Reporters Grill Pentagon Spox On Lloyd Austin Hospitalization And Whether Biden Was Notified

Members of the media pressed Department of Defense spokesman Patrick Ryder on why President Joe Biden wasn’t immediately notified of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s prostate cancer diagnosis and his subsequent hospitalization for complications.

“When was President Biden notified that the secretary was diagnosed with prostate cancer?” one reporter asked at Tuesday’s Pentagon press briefing, but Ryder said the White House would have to answer that question.

Politico reported that the Pentagon waited three days before telling President Biden and other top officials about Austin’s condition. CNN quoted an unnamed sources as saying that national security adviser Jake Sullivan “ultimately informed Biden late Thursday afternoon, soon after Sullivan himself learned Austin had been hospitalized.”

“Has the Pentagon determined that… all appropriate notification procedures in that instance were followed, despite the deputy secretary and the White House not being notified that he was undergoing surgery, which we now know he was under general anesthesia for?” asked another reporter.

“Yeah, I think that the information that we gather and the lessons that we learned from the period from last week will be applicable across the board, right?” Ryder said. “So, would similarly apply to the situation on December 22nd. The bottom line is ensuring that if there is a transfer authority, making sure that the appropriate senior leaders in the chain of command know, and that importantly, there is a rationale to be able to provide some perspective in terms of why these transfers of authority are occurring. So, certainly, lessons learned from that will certainly be applied to transfers of authority in the future.”

A timeline showed that Secretary Austin underwent a prostatectomy on Dec. 22, was admitted to the hospital on Jan. 1 due to complications including a urinary tract infection, and was transferred to intensive care on Jan. 2.

REPORTER: Just to be clear, prior to him going under general anesthesia, he transferred his authorities to the deputy secretary?

RYDER: That is correct.

REPORTER: Just again, when this happened  in December, whose decision was it to not alert the president that the defense secretary had prostate cancer?

RYDER: Again, as far as the situation in terms of what the elective surgery was, and the secretary’s condition, we are providing that information to you as we’ve received it. We received that this afternoon and we are providing it to you now.

REPORTER: Clearly, you didn’t know. The chief of staff, did the chief of staff know?

RYDER: I’m not going to go into the specifics about who specifically knew what, when and where. Again, a review will help us better understand that. Other than to say, you know, as soon as we had this information to make available, we provided it. We’ve got it this afternoon and provided it literally minutes before I stepped in here.

REPORTER: Did he lose consciousness at all during the December 22nd surgery?

RYDER: To my knowledge, no.

REPORTER: Has the secretary been on any medication that might alter his judgment in either of those hospital visits?

RYDER: I have no indications on anything that would affect his decision-making abilities. As I highlighted in the statement, at no time has he been unconscious or under general anesthesia, and of course is in the presence of medical professionals for the duration. When he resumed full duties on Friday evening, that was in consultation with medical professionals…He continues to stay very actively engaged with his senior staff and is making important decisions about national security and defense.

REPORTER: Has he asked his chief of staff to resign, or has she offered to resign?

RYDER: No

REPORTER: Does the secretary believe he has become a distraction for the administration in which he serves during an election year?

RYDER: The secretary remains focused on recovering, but more importantly carrying out his duties as secretary of defense and defending the nation.

Biden defended Austin and said he will not ask for the secretary’s resignation. Austin remains hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center.

Watch the clip above via CNN.