Biden Says Cancer Is Slowing Him Down - Days Before His Memoir Hits Shelves
Former President Joe Biden said Sunday that his cancer will keep him from doing as many interviews as he had planned for his presidential memoir, Promise Me, America, which comes out Nov. 17.
"Some days are better than others. It hasn't stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down," Biden wrote on X. "What that means is, unfortunately, I won't be able to do as many conversations about my book as I'd hoped."
I want to share a brief update.
My presidential memoir, PROMISE ME, AMERICA, is coming out on November 17th. I hope you'll read it. It covers my years as President. The challenges we faced, the decisions I made, and why I made them. It's about who we are as a nation. What we...— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 8, 2026
His doctors "continue to be encouraged by how I've responded to treatment," he wrote, and he is "hopeful the words on the page speak for themselves." The post had drawn more than 4 million views by Monday morning.
Biden was diagnosed in May 2025, about four months after leaving office, with an aggressive prostate cancer that had already spread to his bones.
The book is his account of the four years, including, as he put it in a July teaser video, "why I chose to run for reelection and why I chose to step aside." Its publisher, Little, Brown, set the release for two weeks after the midterms, a schedule that, as we noted in July, spared Democratic candidates from answering for it before voters went to the polls.
I've written a book about my time as President. It's called PROMISE ME, AMERICA. It's coming out November 17th and is available for preorder now. https://t.co/uMINr9efxS@littlebrown pic.twitter.com/yzWfZyD31A
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 15, 2026
A shorter press tour also means fewer unscripted questions about his fitness during his term, which critics in both parties have questioned and which Biden has rejected. "They are wrong, there is nothing to sustain that," he told ABC's The View in May 2025.
In July, a split D.C. Circuit panel ruled Biden wasn't entitled to stop the Justice Department from handing over recordings of his 2016-2017 interviews with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, made for his 2017 memoir, Promise Me, Dad, to the Heritage Foundation and a House panel, as we reported. Heritage had sued for the records Special Counsel Robert Hur relied on in his classified-documents report, which declined to bring charges and questioned the then-president's memory.
Biden, who turns 84 on Nov. 20, closed his post with his father's advice: "Champ, when you get knocked down, get up." "It's a good lesson for me," he wrote. "And for America."