President Biden visited Bob Dole days after the former Republican presidential candidate and longtime U.S. senator announced a late-stage cancer diagnosis.
“The President is visiting his close friend, Sen. Bob Dole,” the White House said in a statement after Biden made an unannounced stop at the Watergate Hotel on Saturday, where Dole lives.
A Republican from Kansas and World War II veteran, Dole said on Thursday that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.
“My first treatment will begin on Monday. While I certainly have some hurdles ahead, I also know that I join millions of Americans who face significant health challenges of their own,” Dole said in a statement.
Biden’s late son, Beau, died from cancer in 2015, and defeating the disease became a focus for the then-vice president during the Obama administration. He announced Friday that the United States would “end cancer as we know it” once the coronavirus pandemic is over.
Dole, 97, was a U.S. senator from Kansas for nearly 30 years and the Republican presidential candidate in 1996, falling short to former President Bill Clinton’s reelection bid. He was also former President Gerald Ford’s vice presidential nominee in 1976 and ran in the GOP primary in 1980.
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He supported former President Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential race, saying at the time that Trump “is a strong leader and he is someone who can work with Congress.”
Dole added, “There are a lot of similarities between my days in the Senate and what Donald is proposing.”
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After Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, Dole rejected the former president’s election fraud claims, telling him that he should “accept the bitter pill of defeat.”
