Joe Biden consoles an emotional Meghan McCain on ‘The View’
Former Vice President Joe Biden consoled Meghan McCain as she wept over her father’s brain cancer diagnosis on “The View” Wednesday.
The co-host got emotional while speaking with Biden about his son Beau, who died in 2015 from glioblastoma, an aggressive cancer that begins in the brain. He was 46.
“I couldn’t get through your book, I tried,” McCain said of Biden’s November release, “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose.” “Your son Beau had the same cancer my father was diagnosed with six months ago.
“I think about Beau almost every day,” she continued, fighting back tears. “I was told that this doesn’t get easier, but you cultivate the tools to work with this and live with this. I know you and your family have been through tragedy that I couldn’t conceive of, what would you tell people? It’s not about me, it’s about everyone with cancer.”
Biden, 75, then got up from his chair to sit next to McCain, 33.
“It is about everyone, but look, one of the things that gave Beau courage — my word — was John,” Biden said. “Your dad took care of my Beau. Beau talked about your dad’s courage, not about illness, but about his courage. And look, there’s a lot of things happening, any of you that have somebody who is diagnosed with glioblastoma, which is about as bad as it gets, there’s breakthroughs that are occurring now.”
Biden went on to discuss medical developments taking place at the University of Pennsylvania, where he currently teaches, before turning the conversation back to Senator McCain.
“There is hope, and if anybody can make it, your dad … her dad is one of my best friends,” Biden said. “The thing that I found, and Beau insisted on and your dad’s going to insist on, is you’ve got to maintain hope. You have to have hope.”
McCain responded, “Thank you for your compassion, you’re a great hope to me and everyone else in the country right now.”
The newlywed, who married Ben Domenech last month, revealed she pushed up the wedding to have her ailing father part of her big day.
“We were originally going to elope before everything happened with my dad, but obviously all these things have taken on a new meaning,” McCain told People.
“My dad is doing really well right now, but it’s a deeply unpredictable cancer. You’re really just living scan to scan. I wanted to make sure that he was — that we were all — there. Why wait?”