Biden Says He Would Have Resigned If He Had Known He Had Cancer

The remarks were released on Wednesday in a sit-down filmed on Nov. 5 at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, ahead of next week’s publication of his presidential memoir, “Promise Me, America.”

Would Have Stepped Aside

“If I had known that I was feeling lousy because I had cancer, I would have resigned,” Biden told PEOPLE. “I would not have gone forward because I don’t think an 80-year-old man with cancer should be running.”

PEOPLE’s published version adds “for [president]” and uses “I would’ve not gone forward.” In the interview video, he went on to say that “wasn’t the case,” and that he thought he had “the capacity” to bring “a wider array of support” for the United States and “very good relationships with all the major leaders in the world.”

“I believe that, on an objective basis, I was the best-equipped person to do the job,” he said.

Diagnosis After Leaving Office

Biden left the White House on Jan. 20, 2025. On May 18, 2025, his office announced a diagnosis of prostate cancer, a Gleason score of 9 with metastasis to the bone, which it described as aggressive but hormone-sensitive.

He told PEOPLE he had completed radiation and was on hormone therapy, taking eight pills a day. Recent tests, he said, showed the cancer had “not metastasized beyond what it already was.” Jill Biden called the diagnosis “a complete surprise.”

He rejected claims that he hid the illness in office. “We let the public know when I found out, when I knew what was going on,” he said. “I wasn’t hiding it at all.”

In the memoir, he writes that he was “treated no differently from any other 82-year-old man in America. Maybe I should have been.” He said White House doctors followed standard practice, which does not recommend routine prostate screening for men over 70.

He Defends His Capacity

Biden ended his 2024 campaign on July 21, weeks after a June 27 debate against Donald Trump that intensified questions about his age and acuity. He told PEOPLE the debate “was not very consequential.”

Responding to the charge that he was “deluding” himself about doing the job at his age, he pointed to a line in the book: “I was doing the job.” He said it was natural to question an 80-year-old in a top post, but argued that his relationships with world leaders were “value added, not subtracted.”

Biden, now 83, has said treatment limits how many appearances he can make to promote the book. In comments reported with an excerpt last week, he said, “Sometimes it slows me down.” Little, Brown and Company is scheduled to publish the memoir on Nov. 17.