Jill Biden says she prays to late son Beau amid Joe Biden's cancer battle

Former first lady Jill Biden revealed she prays to her late son Beau Biden for strength as her husband fights aggressive, incurable prostate cancer, a diagnosis that has reshaped the Biden family's daily life.

In a podcast episode released Monday on The Jamie Kern Lima Show, Jill Biden described turning to her deceased son as a source of comfort while former President Joe Biden battles stage 4 prostate cancer that has spread to his bones. ABC News reported her remarks, which also touched on Hunter Biden's 2024 federal gun conviction and his struggles with drug addiction.

The interview arrives as the Biden family confronts what multiple sources describe as a grim medical reality: a cancer diagnosis that is treatable but not curable, and a former president whose health has visibly declined since leaving office.

Jill Biden pleads with Beau: 'I need you'

Beau Biden, the former attorney general of Delaware, died in 2015 at age 46 after a fight with brain cancer. More than a decade later, his mother says she still speaks to him, and that Joe Biden's diagnosis has made those conversations more urgent.

Jill Biden told the podcast host:

"I pray to Beau, and I think he listens, and now with... Joe's cancer diagnosis, I get a little frustrated and I say, 'Beau, where are you? I need you.'"

She also recalled Beau's final moments, describing the helplessness she felt at his bedside:

"I kept praying and praying and saying... 'Take me,' or you know, we just try to make all these bargains and deals.... I never ever gave up hope until Beau took his last breath, and so I just felt so betrayed by it."

The remarks are part of a broader media push around her recently published memoir, "View from the East Wing," which covers Beau's death, Hunter Biden's addiction, and the 2024 presidential election. Jill Biden appeared at a book event at 92NY in New York in early June alongside Whoopi Goldberg to promote the book.

Stage 4 prostate cancer first detected in May 2025

Joe Biden's cancer was first detected in May 2025, just four months after he left the White House. AP News reported that the 82-year-old former president had reported urinary symptoms that led doctors to discover a nodule on his prostate. His Gleason score, a measure of how aggressive cancer cells appear under a microscope, came back at 9, one of the highest possible ratings and an indicator of a fast-spreading disease.

The cancer is hormone-sensitive, which allows doctors to manage it with medication. But experts quoted by the AP said it is not curable. Dr. Matthew Smith of the Massachusetts General Brigham Cancer Center said most men in Biden's situation would be treated with drugs rather than surgery or radiation, and that the average life expectancy for metastatic prostate cancer is four to five years.

One detail from the diagnosis timeline stands out. The New York Post reported that Biden stopped receiving blood tests for prostate cancer around 2014. Jill Biden herself said she had noticed her husband getting up to use the bathroom roughly seven times per night while he was still president, but he did not see a urologist until after leaving office. That gap of more than a decade without routine screening may have delayed the detection of a cancer that had already spread by the time doctors found it.

In a June interview with NBC, Jill Biden confirmed publicly that the cancer had metastasized to his bones. She said her husband "will have to live with cancer for the rest of his life" and acknowledged he has "slowed down." She described taking on a full caretaker role, managing his medications, doctor appointments, and diet.

Hunter Biden called the spread 'very painful' and 'very debilitating'

Hunter Biden offered his own account of his father's condition in a BBC Newsnight interview earlier this month. He confirmed that the cancer had spread beyond the bones and further throughout Joe Biden's body.

"The cancer has spread, is metastasized into his bones and further. It's very painful, and it's very debilitating in many respects."

Hunter Biden appeared emotional during the interview, adding: "It's really, really hard, and it's really sad to watch." The Washington Examiner noted that Hunter described the situation as "not good" and emphasized that Joe Biden remains the emotional center of the family, making his deteriorating health deeply felt by everyone around him.

The former president himself acknowledged the toll in a public statement after the initial diagnosis, writing: "Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places."

Jill Biden frames Hunter's conviction as a path to redemption

The podcast interview also covered Hunter Biden's legal troubles. In 2024, a federal jury found him guilty on three felony gun charges stemming from his purchase and possession of a firearm while using narcotics in 2018. During the trial, prosecutors played excerpts of Hunter Biden's own memoir on tape in the courtroom, forcing the Biden family to hear him describe his drug use in his own words.

Jill Biden described the experience on the podcast:

"One of the toughest things I had to do was when Hunter was taken to court and they played his book on tape in the courtroom, to hear him tell his story in his own words, I mean it was, like, so heartbreaking. I do believe a lot of times that good things come from bad things, and I think now is Hunter's time to shine."

She added bluntly: "You don't want to hear your son talking about doing crack cocaine, it's just too hard."

Joe Biden later issued a presidential pardon for his son. The pardon effectively wiped away the legal consequences of the felony convictions. Jill Biden offered no reflection on whether that pardon squared with the accountability narrative she was building on the podcast. Instead, she cast Hunter's story as one of inspiration, saying, "He's given people with addiction hope."

Hunter Biden has since spoken publicly about his struggles with substance abuse and recovery, discussing his experience in media interviews and on social media. His return to public platforms has drawn both sympathy and scrutiny.

A family asking for sympathy it did not always extend

Nobody envies a family dealing with terminal cancer. The grief is real. But the Bidens have spent years asking the public to view their hardships through the most generous possible lens, while their conduct in office often fell short of the standards they claimed to hold.

Joe Biden promised during his 2020 campaign that he would never pardon Hunter. He broke that promise. Jill Biden now frames Hunter's felony conviction not as a failure of judgment or a consequence of lawbreaking, but as a springboard for personal growth, "his time to shine." That framing asks voters to treat a gun crime that would have sent an ordinary citizen to prison as a feel-good redemption arc, simply because the defendant's last name is Biden.

The cancer diagnosis adds a layer of genuine human suffering that complicates any political critique. But the questions about Biden's health, why he stopped getting screened for over a decade, why visible symptoms went unaddressed while he was still in the White House, remain unanswered. Jill Biden herself acknowledged noticing the symptoms but said her husband did not see a specialist until after leaving office.

The broader pattern is familiar. The Biden family shares its pain publicly, often on book tours and podcasts timed to memoir releases, and asks the country to respond with empathy. Empathy is warranted. But so is honesty about a family that has drawn public scrutiny for the gap between its stated values and its actions, and that used the power of the presidency to shield one of its own from the consequences that any other American would have faced.

Sympathy and accountability are not mutually exclusive. The Bidens have always insisted on the first while resisting the second.