Vice President JD Vance expressed astonishment after learning during an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan that former President Joe Biden underwent two life-saving brain surgeries in 1988, saying he had never heard about the procedures and questioning why the information had not been more widely discussed.
The exchange occurred during Vance’s appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” where the conversation turned to Biden’s medical history and public confidence in his health. Rogan mentioned Biden’s surgeries, prompting Vance to respond, “Wait, Biden had two brain surgeries? How did I not know this?”
Rogan recounts Biden’s medical history
Rogan explained that Biden underwent two surgeries in 1988 to repair intracranial aneurysms. Producer Jamie Vernon then pulled up reporting confirming the procedures, which were publicly disclosed at the time and have long been part of Biden’s medical history.
According to Biden’s physicians, he recovered fully from the operations and has not suffered lasting neurological damage related to the aneurysms. The surgeries occurred more than three decades before his presidency.
The first surgery (February 1988)
After Biden collapsed in a hotel room from a “thunderclap” headache, a spinal tap revealed blood in his spinal fluid — meaning an aneurysm had already ruptured and was leaking blood into his brain.
During the first operation, surgeons performed a craniotomy on the left side of his head (temporarily removing a piece of his skull). The aneurysm burst completely the moment they opened his skull amid the intense, nine-hour procedure.
Biden’s recovery was severely complicated by deep vein thrombosis (severe blood clots in his legs) that traveled to his lungs, causing a life-threatening pulmonary embolism. Surgeons had to perform an interim procedure to implant a filter in his vena cava (a major vein) to prevent further clots from reaching his heart and lungs.
The Second Brain Surgery (May 1988)
While treating the first rupture, an angiogram had revealed a second, unruptured aneurysm on the right side of Biden’s brain.
Surgeons went back in through a second craniotomy on the right side of his skull. They spent four and a half hours micro-clipping the second aneurysm before it had the chance to burst.
Biden ultimately took a seven-month leave of absence from the Senate to fully recover from the facial droop and physical toll of the surgeries, eventually returning to work completely cleared by his medical team in September 1988.
Biden later recalled the experience with humor while speaking to a group of firefighters in 2023, thanking the local crew that transported him through a snowstorm so he could undergo the first of the two surgeries.
Vance questions media coverage
After hearing the details, Vance suggested the information should have been more widely known and criticized the news media for what he viewed as inadequate coverage.
“Wow,” Vance said after Rogan described the surgeries, expressing disbelief that he had been unaware of them despite Biden’s long career in national politics. The discussion then shifted into a broader critique of media coverage surrounding Biden’s health and transparency during his presidency.
Rogan also questioned public messaging from medical professionals over the years, while Vance argued that Americans have grown increasingly skeptical of institutional sources of information.
Wide-ranging interview covered multiple topics
The discussion about Biden’s health was only one portion of Vance’s roughly three-hour conversation with Rogan.
The interview also touched on the Trump administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, with Vance acknowledging the administration “absolutely screwed up the comms” surrounding their release while denying there had been an effort to conceal information.
Clips of Vance’s reaction to learning about Biden’s surgeries quickly spread across social media, where supporters argued it reflected broader concerns about media coverage of Biden’s health, while critics noted that the former president’s 1988 surgeries have been publicly documented for decades.
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