In a speech on Monday, President Biden inadvertently revealed a couple of details related to former president Jimmy Carter’s health before catching himself and saying, “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Carter has been placed on hospice care at his home and seems to be defying the normal expectations that come with his weakened condition. “I spent time with Jimmy Carter and it’s finally caught up with him. But they found a way to keep him going for a lot longer than they anticipated because they found a breakthrough.”
Biden did not disclose what is the breakthrough but implied the former president’s cancer had returned. What followed was an even more surprising revelation: Carter has instructed Biden to deliver his eulogy,
“He asked me to do his eulogy – excuse me I shouldn’t say that,” Biden remarked. These remarks were not recorded as video was not allowed.
The off-the-cuff comments came as Biden was discussing advances in cancer treatment and urging the dozens of people in the room to increase funding for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an initiative Biden created last year to improve the government’s ability to speed biomedical and health research.
Last year, Biden introduced ARPA-H as an initiative that “will pursue ideas that break the mold on how we normally support fundamental research and commercial products in this country.”
Biden and Carter have a long-standing relationship; they previously worked together when Carter was president. At the time, Biden was a U.S. senator. The two also helped one another’s respective campaigns.
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