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

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The former Democratic president’s comments came in an interview with People magazine before the release of his White House memoir.

ATLANTA (AP) — Joe Biden says he did not know he had cancer while he was president and would not have sought a second term if he already had been diagnosed.

The former Democratic president’s comments came in an interview with People magazine before 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 a 2024 reelection bid that ended after a disastrous debate performance against Republican Donald Trump.

Biden was diagnosed with 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 said in the interview.

Still, he argued that the June 2024 debate, less than five months before Election Day, was not a seismic event even if it accelerated Democrats’ concerns about his age — he was 81 at the time — and his ability 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, Biden announced he was ending his campaign and endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris, who secured the nomination and lost to Trump in the general election.

Biden insisted he was able to perform his duties while he was in office. He said age itself was not disqualifying and meant he had experience and deep personal relationships with world leaders.

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