Joe Biden says he wouldn’t have run for second term in 2024 if he knew he had cancer

Detailed summary

Biden was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer months after leaving office in 2025

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Joe Biden said he was unaware of his cancer diagnosis during his presidency and would not have pursued a second term had he known about the illness.

The former Democratic president's remarks came during an interview with People magazine ahead of the release of his White House memoir on Tuesday.

"If I had known that I was feeling lousy because I had cancer," said Biden, who turns 84 on Nov. 20, "I would’ve not gone forward" with his 2024 reelection bid, which ended following a poor debate performance against Republican Donald Trump.

Biden received a diagnosis of metastatic prostate cancer months after leaving office in 2025.

"I don’t think an 80-year-old man with cancer should be running" for president, Biden remarked in the interview.

However, he maintained that the June 2024 debate, taking place under five months before Election Day, was not a defining event, even as it intensified concerns among Democrats regarding his age — 81 at the time — and his capacity to defeat Trump.

"First of all, I thought there’d be another debate, which there wasn’t," Biden said. "But notwithstanding the fact that there wasn’t another debate, it didn’t disturb me because it wasn’t consequential."

Within weeks of the debate, Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, who captured the nomination but ultimately lost to Trump in the general election.

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