Biden jokes he ‘can beat the hell out of’ authors on his decline after cancer diagnosis

Former President Joe Biden joked that he can ‘beat the hell out of’ two authors who wrote about his decline, while delivering his first public remarks since his cancer diagnosis.

Biden, 82, knocked several criticisms of him at once while speaking to reporters at a Delaware Memorial Day event on Friday.

‘You can see that I’m mentally incompetent and I can’t walk and I can beat the hell out of both of them,’ he said.

The 46th president was referring to journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, who co-wrote Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.

Biden said he is ‘optimistic’ about the treatment plan he is under for his Stage 4 prostate cancer.

His office announced on May 16 that doctors discovered a ‘small nodule’ on his prostate. It is an ‘aggressive’ form of cancer but also one of the most treatable types, with a 98% 10-year survival rate, according to Cancer.net.

‘We’re underway and all the folks are very optimistic,’ the ex-president said.

‘The expectation is we’re going to be able to beat this. It’s not in any (other) organ. My bones are strong, it hasn’t penetrated. So I’m feeling good.’

He added that it’s ‘all a matter of taking a pill, one particular pill, and for the next six weeks, and then another one, the expectation is we’re going to be able to beat this’.

Biden said ‘I don’t have any regrets’ about seeking a second term before being forced to drop out of the race following his disastrous debate against now-president Donald Trump.

‘There’s a lot going on. And I think we’re in a really difficult moment, not only in American history, in world history.

‘I think we’re at one of those inflection points in history where the decisions we make in the next little bit are going to determine what things look like for the next 20 years.’

He also said he is upset that American politics are ‘so divided’.

Biden’s aides are under new scrutiny after the book, published on May 20, detailed signs of his physical and mental decline in his last year as president.

A White House spokesperson on Thursday alleged that former First Lady Jill Biden conspired to hide her husband’s health from the public.

The former president spoke on a day that coincided with the 10th anniversary of his eldest son Beau Biden’s death from brain cancer.

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