Biden Learned About Lloyd Austin’s Prostate Cancer THIS MORNING — Eight Days After He Was Hospitalized

National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby revealed that President Joe Biden only found out that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had been diagnosed with cancer on Tuesday morning, two weeks after Austin underwent a procedure pertaining to that diagnoisis, eight days after Austin entered the hospital for a prolonged stay, and five days after Biden found out that Austin was still in the hospital.

It was originally only reported that Austin’s hospital visit stemmed from an unspecified procedure in December.

Kirby was asked directly when Biden found out about Austin’s diagnosis at a White House press briefing on Tuesday afternoon and replied that “He [Biden] was informed today.”

“Any details on how, what is reaction was?” came the follow-up.

“He was informed by the chief of staff earlier this morning and I’m not going to go into more detail than that,” responded Kirby.

Another reporter then chimed in to clarify that five days had passed between Biden learning of Austin’s hospitalization and his cancer diagnosis.

“He was not informed until last Friday that Secretary Austin was in the hospital. He was not informed until this morning that the root cause of that hospitalization was prostate cancer,” confirmed Kirby.

“Is that because the white House knew and didn’t inform the president? Because Secretary Austin chose not to share that with the president?” inquired the reporter.

Nobody at the white House knew that Secretary Austin had prostate cancer until this morning, and the president was informed immediately after we were,” answered Kirby.

On January 4, several days into Austin’s hospital stay, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was informed that Austin was out of commission due to his condition. Biden found out about the hospital visit one day later and spoke to Austin the day after that.

After the incident was reported on in the press, Austin released a statement in which he professed to “understand the media concerns about transparency” and “recognize I could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed.”

On Tuesday, the Pentagon revealed that the surgery from which Austin is suffering complications pertained to a cancer diagnosis, a fact he had not previously disclosed to the president or the public.

Watch above via MSNBC.