U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is scheduled to attend a virtual meeting from his home on Tuesday addressing Ukraine’s military needs, according to the Pentagon.
This marks his first ‘public’ interaction since his undisclosed hospital admission on January 1. Austin was hospitalized following complications from prostate cancer treatment. He and his staff took pains to keep the hospitalization secret and did not notify the White House of his condition for days.
Austin underwent a procedure to treat prostate cancer on December 22, 2023. He was readmitted to hospital on January 1 due to post-surgery complications that included a urinary tract infection. Neither his deputy secretary, Kathleen Hicks, nor President Biden were notified about the hospitalization until January 4. Austin withheld his cancer diagnosis from the White House and senior defense officials until January 9.
President Biden agreed that the Defense Secretary’s decision to withhold his condition was a “lapse in judgment” but expressed continued faith in the nation’s most senior defense official. Others, including former President Donald Trump, have called for Austin to be removed from duty. Austin was bedridden in the hospital during an anti-Houthi military operation off the coast of Somalia that resulted in the deaths of two U.S. Navy SEALs.
