cavalry LLC and co-host of "The Ruthless Podcast."
"Biden in 2019: "Vote for me I’ll cure cancer" Biden in 2020: nothing Biden in 2021: nothing Biden in 2022: nothing Biden on a random day in 2023: "We ended cancer!" the singer Five Times August tweeted.
"That is amazing news I did not know," wrote Max Abrahms, a terrorism expert and professor of political science.
Biden pledged to "cure cancer" during the 2020 campaign and has made it a focus of his administration after the loss of his son, Beau Biden, who died in 2015 from brain cancer. In 2016, Biden headed the "Cancer Moonshot" program during the Obama administration in a renewed effort to find a cure for cancer. He reignited the program in 2022 with a goal of cutting the death rate from cancer by at least 50% over the next 25 years and pledged to make fatal cancers treatable in the future.
In 2021, Biden said that ending cancer will be his next big scientific endeavor after overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic.
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"I want you to know that once we beat COVID, we're going to do everything we can to end cancer as we know it," Biden said at the time.
Cancer researchers and experts, however, say Biden's initiative is misguided, and that despite his additional funding, a cancer cure is still a long ways off, according to a Politico report published this year.