Florida Senator Rick Scott used a Fox News interview Monday to speculate about the timing of Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis.
The 82-year-old former president’s office announced Sunday that he has been diagnosed with a “more aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones.
The timing of the diagnosis—which comes amid intense scrutiny around Biden’s cognitive decline while in office—has itself been the subject of frenzied discussion, with some prominent figures already stoking claims of a cover-up.
Sen. Scott was asked for his views on the diagnosis during an appearance on Fox & Friends Monday morning. The failed Republican pick for Senate Majority Leader claimed the timing of Biden’s announcement “doesn’t make sense.”
Stand-in host Charles Hurt asked Scott if he was “curious” about the timing. Scott responded: “Well, first off, you know, I hope he gets over this, but it doesn’t make sense.”
Scott brought up tests for prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a protein that is often elevated in the blood of prostate cancer patients, according to the American Cancer Society.
“We all get, you know, PSA tests and so it’s hard to believe that this…I hope he gets better,” Scott said. “It doesn’t seem to make much sense that they wouldn’t know it.”
Some commentators have claimed without evidence that Biden and the Democratic Party had long been aware of the cancer diagnosis but chose to cover it up in a bid to remain in power.
Others have pushed the idea that the announcement of the diagnosis was timed to draw attention away from a forthcoming book that dives into the decline of Biden’s health.
Original Sin, a book by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson, revealed that his aides were at one point so concerned by the deterioration of his spine that they considered putting him in a wheelchair—but knew it was politically untenable.
The Daily Beast has contacted Scott’s office about his Fox & Friends appearance.
Biden, meanwhile, has focussed on the “love and support.”
“Cancer touches us all,” Biden wrote in a post on X on Monday morning which included a photo of him sitting alongside his wife, former First Lady Jill Biden. “Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places,” he added. “Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.”
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