In a life defined by tragedy, Biden the ‘fighter’ faces his latest test

Former President Joe Biden and his family were preparing to mark the 10th anniversary of his son Beau’s passing from brain cancer on May 30. Two weeks before that solemn day, the elder Biden had been dealt a cancer diagnosis of his own. The 82-year-old former president’s diagnosis — an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones — is the latest chapter in his family’s tragic history. Each episode has played out in very painful and public ways, from the untimely deaths of three of his loved ones to the depths of a son’s drug addiction to Biden’s exit from political life as the limitations of his age were on display. “Cancer touches us all,” Biden wrote in a post on X on Monday. “Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.” At the same time, his ability to connect with others experiencing grief and the resilience needed to overcome that type of loss and personal setback have become central to Biden’s public persona. In the hours after his diagnosis was made public, his allies used a common word to describe him — fighter. “Joe Biden has always been a fighter, and I know that won’t change as he confronts this disease head-on,” Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, a close ally of Biden, said on Sunday. “Joe is a fighter — and I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience, and optimism that have always defined his life and leadership,” his former Vice President Kamala Harris said. The former president and his family “are reviewing treatment options with his physicians,” a statement from his personal office said on Sunday. Biden has kept a relatively low profile since leaving office. He splits his time between his homes in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach in Delaware and visiting his office in Washington, DC. The former president traveled to Pope Francis’ funeral in Rome and has started giving some paid speeches and interviews. On Wednesday, he was in Washington for lunch where he ate spaghetti with red sauce and two scoops of ice cream with former US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda-Thomas Greenfield. News of his cancer diagnosis emerged as a focus on Biden’s physical and mental capabilities while the former president returned to the spotlight in recent weeks. A new book by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson details signs of his physical and mental decline while in the nation’s highest office, raising questions about his legacy and forcing many prominent Democrats to answer for their past support of him. “They are wrong,” Biden said on ABC’s “The View” recently when asked about reports he experienced significant decline in office. “There is nothing to sustain that.” A life of loss In his nearly 53 years in public life, Biden has experienced a profound amount of loss. Weeks after being elected to the US Senate at the age of 29, his wife Neilia and daughter Naomi were killed in a car accident while out Christmas tree shopping. Biden was in Washington working to set up his new office when he received the call about the crash. His two young sons — Beau and Hunter — were also seriously injured. He considered abandoning his Senate seat but was convinced by other senators to stay involved in the weeks that followed, and Biden was sworn in at his sons’ hospital bedside, setting the course for a more than three decades-long career on Capitol Hill. In 1988, Biden suffered two brain aneurysms requiring surgeries, which he later said gave him “my second chance in life.” The Biden family experienced loss again in 2015 when Beau, the former attorney general of Delaware whom his father believed would one day be president, died after a battle with glioblastoma. “As when I lost Neilia and Naomi forty-three years earlier, it felt like there was a tiny dark hole in the middle of my chest, and I knew if I dwelled on its presence, it would grow until it threatened to suck my entire being down into it,” Biden wrote in his memoir “Promise Me, Dad.” In the years that followed, Biden’s only living son Hunter struggled with addiction, a period of time that weighed heavily on the former president. Though he later became clean, Hunter became the focus of attacks and investigations by Biden’s political opponents. Last year, Hunter’s federal gun trial in Delaware brought the sordid details of his addiction and his family’s complicated dynamics to the surface. His father remained steadfast in support of his son, including offering him a full and unconditional pardon for his federal tax and gun convictions in the closing weeks of his presidency. “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice,” Biden said at the time of his pardon. “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.” Exit from political life Throughout his time in the White House, Biden, who was the oldest president at the age of 82, was dogged by concerns about his age and mental capabilities. If he had been re-elected to a second term, he would have been 86 at the end of the eight years as commander-in-chief. But that aspiration for a second term evaporated after a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump, which sent Democrats into panic mode. Under private and public pressure from some Democratic party leaders, Biden exited the race in an unprecedented manner and endorsed Harris as his successor, leaving her with fewer than four months to wage ultimately an unsuccessful campaign against Trump. Tapper and Thompson’s upcoming book, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” details several anecdotes that raised questions about Biden’s physical and mental capabilities in office, including Biden not recognizing actor George Clooney at a fundraiser he was co-hosting in June 2024 and some aides discussing potentially putting the former president in a wheelchair in a second term. “I don’t know,” Biden said in an interview in January when asked if he would have had the stamina to serve a full second term. “Who the hell knows? So far, so good. But who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?” A focus on cancer In the years after Beau’s passing, Biden championed efforts to fight cancer as a key policy goal in the White House. In his 2016 State of the Union, then-President Barack Obama announced Biden, who was serving as vice president at the time, would spearhead the administration’s “Cancer Moonshot” initiative. “I’m putting Joe in charge of Mission Control,” Obama said as Biden sat behind him. “For the loved ones we’ve all lost, for the families that we can still save, let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all. In 2022, Biden and his wife, first lady Dr. Jill Biden restarted the “Cancer Moonshot” program, committing the nation to working toward reducing the death rate from cancer by at least 50% over the next 25 years. In his final month in office, Biden worked to highlight their work — from millions of dollars in new research awards to taking the initiative global with a partnership with Australia, India and Japan to reduce cervical cancer in the Indo-Pacific. “We’re mobilizing the whole country effort to cut American cancer deaths in half by 20, 25 years and boost support for patients and their families. I’m confident in our capacity to do that. I know we can, but it’s not just personal — it’s about what’s possible,” Biden said last August while touting $150 million in new research awards. “Nobody has done more to find breakthrough treatments for cancer in all its forms than Joe, and I am certain he will fight this challenge with his trademark resolve and grace,” Obama wrote on X on Sunday. “We pray for a fast and full recovery.” For Biden, it was a way for him to channel his grief into action that could help others, a request his son Beau made as he urged his father to stay involved in public life. In his memoir, Biden wrote that his son told him, “You’ve got to promise me, Dad, that no matter what happens, you’re going to be all right. Give me your word, Dad. You’re going to be all right.” CNN’s Betsy Klein and Donald Judd contributed to this report. This story has been updated with additional information.