Donald Trump's Well Wishes To Joe Biden On His Cancer Diagnosis Are Faker Than His Tan

On May 18, it was announced that Joe Biden had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, and the social media responses came pouring in. One message of condolence and support came from Donald Trump, who posted on Truth Social as well as the official White House Instagram and X (formerly known as Twitter) accounts. The message on all three said: "Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden's recent medical diagnosis. We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery."

We've seen a glimpse into how Trump crafts his social media posts about his political opponents, and it's often a stream of consciousness, gut reaction to what's happening. So this measured response from him is, frankly, out of character when it comes to his posting style. It also doesn't track with the fact that Trump has spent a lot of time insulting both Joe and Jill, even after seemingly friendly moments. It seems like it's the kind of message he was told that he needed to write for appearances, and we know that Trump is all about appearances (just look at Trump's obsession with fake tan and orange makeup to potentially try and hide his age).

There were some supporters online who applauded Donald Trump's message of empathy and compassion towards Joe Biden, after his cancer diagnosis was made public. Some liked this side of Trump and wanted to see more of it, with one person saying, "Wish he just basically talked like this 99% of the time, and saved crazy for 1%, instead of the opposite."

But plenty of others didn't see it as genuine. Even Grok, the AI chatbot for X — the company that Trump's buddy and political donor Elon Musk owns — didn't think it was by Trump. After an X prompt asking the chatbot if it seemed like Trump wrote this response, the bot posted: "His typical X posts are informal, emotional, and often confrontational, with spelling errors and erratic capitalization. ... Historically, Trump has mocked opponents' health, not expressed sympathy. While he may have approved it, the probability he wrote it is low, around 10-20%."

Others think it's only a matter of time before we hear something different from Trump when it comes to Biden. One person said on X: "I do expect a snarky, truth social post to come sooner or later. It's just been the pattern." While Trump hasn't posted more about Biden as of this writing, we did see him return to a more familiar social media posting style. Just eight hours after posting about Biden, Trump complained (again) about Bruce Springsteen and added some grievances about Beyoncé and Oprah to the mix.