3 minPolitics
Trump’s Biden Golf Jab Returns in a Different Political Moment
The president again mocked Joe Biden’s golf ability, reviving a 2024 campaign argument while the former president is being treated for metastatic prostate cancer.
President Donald Trump has again mocked Joe Biden’s golf game, reviving one of the more unusual personal rivalries of the 2024 campaign at a time when Biden is being treated for metastatic prostate cancer.
Trump posted a photograph of Biden playing golf on Truth Social on Aug. 7 with the text, “Biden isn’t even a 100 Handicap.” The post itself made no reference to cancer or treatment.
The context, however, has changed significantly since the two men last argued publicly about golf. Boldest Voice wrote that the remark arrives as Biden’s family is describing the physical burden of his illness and as Trump continues a style of politics built partly around judgments of opponents’ strength and stamina.
Biden’s office announced in May 2025 that he had an aggressive prostate cancer with a Gleason score of 9 that had spread to his bones. The cancer was described as hormone-sensitive, meaning doctors had treatment options for managing it. In early August 2026, Hunter Biden said the disease was causing significant pain and had become debilitating.
Trump and Biden have used golf as a political measuring stick before. During their June 2024 presidential debate, a discussion of age and fitness shifted into a dispute over handicaps. Trump promoted his own tournament record and said Biden could not hit a ball 50 yards. Biden cited a lower handicap from earlier years and challenged Trump to carry his bag.
The exchange became one of the debate’s most replayed moments. It also illustrated how both candidates tried to answer concerns about age through displays of competitiveness rather than medical detail.
Biden later left the 2024 race and is no longer a political opponent in an active campaign. His public life now includes cancer treatment, occasional appearances and work outside office. That makes the latest insult less about electoral competition and more about the durability of Trump’s personal feud with his predecessor.
Trump initially responded to Biden’s cancer diagnosis with a message of sympathy. He said he and first lady Melania Trump were saddened by the news and wished Biden a fast and successful recovery. Subsequent political attacks resumed, including debate over when Biden’s illness may have begun, but the first reaction was notably restrained.
The Aug. 7 post does not directly mock Biden’s disease, and describing it that way would go beyond the words Trump used. The political question lies instead in whether an attack on physical ability takes on a different character once the target is seriously ill.
The two men’s old golf argument once functioned as campaign theater. With Biden now facing metastatic cancer, the same theater carries a different set of consequences — and shows how little Trump’s personal political vocabulary has changed even after the campaign ended.
