‘We Ended Cancer’: White House Edits Biden Gaffe in Transcript

An official White House transcript of remarks by President Joe Biden on Tuesday appears to contradict a gaffe he made while speaking about mental illness, when he appeared to claim his administration had ended cancer.

The dementia is so bad that now he thinks he cured cancer.

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) July 25, 2023

Speaking about his “cancer moonshot,” his effort to find a cure for cancer, Biden said, “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.”

Critics mocked Biden’s claim as both an example of his signature hyperbole ,and a sign of possible mental decline:

It's a sign of how bitter and polarized our politics are that there's so little gratitude toward Biden for having cured cancer or at least ended cancer as we know it.

Some things should transcend partisanship, and a President having cured cancer should be one of them. https://t.co/R0yHsIGIZB

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 25, 2023

But the White House transcript reads differently (emphasis added): “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.”
Biden has long used the issue of cancer research to drum up political support and donations — not always to good effect. The Biden Cancer Initiative, which he launched after his two terms as vice president (and later shuttered), spent most of its money on staff salaries and little on research. Notably, Biden held a now-infamous meeting with Tony Bobulinksi to discuss a joint venture with a Chinese company, arranged by his son, Hunter Biden, while the former vice president was in L.A. for a conference to discuss the Biden Cancer Initiative.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.