5 Takeaways from Joe Biden’s Memoir: The Debate, Dropping Out and Advice From Romney

Politics|5 Takeaways From Biden’s Memoir: The Debate, Dropping Out and Advice From Romney

Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., at times defiant and defensive, describes his fateful decision to run for re-election in 2024, his immediate reaction to the debate that derailed his campaign and his exasperation with Prime Minister of Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in a new memoir, “Promise Me, America.”

Here are five takeaways from the 480-page book, scheduled to be released on Tuesday, at what would have been the rough midpoint of Mr. Biden’s second term. The 83-year-old former president, who has aggressive prostate cancer, has scaled back promotion of the memoir because of his condition.

He says his advisers unanimously supported his re-election run in 2023.

Mr. Biden writes that he solidified his decision to run for re-election after discussing the idea with top advisers at the White House in 2023.

The reception, he recalls, was supportive and unanimous. At the time of the meeting, Mr. Biden writes, the campaign was already starting to kick into gear: He had TV ads and an announcement prepared.

“We went around the room,” writes Mr. Biden, who was just past his 80th birthday, had a drooping approval rating and had once portrayed his presidency as a bridge to the next generation of Democrats. “Everyone offered their thoughts on the race. Everyone was in. There was no demurral or dissent. I was in.”

In her own memoir published last year, “107 Days,” former Vice President Kamala Harris said Mr. Biden’s decision to run again was “recklessness” and that she should “perhaps” have advised him against it. But Ms. Harris wrote that she was in “the worst position to make the case.”