Joe Biden says he has cancer in awkward speech slip up

Joe Biden said that he has “cancer” during a speech on Wednesday, in the latest awkward slip of the tongue from the US President.

Joe Biden said that he has “cancer” on Wednesday, in the latest awkward slip of the tongue from the US President.

The 79-year-old made the eyebrow-raising comment during a speech in Somerset, Massachusetts, as he announced a slew of executive actions to tackle the “climate crisis”.

Mr Biden was telling an anecdote about his mother driving him to school as a child.

“And because it was a four-lane highway that was accessible, my mother drove us rather than us be able to walk,” he said.

“And guess what? The first frost, you know what was happening? You had to put on your windshield wipers to get literally the oil slick off the window. That’s why I and so damn many other people I grew up with have cancer, and why, for the longest time, Delaware had the highest cancer rate in the nation.”

Conservative website Townhall pointed out that Mr Biden told the same story in April, referring to “asthma” rather than cancer.

“I went to a small little school that was about a mile from the apartment complex we lived in, a little school called Holy Rosary,” he said at the time.

“And you couldn’t walk to school, because although it was a four-lane access highway it was just too dangerous to cross some of the streets. And my mother would get … and when it came spring … I mean, when it came the fall – this is the God’s truth – you’d get in the car with a little frost on the window, turn on the windshield wiper there’d be an oil slick, not a joke. I have asthma and 80 per cent of the people who in fact we grew up with have asthma.”

The White House later retracted the gaffe, clarifying that the President had “non-melanoma” skin cancer before taking office last year.

We've heard this story before...

BIDEN IN APRIL: "I have asthma and 80% of the people who, in fact, we grew up with have asthma."

BIDEN TODAY: "That's why I and so damn many other people I grew up with have cancer." pic.twitter.com/8farOJVAfl

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 20, 2022

The latest slip-up comes amid growing disenchantment with Mr Biden inside his own camp, as more Democrats ask whether he is “too old” to be President.

It’s a question that has provided ample fodder for Republicans and right-wing outlets, while Democrats and most of the American media have been reluctant to broach it.

As the oldest person ever elected to the top US office, debate is mounting over his apparent desire to run again in 2024.

The issue puts Democrats in a difficult position as there is no clear alternative to Mr Biden – who turns 80 on November 20.

“He’s fit to be President right now. But he’s too old for the next election,” The Atlantic concluded in a recent article, while sharply criticising right-wing claims that Mr Biden is suffering from dementia.

A New York Times poll released earlier this month showed 64 per cent of Democratic voters would prefer another candidate in 2024.

His age was cited as the main reason for those who want a change.

The President would be 82 at the beginning of a second term, and 86 at its conclusion. By comparison, Ronald Reagan was 77 when he left office in 1989.

Mr Biden’s “age has become an uncomfortable issue for him and his party”, The New York Times wrote, describing a White House that has become protective, even anxious.

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US President Joe Biden. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

‘Climate crisis’

In his remarks on Wednesday, Mr Biden – thwarted by lawmakers and the Supreme Court – sought to revive his ambitions to tackle climate change as heatwaves batter the US and Europe.

Rocketing summer temperatures have highlighted the growing threat, with 100 million people in the United States currently under excessive heat alerts and devastatingly hot conditions causing misery across Europe.

“Climate change … is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger,” Mr Biden said, announcing executive actions including $US2.3 billion in investments to help build US infrastructure to withstand climate disasters.

“The health of our citizens and our communities is literally at stake … Our national security is at stake as well … And our economy is at risk. So we have to act.”

Mr Biden, delivering a speech at a former coal-fired electricity plant, said his administration would do whatever necessary, with or without lawmakers on board.

“Congress is not acting as it should,” he said. “This is an emergency and I will look at it that way. As President, I’ll use my executive powers to combat the climate crisis.”

But he stopped short of declaring a formal emergency, which would grant him additional policy powers.

The White House has clarified the cancer gaffe. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

Repeated setbacks

Mr Biden began his term last year promising to fulfil campaign pledges to tackle the global climate crisis, but his agenda has faced blow after blow.

His first day in office, Mr Biden signed an executive order to bring the US back into the Paris climate agreement, followed later by an ambitious announcement that he was targeting a 50-52 per cent reduction from 2005 levels in US net greenhouse gas pollution by 2030.

But his signature Build Back Better legislation, which would have included $US550 billion for clean energy and other climate initiatives, is all but dead after failing to receive the necessary backing in Congress as fellow Democrat Joe Manchin said he would not support the bill in a evenly divided Senate.

And last month, the conservative-leaning Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cannot issue broad greenhouse gas regulations without congressional approval.

“When it comes to fighting climate change, I will not take ‘no’ for an answer,” Mr Biden said.

“I will do everything in my power to clean our air and water, protect our people’s heath, to win the clean energy future … Our children and grandchildren are counting on us. Not a joke.”

Among the new executive orders was funding to promote efficient airconditioning, and an order to advance wind energy development off the Atlantic Coast and Florida’s Gulf Coast.

The Biden administration has framed climate policies as a job creation project – and as a national security issue, made more urgent by soaring fuel prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The White House said in a statement that Mr Biden was seeking “to turn the climate crisis into an opportunity, by creating good-paying jobs in clean energy and lowering costs for families.”

His speech on Wednesday was at a shuttered coal-fired power plant that will be used for a cable manufacturing factory to supply offshore wind facilities.

State Department spokesman Ned Price this week pointed to the extreme heatwave tormenting Europe this week – with Britain recording a temperature 40 degrees Celsius – as more proof that climate action cannot wait.

“We are committed to taking advantage of this moment and doing everything we can, including on the world stage,” Mr Price told reporters, “to ensure that this decisive decade does not go by without us taking appropriate action.”

Originally published as Joe Biden says he has cancer in awkward speech slip up