The Whole 'Dr' Jill Debate Comes to a Rather Dramatic - and Fitting - Conclusion

In the aftermath of news of former President Joe Biden's late-stage prostate cancer diagnosis, talk has turned to whether this was previously known by the Biden family, Biden's physicians, and the Biden-Harris White House and covered up, and if so, for how long.

A focal point of that discussion has been those closest to him, namely, former First Lady Jill Biden. After all, in addition to being his wife, she has been his chief handler from day one, micromanaging his days and reportedly aggressively confronting staff over supposedly failing to more tightly script his public appearances to cut back on the possibility of more embarrassing moments.

Further, Mrs. Biden was the main person encouraging him to run for a second term despite the cognitive issues. Even after the disastrous June 2024 debate performance, where Democrats began calling for Biden to drop out of the presidential race, Mrs. Biden was adamant her husband remain in it in hopes that the debate would not be the "defining image" of Biden's presidency.

Now, as speculation swirls about a conspiracy to hide not just Biden's cognitive decline but also perhaps the cancer diagnosis as well, Donald Trump, Jr. was among those asking how "Dr" Jill could have missed the symptoms (note: the cancer is "Grade Group 5," not "stage five"):

What I want to know is how did Dr. Jill Biden miss stage five metastatic cancer or is this yet another coverup??? pic.twitter.com/fSqtDmcX4p
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 18, 2025

Don Jr's tweet prompted many responses from angry leftists who noted that "Dr" Jill Biden was not a medical doctor, including foreign affairs "journalist" Olga Nesterova:

Someone pls explain to Don Jr the difference between PhD and MD. pic.twitter.com/RmCEk6WltS
— Olga Nesterova (@onestpress) May 19, 2025

Though it was good to see leftists and journalists finally admit that Dr. Jill Biden was not a doctor in the sense most people understand doctors to be, there were some other issues with Nesterova's tweet:

This journalist, who seems to believe Jill Biden has a PhD (it's an EdD), is apparently unaware of the decade-long running joke every non-left-winger has been making about "Dr. Jill Biden." https://t.co/LFJTx4zdrc
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 19, 2025

Democrats the last 5 years: "That's DR. Jill Biden to you, thank you very much."

Democrats starting yesterday: "She's not a Dr., you idiots." https://t.co/CNxxyVOd5V
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) May 19, 2025

RedState wrote extensively about the whole debate in 2020 over Jill Biden using "Dr" outside of academic settings, with my colleague Nick Arama perhaps offering the definitive take on the ridiculousness of Mrs. Biden insisting on its usage beyond the classroom and the offensiveness of the campaigns waged against people who called her out for it:

Now I don’t really care one way or another about the terminology but I was always taught by my Ph.D parents that you never use the title outside of the academic or work setting, that people who did so were being pretentious. So my mother was “Dr.” at the university and “Mrs.” in the other aspects of her life.” Jill Biden doesn’t even have a Ph.D., she has an Ed.D. An Ed.D while a doctorate is not considered as prestigious as a Ph.D because there’s far more work and actual research involved in a Ph.D. than in an Ed.D.
[...]
But I do care about the ridiculous response to the op-ed by Joseph Epstein, with people going after him and the WSJ for running the article, and trying to shut down the opinion. Prior to this ridiculous Jill Biden controversy, people in academia would have readily admitted the basic fact that my parents shared with me. Now, we’re supposed to act as though that isn’t the general approach and that somehow this poor man who wrote about it should be flogged from the battlements for saying it and is somehow misogynistic.

The good news here is that it looks like the whole "Dr" Jill talking point from the left maybe can just go quietly into the night.

The bad news here is that someone will need to inform "The View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg, who once said in 2020 that "Dr" Jill Biden would make an "amazing" surgeon general, of the bad (for leftists) news:

Whoopi Goldberg says Jill Biden should become the surgeon general: "She's an amazing doctor."

Jill Biden has a PhD in education. pic.twitter.com/QnbnvUR9Pm
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) April 6, 2020

That's the epitome of cringe, which is how I would describe the leftist outrage machine's arguments at the time about the casual use of "Dr." by someone who isn't a medical doctor. Hopefully, we can now move on from this. Hopefully...

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