Biden says he wouldn't have run in 2024 if he knew about his cancer

Former President Joe Biden would not have run for reelection in 2024 if he had known about his cancer, he said in an interview released Wednesday in which he also sought to downplay the historic debate performance that helped end his political career.

“If I had known that I was feeling lousy because I had cancer, I would have not gone forward because I don’t think an 80-year-old man with cancer should be running,” he said in the interview with People magazine, which was conducted last week following Democrats’ big midterm wins and ahead of his upcoming memoir’s release.

The former president announced his diagnosis — Stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer — in May 2025, just four months after leaving the White House. It triggered an outpouring of public support — but it also raised questions about how doctors failed to catch the cancer earlier and whether it might have contributed to Biden’s apparent decline toward the end of his term.

“I think it’s very sad, actually. I’m surprised that it wasn’t, you know, the public wasn’t notified a long time ago because to get to [a Gleason score of] 9, that’s a long time,” President Donald Trump told reporters shortly after Biden’s announcement.